Australia & NZ 2011 (26 March)

The travel effects were showing by this stage: bigger belly, less energy and many hours of sleep debt that unfortunately cannot be paid back. I woke up late and decided to do some yoga in the room instead of going out to sprint, followed by the same breakfast than the day before.

I had long black with sugar in Tilley’s and thought it would be my only visit of the day. I was wrong. After the morning lecture Catalina and I went to check out a Chinese restaurant nearby that has good online reviews, but they only open for dinner. Our choices narrowed down to kebabs, cheap pizza or Tilley’s. Guess where we went.

Following Catalina’s suggestion of sharing a few dishes, we ordered vegetarian spring rolls with sweet chilli sauce, basil pesto bread, and a Greek salad with tasty cheese instead of goat’s cheese (she doesn’t like it).

Food took long to arrive, as usual, but it was fine because we weren’t in a rush. I don’t know why I thought the spring rolls were the ones that come with rice paper (usually labeled as “fresh”), and when I saw the bowl full of fried rolls I panicked a bit. Well, I thought, at least we had a healthy salad on the table.

Vegetarian spring rolls with sweet chilli sauce ($7.50)

The Greek salad was great. I would have enjoyed it more with goat’s cheese, but the grated tasty was not bad at all. The salad came with one slice of basil pesto bread, and the additional serving we ordered had three, which made it easier for us to share.

Greek salad with tasty cheese instead of goat’s ($17.50)

They use good sourdough bread in Tilley’s, and I found out the pesto was not bad at all. The whole meal turned out to be a tad too greasy, but we were satisfied with both quality and quantity.

Basil pesto bread ($8.00)

Dinner, however, was a different story. Again they ordered Asian takeaway (I think from the same place as two days before). I wasn’t planning to have dinner but 3 hours of teachings and 30 minutes of meditation made me hungry. I went to the feeding tent to see what was left, and grabbed a half-eaten container of a tofu dish with carrots, rice noodles, capsicum, onion, and lots of ginger, plus some rice. I must admit it was a bit better than the curry, but I wouldn’t consider it a nice meal. I also had a greasy fried spring roll and a piece of chocolate birthday cake.

That night Matt and Tiffany, who are already legally married, had their Buddhist wedding, a really nice ceremony with a special blessing from the lama. They invited family and friends and had a party while we continued with our course. At the end of the night we had a big party, and managed to eat some leftovers from the wedding reception table, including an amazing dark chocolate & nut cake. The party went on until 5 am, I left around 2 to get some rest.

Tilley’s
1/94 Wattle Street
Lyneham ACT 2602
(02) 6247 7753
www.tilleys.com.au

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Australia & NZ 2011 (25 March)

The third day in Canberra was when I finally got my routine up and running, which consisted in a banana, a hotel gym workout, and my signature breakfast for that leg of the tour (a banana, a pear, almonds, and two soft-boiled eggs).

A bunch of us arrived a bit earlier to the Buddhist centre to help make sandwiches for the cafeteria to sell at lunchtime.

After the morning lecture Jane and Gary drove Angela, Catalina and me to Kingston for lunch. Following a suggestion from Lauren (Corridor Kitchen), I convinced the gang to go to Silo Bakery. Unfortunately, it was absolutely packed. We walked around the block and ran into Victor and Jeff, who joined us.

We had seen a few good-looking Italian restaurants, and decided to stay at L’Unico Ristorante, which was pretty empty. The waitress was Italian, which gave us (or at least me) high expectations. The specials menu didn’t have prices, which made us think that we’d better off choosing from the regular menu.

Gary and Jane ordered the Insalata Mista (radicchio, rocket, iceberg lettuce, cucumbers, kalamata olives, Roma tomatoes, red Spanish onion, dressed with an aged balsamic vinaigrette), which they shared with the rest.

Insalata Mista ($9.90)

As main, Gary had the Angus Osso Buco (slow braised in white wine for three hours for tenderness, finished with a thyme, parsley and lemon zest gremolata and served with seasonal vegetables), which was as good as it looked. The meat was super tender, the flavour was spot-on, the serving was huge. They advertise their Angus beef as totally grass-fed, as well as preservative, hormone and chemical free.

