Restaurant Review: Tilley's Canberra

On the Sunday morning of our weekend in Canberra we had breakfast at Tilley's. Part seedy New York jazz club, part alfresco cafe it's difficult to know how to describe Tilley's. Primarily a piano bar in the evening's the interior is moody with dark walls, tables and flooring. It's the type of place that you could discretely snuggle into a booth and not be seen by most of your neighbours. Outside there are are lots of cool retro tables and chairs, as you can see above.

For breakfast I ordered the baked beans. It was more a vegetable stew with carrots, onions and celery as well as haricot beans. The tomato sauce was good with a background taste of subtle spice. Paprika? Cumin? I liked the addition of the rough pesto, but Clint didn't, thinking it took away from the dish.

What distracted from the baked beans was the fly I found in my breakfast. The baked beans are something you'd make in a big batch and then serve up quickly, however, they obviously didn't keep them properly covered.

An interesting venue, I'd happily give Tilley's a second chance as long as I didn't find any more critters in my food!

Australian Parliament

I do like a good Parliament. I am not sure what it is, but I have fond memories of my visits to both the New Zealand and British parliaments. Can you truly understand a country without knowing a little bit about their decision making processes?

The Parliament is a very impressive building, opening in 1988 and replacing the old Parliament which is still intact at the end opposite end of the lawn. We were given free reign to wonder around the building (seemingly no security concerns here) and had a look in both chambers. My favourite part of the building was the roof. The huge flat roof has commanding views over Canberra and the striking four pronged flag pole. I didn't used to like the flagpole, but am now an admirer.

I would have liked to have done the guided tour, but unfortunately there wasn't one starting for over and hour so we had to give it a miss. Tour times aren't advertised, only that they take place "regularly". Not regularly enough for me!

I couldn't resist this cheeky photo of me with HRH.

Restaurant Review: Sabayon, Canberra

I've been out for a few cheap eats recently, but fine dining experiences have been a bit thin on the ground. On Saturday night in Canberra we went for dinner at Sabayon, which chalked one up for white table clothes (although it was a bit too laid back and chic for pressed linen).

The restaurant was a meeting of French and Aussie styles, a blend that they pulled off well. As the name suggests the food is French, however, the interior and ambiance is more Australian than a French salon. The service was more formal than your regular Aussie cafe, without being stuffy.

The menu was short and compact with only five starters and six main courses. I think this is a good thing in a small restaurant as it increases the likelihood of everything being freshly prepared with a little more effort. Within the short menu there was a good selection of fish, meat and one vegetarian option for each course.

To start I went for the scallops and duck confit. The three nicely coloured and sweet scallops where only just cooked which left them lovely and juicy. They sat on a bed of melt in the mouth confit, sitting underneath a piece of crispy duck skin. The textures and flavours came together well. It was probably the first decent tasting duck I've had in Australia (I find them quite bland compared to back in the UK).

For the main course I had herb crusted lamb with a potato gallete. The lamb was pink, juicy and tender. The herb crust was stuck on with a good layer of mustard which gave the lamb a lovely bite with every mouthful. The potato gallete was buttery excellence. There was some mild pesto(?) in between the layers of potato which gave the gallete an extra dimension. Such heresy to the humble gallete probably tells you the chef wasn't French! I would have appreciated a bit more of the red wine jus, but apart from that I had no complaints about the wonderful dish.

New Year moderation meant that I didn't have a desert, so I have included a picture of the meringue that Penne ordered. It looked good and there wasn't much left so must have been tasty.

I think my new friend Karen was slightly fearing this review in case I slated her restaurant choice. No need to worry, I thoroughly enjoyed it!


Apologies for the photos, I was struggling with the lighting as you can tell!

Australian War Memorial & National Gallery, Canberra

I visited Canberra this weekend with my regular partners in crime, Penne and Clint. We drove down on Saturday morning, stopping on the way for a lovely homemade tea cake that Penne had cooked for us.

When we arrived our first stop was the Australian War Memorial. Despite the name and impressions from the photo above, the War Memorial is a lovely museum and more than just a tomb to unknown soldier (although it does that pretty well too).

The museum is one of the most interesting that I have been to in a long while. The exhibitions are very well done with dioramas, photos, paintings and artifacts all being brought together to give you an interesting insight into the role of Australian's in the first and second World Wars as well as conflicts since 1945. At the back of the museum is a large hanger containing bi-planes, a Lancaster bomber and Japanese submarine that was sunk in Sydney Harbour in WWII.

I think other museums could learn a lot from the Australian War Memorial. Best of all it was free.


After lunch we went to the National Gallery of Australia. They currently have an exhibition called Masters from Paris with paintings sent over from the temporarily closed Musee D'Orsay. There were some nice Monet, Van Gogh and Cezanne paintings, but far too many crowds to make the exhibition enjoyable. My favourite painting was Starry Night by Van Gogh (unfortunately this pic doesn't portray the painting's glistening qualities).

Suffering from culture fatigue we didn't look round too much of the rest of the gallery. We did pop into the grounds to see a couple of sculptures including this one.

Disenfranchised

With a General Election coming up in the UK I decided to make sure that I would be able to vote from here in Australia. I had visions of filling out a couple of forms and then being able to stroll into the local embassy on election day and fill out my ballot paper.

How wrong could I be? Voting at embassies and consulates is explicitly stated as not an option. You need to register with the Borough where you were last a recorded voter. You can then register to vote by post or by proxy. However, if you go for a postal vote it states that the postal ballots will be sent out approximately four days before the election. The letter won't even make it to Australia in that time, let alone fill it out and return it.

This means that your only realistic option is to nominate a proxy to vote for you. But what happens if you don't know anyone / feel comfortable asking another person in your Borough to vote for you? You are effectively disenfranchised.

New BBQ

I decided to get myself a BBQ to celebrate the summer on my balcony. I went for a Weber Baby Q, as it is small and compact and I should be able to take it back to the UK with my pretty easily.

So far I am very pleased with my choice. Since I got my gas bottle I have cooked on it every night (with the exception of two where I went out for dinner). The most ambitious evening was on Saturday when I had six friends round for dinner. For starters I grilled some chorizo and haloumi. You can see me cooking vegetable and lamb kebabs for the main course. I didn't attempt desert on the BBQ, instead that was brought round by the lovely Penne.

I am looking forward to a lot more use from it. You can rely on the summer to be a bit more reliable than back in the UK so I should be ok!

Modem 2.0

Readers might remember (or being trying to forget) that back in October my laptop broke and took down my wireless modem in collateral damage.

Since then I have been relying on a old router kindly lent to me by Shakespearemate. I have been very grateful and able to get online with my resurrected PC. The only downside is that it was made with pistons and valves and doesn't have wireless, meaning I couldn't use the web on my iPod touch.

I didn't know what to do with my non-working modem. Used and over four months old I didn't feel able to take it back to the shop where I purchased it. I decided to email D-Link support. They were very helpful and efficient. We went back and forth trying various things and I have posted it to them twice to take a look at. This week they sent me a replacement in the post and I have just set it up and it seems to be working like a dream.

I would definitely buy another D-Link modem on the basis of their service.