The East Kitchen

Good bakeries are very good things to find, particularly if they are near one's place of employment and one is not very good at making lunch for oneself on weekday mornings. The bakery in the Student Union building at the ANU, for example, provided us with reasonable sustenance (try the garlic butter scrolls) for not much money when we needed it. Perhaps, at the other end of the sophistication spectrum, we have also enjoyed Silo and Cornucopia's breads and other goodies from time to time (when we are game enough to brave their eternal busyness).

Recently however we discovered that The East Kitchen in Dickson, which appears to be a fairly standard Chinese restaurant by night, also offers self-service Chinese bakery food at lunchtime on Tuesdays and Fridays. All your glazed, Chinese-style, white-bread bun favourites are there, including the ubiquitous BBQ pork bun. The red bean paste variant isn't that flash (the paste is too gluggy), but we do like the coconut and custard filled ones. While certainly not the best bakery experience you're likely to have - although you do get to play with tongs - it is cheap and fairly yummy for a quick lunch. It's next to Sfoglia.

Chairman & Yip

Why "Chairman & Yip"? (Why the name, rather than why go there). There must be some quirky historical, possibly literary, connection there. Any suggestions are very welcome here. As to why we were there, and why perhaps you should also go there, read on...

One of us was recently wined and dined at the Chairman & Yip (a fusion - Chinese/ModOZ - restaurant) as part of a pleasant 'business dinner' of sorts, although you never would have guessed it given the limited amount of 'talking shop'. With only three dinner guests (including one of the Always Hungerians), this was a highly unusual, intimate, reflective sort of affair, which Chairman and Yip - food- and atmosphere-wise - only complemented. So, the details then.

We shared three mains and a veggie side, and then had desserts. Trying some of the entrees would have been nice, but it sort of didn't happen (it did happen on another occasion, a few years ago, and they were excellent). The mains we chose this time around were shantung lamb, duck breast on a bed of what tasted very much like chestnuts, and prawns in plum sauce. While I could happily have any of the three again, it was the lamb that stole the show. It was crisp, without being chewy, and spiced just right - fragrant, aniseedy, a little hot and a little sweet, with refreshing slivers of cucumber and leak on top. The duck was also memorable - although the skin could have been crisper... The prawns, while nice, was the dish that perhaps the least justified the $30 (or thereabouts) price tag. The desert I chose was green tea creme brulee and it was perfect (a particularly nice touch was a white cloud of Persian fairy floss perched on the side of the plate). It's the availability of a wide range of delicious desserts that really marks this place as primarily fusion, with the rest of the menu being far more easily identified as excellent Chinese fare.

The waiting staff were some of the best we've ever come across in Canberra - attentive without being overbearing, welcoming without being sycophantic. Just right. Rather than the food per se, we wonder if it is this kind of 'tender love and care' that makes (relatively) expensive meals seem worthwhile (see also previous post on Ottoman)?

Happy's

We're not sure why, but apparently the ALP has historically preferred to do much of its business in Chinese restaurants. In one of many instances of this phenomenon that we've come across, in his diaries, Mark Latham, for example, recounts members of his dining party adopting the persona of Kofi Annan and making prank calls to Gareth Evans' farewell dinner across town from the Civic restaurant The Chairman and Yip.

We have no idea if Happy's is likewise popular among Labor officials, but if we were ever to scout locations for a film featuring discrete deals among party heavyweights in a dim restaurant, we're fairly sure we'd put it at the top of our shortlist. Downstairs, off Garema Place in Civic, Happy's is what could be described as a traditional Australian-Chinese restaurant, complete with a giant mural of the Great Wall. Being underground, often slightly crowded - with only one way in or out - and with a few disorientating design oddities (such as the elevated bathrooms), the place has a feel of slight unease and surreptitiousness that perfectly insinuates where we think insider politics ought to be done.