Angus Osso Buco ($29.90)

Jane had the Spaghetti Bolognese (a rich, slow cooked sauce of tomato, beef & pork mince), which looked like it didn’t have enough sauce and meat.

Spaghetti Bolognese ($16.90)

Jeff had the Crab & Moreton Bay Bug Lasagna (a delicious and generous mixture of sauteed crab and Moreton Bay bug meat, lovingly combined with Clare Valley white wine, a hint of dill, shallots, seasonings, Bechamel and Napoli sauces creating a perfect texture- all layered between sheets of fresh, home – made pasta). I was tempted to order this dish, too, but the price tag turned me off. It looked great, creamy, silky and classy.

Crab & Moreton Bay Bug Lasagna ($27.90)

Our pescetarian Catalina decided to go vego this time and had the Insalata Caprese (roma tomatoes & bocconcini cheese, freshly sliced and topped with basil & oregano, dressed with extra virgin olive oil) and the Profumata wood fired pizza bread (extra virgin olive oil, rosemary & sea salt). The salad came with a large bunch of rocket, which Catalina doesn’t like, so she donated it to me. I had a few pieces of the pizza bread, too, it was very aromatic and crunchy thanks to the semolina it was made with.

Insalata Caprese ($13.90)

Profumata Wood Fired Pizza Bread ($9.90)

We got a copy of the specials menu with hand-written prices on it. They were indeed pricey but this didn’t stop Victor and Angela. Victor ordered the baked whole fish and Angela the gnocchi. The fish was cooked en papillote, and arrived to the table wrapped in foil. It was way too watery but according to Vic, quite tasty. Apparently, it wasn’t enough food for him, though.

Baked whole fish

I completely forgot to write down Angela’s gnocchi description. I do remember that it included olives and vegetables. I tried one, it was a bit too soft and wet for my taste, but the sauce was alright.

Gnocchi

Because this place looked very authentically Italian and there were many appetising pasta options in the menu, I decided to try one. But when I saw everybody else’s pastas (and mine) I realised it was a mistake. I ordered the Pasta al Forno (oven baked pasta in a rich tomato sauce with beef & pork meatballs and pecorino cheese), which sounded like traditional comfort food but was pretty ordinary. The sauce was ok, but the meatballs were very dry and all the noodles on top were burnt.

Pasta al Forno ($17.90)

Pasta al Forno, meatball close-up

I think besides from Gary any of us was impressed with the quality of the food or the service. It took them around one hour to serve our meals, even when the place was almost empty, and the meals didn’t arrive together. Another average restaurant in Canberra not worth revisiting.

Dinner was again at the centre, this time they bought “burritos”, which were more like yeeros with rice in them. Choices were lamb or vegetarian, with either yogurt or chipotle sauce. I had the lamb “burrito” with yogurt sauce, which was very, very, tasty (and also very, very big).

Lamb “burrito”

L’Unico Ristorante
27 Kennedy Street
Kingston ACT 2604
(02) 6295 0777
www.lunicoristorante.com.au

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Australia & NZ 2011 (24 March)

The apartments we stayed at in Canberra were amazing. I was in charge of organising accommodation for a bunch of Sydney people and after a bad experience (paying $90 per night for an average hotel room with old carpets) and a bit of online research (mainly Lonely Planet) I decided to play it safe and book at Aria Hotel. We got a special group rate thanks to a friend, and got an extra bed in two of the rooms, so the cost per person per night ended up being around $65. Not bad for a fully equiped apartment with new appliances and all the frills.

Additionally, we were entitled to use the facilities of The Pavillion Hotel, just behind Aria. That morning I went to the gym there but unfortunately it was not what I was expecting. It had 4 old pulley machines, a bike, an elliptical, and a treadmill. Not a single dumbbell. I stayed anyway, to try to burn off some travel calories.

We hadn’t bought anything for having breakfast at the apartments, so we walked under the rain to Tilley’s, pretty much the only eatery in the vicinity of the Buddhist centre. That day I was in sweet craving mood, all I wanted was a big bowl of fruit salad but they didn’t have anything similar. I chose the muesli instead, a homemade blend of oats, dried fruits, toasted seeds and nuts, with sides of plain yoghurt and cinnamon-berry compote with cold milk.

