Canberra and Catherine de Medici
So much to do and so little time to blog!
Last weekend we went to see our friend Carrie, who since we last saw
her has moved to Canberra and become a famous published author.
Carrie in the Paper!
We flew to Canberra with Quantas and despite being kept on the runway
for half on hour on the way out, I thought that the flight was pretty
painless. The check in times are really short for domestic flights and
the actual flight itself is only half an hour. By the clever use of
food, Quantas render it seemingly instantaneous. You lift off and put
your seatbelt on. Then they turn the lights off and give you a snack
(biscuits and tea on the way out, dried fruit, nuts and fruit juice on
the way back) and then all of a sudden it's time to put your seat belt
back on to land.
We had a bit of a snooze when we got to the hotel and then Carrie and
Daniel (Carrie's partner) came and met us about 4pm. We then went up
the Telstra tower, which is very similar to the tower in Sydney; it
even has a revolving restaurant! The view is a bit different though,
look at all those trees!
View from the Telstra tower in Canberra
Man made lake designed as part of Canberra
We had tea in the Telstra tower and then went for a drink in the
Phoenix, described by Carrie and Daniel as the only real pub in
Canberra (it was a good deal more real than any of the ones we've been
to in Sydney) and for a Canberra curry.
On Sunday, we got up early, had a fabulous breakfast in the hotel (I
had: a fruit course including whole poached plums, a yoghurt course, a
Bircher muesli course, an English muffin course and cake - pain au
chocolate, danish pastry and American muffin - course) and went for a
look around the parliament buildings.
Australian Parliament
We then went to the National Art Gallery. We thought it was the
National Portrait Gallery, but it's just as well we went to this one
as it was great. We didn't really have time to look at everything and
we will go back if we visit Canberra again. It had a cool silver ball
thing outside. From the right angle it looks as if it is suspended in
mid-air.
Cool silver ball thing
We had lunch with Carrie and Daniel at Sammy's, their local Malaysian
restaurant. I tried a laksa for the first time - I've been meaning to
do this for a while as it seems to be almost the national dish in
Australia. It was very tasty and exactly how I was expecting: very
similar to Thai soups and Malaysian/Thai curry. And then we had to go
home....
Carrie, Daniel and Me (Sean is taking the photo)
On Tuesday night we went for a meal at Coast restaurant in Cockle Bay
Wharf. Cockle Bay Wharf is really just part of Darling Harbour so only
10 mins walk away. I saw the dinner, entitled Catherine de Medici:
Teaching the French on the SMH website as the last event of good food
month (they're big on food here). I recognised the restaurant as being
in The Book, but I hadn't realised it was so close.
I took the camera and once again took zero photos, but I did take a
menu home.
Menu (click to enlarge)
They were very good to me, they replaced my mushroom salad with an
asparagus one and left the truffles off the soup. The food was all
delicious; both of our favourites were the spuntino but the artichoke
and broad beans came a close second for me. The cheese was more to my
taste than Sean's (much like a second dessert course) and the pudding
was not to Sean's taste at all so I got two. Result!
It was really interesting to see all the components of classic French
cuisine that came from Italy, including onion soup, fois gras and duck
a l'orange. She also insisted on separating salty and sweet courses;
apparently everyone else at that time at sweet and savoury food
together, American breakfast style. If you're interested, email me and
I'll send you a scan of the blurb that they gave us to read (it's too
large to upload).
Another restaurant success close to our door. It's getting hard to
choose where to go when we go out!
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