Foodwise, we recall things being pretty good, although typically when we have visited in the past it has generally been in a celebratory mood, with large groups of friends. Similarly, the staff are generally friendly - unless it's 11:00pm on a Monday evening and your party (who have also been the only customers in the restaurant for over an hour) doesn't appear to want to leave any time soon. At about this point, you'll be given a plate of sliced fruit, which is apparently a sign that you should leave very shortly.

Overall, as well as perhaps incongruously transporting us to a world of factional struggles, for us, Happy's otherwise generally lives up to its name when we're looking for Chinese in Civic.

Probably the best subterranean restaurant in Canberra.

Tip Top Gourmet Restaurant

When a VB is the high-point of your meal, and the most prominently printed thing on the menu is the phrase "No added MSG", it should be clear that a place should have been avoided.

Recently, the Always Hungry team was feeling a bit adventurous and walking through Civic decided to try somewhere they had heard nothing about before. In doing so we stumbled upon Tip Top Gourmet Restaurant in Garema Place, upstairs from Clouston's academic remainder bookshop. Upon entering we were a little wary as the place was half-empty on a busy night and the food on the tables of some of the people already there looked a bit average. We decided however to stay - which turned out to be a decision we both regretted.

While the menu was impressive at face value, containing all of our favourites from restaurants in Australia serving dishes in Chinese, Malaysian, and Thai traditions, the execution of these dishes was appalling. Bland sauces, poorly cooked vegetables, and so on. We have never eaten so poorly in Canberra (apart from maybe at the ANU). And while perhaps being on the cheap side, the pricing is certainly not outright cheap.

And the toilets were disgusting.

Four Rivers

Something all too prevalent these days is firms - including those in hospitality - treating their customers disrespectfully. By this, we mean those in customer service, front-of-house, or whatever, whether by dictate or otherwise, frequently confusing friendliness with acting-as-if-I-am-your-friend.

Emotional labour is a tough business, which is why there were once (in certain times and places) widely-observed tacit social rules to protect both such workers and customers from the pitfalls of insincerity, rudeness, awkwardness from both parties. Underlying these rules and their concern for mutual respect was the avoidance of servility on one hand or over-familiarity on the other. Or put otherwise, we will treat each other in a friendly (rather than hostile or contemptuous manner), rather than affecting that we are in fact friends (and thus implying a degree of intimacy), or masters-and-servants.

Four Rivers in Dickson seem to have got this balance refreshingly perfectly. On a visit earlier this week we were made to feel, among all possible emotions, precisely welcome. A restaurant on Challis Street (further down from Bollywood Dimensions) in the Szechuan tradition, we enjoyed an excellent Mapo tofu and a less memorable (but still OK) five-spiced duck pancake dish. The menu is extensive (and contains a couple of pages of detailed explanation of the cuisine), and generally well priced for the Inner North middle-class and Chinese students types who make up the clientele. For entrees, we had some average spring rolls but delicious crispy shallot pancakes. The only thing perhaps detracting from the cosiness was the interior fitout - which at the end of the evening still felt like a partially disguised commercial unit shell. Overall though, definitely worth a look.

Asian Noodle House (Northbourne Ave)

The Asian Noodle House in the Sydney Building in Civic is a bit of a mixed bag. It has a few quirks that detract from it, but at the same time it excels in providing what its name suggests - noodles cooked in an Asian tradition.

Although many places offer meals associated with perhaps one or two countries, the Asian Noodle House is a little unusual in being explicitly pan-South-East Asian and doing a good job of it (i.e. on the menu are Thai, Malaysian/Singaporean, Vietnamese, Lao, and Chinese dishes). One of us had the Kwangtong noodles, the other a Laksa - and both were very tasty (although I would have felt the noodles would be a small serve if one was reasonably hungry).

However, the service was a little slow for a quiet Sunday evening, and some apparent simmering mother/daughter front-of-house tension made for a bit of a weird tone. Also, we had differing views on the entrees, with the quality of the tofu blocks and spring rolls being debatable.

Overall, as a parting thought, we would suggest that the place is possibly not called the Asian Entree House for a reason - stick to the noodles.