The serving was huge. I wasn’t expecting that and certainly I didn’t need all the calories (remember the pizzas I had the night before?) but like a good Third World girl I finished it all.

Muesli ($9.90)

Carina and Sandra had poached free range eggs, which looked pretty good. It seems that the two slices of sourdough (from Brasserie Bread, by the way) were too much because both of them left some.

Poached free range eggs, served with hollandaise and mushrooms ($14.50)

I had also a skim latte and I must say it’s better than most coffees I’ve had in Canberra.

Skim latte ($3.80)

After the morning lecture we went back to Tilley’s for lunch (did I mention it’s the only decent restaurant in that area?). At this stage it pretty clear I needed something light, more specifically a salad. The roast beetroot salad sounded good to me: slow roasted organic beets tossed amongst mixed leaves, goats feta, Spanish onion, cucumber, finished with aged balsamic and roasted pinenuts. It was indeed good, but it didn’t arrive with pinenuts. I don’t know why I didn’t complain, perhaps I was too busy chatting with the girls.

Roast beetroot salad ($18.50)

Carina ordered the smoked salmon open sandwich, with lemon dressed rocket, cucumber, capers and cream cheese. Classic combo, hard to get it wrong.

Smoked salmon open sandwich ($15.50)

Dinner was included with the price of the course we were attending, and served in the backyard of the centre. It was a vegetarian Thai curry (broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, texturised soy) with rice and chips. It was terrible. Not the worst meal ever, but not as good as it could have been. I guess I should have expected it, given the average quality of food in Canberra.

Vegetarian Thai curry, chips and rice

Tilley’s
1/94 Wattle Street
Lyneham ACT 2602
(02) 6247 7753
www.tilleys.com.au

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Australia & NZ 2011 (23 March)

Our last day in Gold Coast was as beautiful as the last few ones. With a banana in my belly I went to the beach for a sprint workout and then came back to have breakfast with Alvaro. We basically tried to finish off all the leftovers: apples, bananas, yogurt, a Lebanese bread, an avocado and some slices of tasty cheese. I had a cup of instant coffee with milk but we didn’t manage to empty the carton.

There was an interchange of leftovers in the bus, apparently not only us South Americans feel bad when tossing food away. In the airport I was thirsty and craving a fresh juice. Pure NRG (natural, refreshing, good) had exactly what I needed: a Healthy Kick Start juice with apple, orange, pineapple, carrot, ginger & multi-vitamins.

Healthy Kick Start juice, regular ($6.95)

Our flight to Canberra stopped at Sydney for a plane change. Most of us bough lunch at Wholefoods by Santos. Alvaro had a roast beef baguette, and I a tuna nicoise salad. Both were very good for pre-packaged food standards, the roast beef was tender and the baguette’s crust crunchy instead of chewy, the dressing in my salad was awesome. I bought a passionfruit yoghurt to share but Alvaro was staying at Sydney and he realised he’d better get his luggage before they tossed it in the bin, so I had the whole creamy and tangy yoghurt for myself. I think I’ve eaten more yoghurt in this trip than in the rest of the year.

Roast beef baguette ($8.90)

Tuna nicoise salad ($8.90)

Passionfruit yoghurt ($5.90)

We arrived at Canberra, for me one of the most boring cities in the world (Osorno in Chile is still top 1), checked in our accommodations, had a shower and headed to CSIRO Discovery, the venue chosen for the public lecture that night.

Our lectures often finish around midnight, and our local friends knew it’d be pretty impossible to get food at that time, so they got heaps of Crust pizzas to sell in the venue’s cafeteria. They also sold glasses of wine, beer, and soft drinks. The small slices of pizza were $2.50, the big ones $4. It was the first time I ate pizzas from Crust and I must say that they’re way better than Pizza Hut and Domino’s. But they still taste too junky for me.

Tandoori pizza
Chicken breast fillets marinated in tandoori spices, shallots & crushed cashews, topped with mint yoghurt.

Vegetarian Supreme pizza
Grilled eggplant, marinated artichokes, baby spinach, roasted capsicum, mushrooms, sundried tomatoes & bocconcini, topped with homemade pesto aioli.

Meatball pizza
Homemade style Italian meatballs, roasted capsicum, spanish onions, sundried tomatoes, bacon & bocconcini, garnished with basil & Napoli sauce.

I had a large slice of tandoori, a small slice of meatball and a small slice of Chicken Avocado Tick Pizza (not pictured), with chicken breast fillets, mushrooms, shallots, spanish onions & avocado. All washed out with two generous glasses of red wine (first Pinot Noir and then Merlot).

Pure NRG
Gold Coast Airport
Bilinga QLD 4225

Wholefoods by Santos
Arrivals and Departures
Sydney Domestic Airport
Mascot NSW 2020
www.santoscoffeebars.com.au

Crust
new.crust.com.au

Short trip to Canberra – day 2 of 2

Including reviews: Zipp Restaurant Bar, My Cafe, Dobinsons Bakery Cafe

On Saturday we woke up at 6 am. We got ready to hit the gym and went downstairs. Unfortunately there were two guys there, so it was a bit difficult to get to use the equipment. We stayed there for a while but then I suggested Gladys to go back to the room and do a bodyweight workout instead.

An hour or so later we were ready for the breakfast. My experience so far had been that buffet breakfasts are pretty standard, so they’re at least decent. How wrong was I. After getting one glass of water and one of juice we decided to start with porridge. I love porridge and I had never had a bad one until last Saturday. I topped mine with dried apricots, raisins, walnuts, dried apples and some fresh fruit (watermelon, rockmelon, pineapple). Gladys tasted her porridge first and she told me something was wrong. It was utterly sweet. Not only it had been already mixed with dried fruit but it hadn’t been soaked in water or milk, but in sweetened yogurt.

The second round was a savoury one. I got scrambled eggs, which were perfectly cooked and seasoned, canned baked beans (why on Earth would they put canned food in a hotel that is definitely not cheap?), an average hash brown and a croissant. There was also bacon and tiny sausages that I didn’t try. It would have been really good if they had included roasted tomatoes and mushrooms, as most restaurants offering breakkie buffets do. The eggs and the croissant were the only things on this plate I enjoyed.

“Hot” beverages included a (limited) selection of teas, cold and watery coffee in flasks, full cream milk and skim milk.

We realised a bit late that there was a table in a corner with different kind of sliced bread, toasters and spreads. I had a crumpet with peanut butter and raspberry jam, Gladys had a wholegrain toast with butter and jam.

There were pancakes and pastries, too. The sweet pastries were nice, I bet they came from the same provider as the croissants. The pancakes were terribly sweet; in spite of my sweet tooth, I could only had a bite.

At this point and even when we left some food on the plates, we were already stuffed. But we knew we’d have to queue for at least 1.5 hours to get into the Masterpieces exhibition, so I made a final effort and got a raisin toast with butter. I don’t know where the bread came from but the slice was super thick and it tasted like really cheap stuff. Not yummy at all.

Well fed (in terms of quantity but not quality), we went to the reception to ask how to get to the gallery. The receptionist in charge that morning lacked expression and customer service skills, and only told us “most people go in taxi”. We had been thinking about getting there walking but then we realised we’d waste precious minutes and we took a taxi. Our friendly driver asked us if we had had enough breakfast for the 1.5 to 2 hours of queuing. We had.

We arrived there at 9:15 am. There were two queues, one for people with tickets and other for people without them. At first sight the prepaid one didn’t seem too long but it actually went all the way to the garden of the next gallery, which is a separate building surrounded by big gardens.

Some minutes after we arrived there was already a big queue behind us.

At 10 am, the exhibition’s opening time for non-VIP people, the queue started to move slowly. We got to the gallery’s door at 11:00 approximately, only to find that there was more queue inside the gallery. Eventually we arrived to the first room of the exhibition (there were six in total) and even when we were tired and there were queues in front of most of the paintings, it was a really good experience. I don’t know if I’ll ever have the opportunity to be that close to an original masterpiece again, and to be able to appreciate all the details in colour, shape, volume and depth that make the difference between ordinary and great.

Of course the gallery hosts a number of other exhibitions but we were too tired to visit them. We made a last queue to pay for some souvenirs we bought (Gladys got a book of the exhibition and I a print of my favourite Van Gogh’s painting, “Starry Night”). After that we sat down for 5 minutes and walked the almost 3 kilometers that separated us from Manuka, according to the guide one of the two suburbs every foodie must visit (the other one is Kingston).

Once again we saw ourselves surrounded by big houses with big gardens, lots of trees, a few parked cars and no people. When we arrived to Manuka there was not a single shop and we feared we had been misled. We walked towards the beginning of Franklin Street and were relieved when we saw people and shops. However, most restaurants were closed (some of them close at 2:00, others at 2:30), so were options were limited.

After having a look at the menus of the available places we decided to stay in My Cafe, which I’m pretty sure was in the guide, too. Service was a bit slow but eventually we ordered a lamb dish for Gladys and a spicy lentil and macadamia burger for me. We also ordered beer, and after some minutes of drinking and chatting a different waitress came to our table to let us know that Gladys’ choice was not available. She ordered a chicken, bacon and sundried tomatoes sandwich instead.

Food took long to arrive at our table, the kitchen was really small and all I saw coming out from it were beef burgers. When our meals arrived I had already finished my beer, so I ordered another one (which took long to arrive). Gladys had ordered her sandwich in a focaccia but it certainly looked like an average bread roll. There were fresh tomatoes inside, apart from a few sundried ones, and potato chips on the side. Gladys told me the chicken was cold.

My spicy burger was not spicy at all. I was waiting for a Middle Eastern kind of taste that was not there.

The guacamole that was supposed to be on the patty was a really small and formless chunk of avocado. The salad, which I thought would be on the side, with the potato chips, was actually some lettuce leaves in the sandwich.

We paid $14.50 and $14.90 for the sandwiches, again not a good deal for the quality of the food. We decided once again to avoid the risk of paying $8.50 for a dessert and took a taxi to the city centre. We went to the shopping centre to buy some food for the way back. We ate a berry pie there, then Gladys bought some biscuits she didn’t eat and I bought a Chicken Caesar focaccia, that ended up being the only really yummy thing I found in Canberra (it came from Dobinsons Bakery Cafe, the pie was from there too but it was nothing special). Funny I got it in a food court of a shopping centre.

Zipp Restaurant Bar
84 Northbourne Ave
Braddon ACT 2612
(02) 6243 2528

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My Cafe
87 Grimwade St
Mitchell ACT 2911
(02) 6295 6632

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Dobinsons Bakery Cafe
Bunda St
City ACT 2601
(02) 6257 5966

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Short trip to Canberra – day 1 of 2

Including reviews: Gus’ Cafe, Babar Cafe & Bar, Kistchen, Brasserie, Debacle

Last Friday, having slept very few hours after a big party in the Buddhist centre, Gladys and I woke up and headed to Central Station, to catch the 9 am bus to Canberra. We chose that time because a) it was cheaper and b) we wanted to make the most of our time in our super short stay in the capital city. We followed the suggestion of a friend who lives there and chose Murrays, and I’m happy to report that it’s a very good transport company.

The purpose of our trip was to attend the Masterpieces From Paris exhibition in the National Gallery of Australia. It was a great opportunity to see original artwork from Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Gauguin, Monet, and others, for just $25. The price of our tickets was included in the hotel package we bought.

We met a friend from the centre on the bus, and she kindly offered to move to another seat because there were no more rows with two seats together. We had packed our breakfast to have on the bus, sandwiches I made with multi-grain sourdough bread from Rise, ham and Swiss cheese from The Deli on King, lettuce, and a four fruit spread with no sugar added. Additionally, I had an apple and some almonds and Gladys a slice of banana bread. I read a bit, slept a bit, and looked at the landscape with plenty of green, lots of trees, some cows, etc.

The bus stop was a few blocks away from the hotel we had booked: Mantra on Northbourne. We walked there, surprised of how clean and quiet and full of trees Canberra is. Breathing that cool, dry, unpolluted air felt a lot like being in the mountains of Peru.

We arrived in the hotel at 12:30 pm. The receptionist informed us that we had our suite upgraded to an apartment and gave us the room’s keys. I failed to confirm that we had two separate beds as requested in the booking form, and when we got to the room we found only one queen bed there. Gladys called to reception, in short they told her the sofa in the living room was a sofa-bed and that we’d had to wait if we wanted to downscale to a room with two beds. Because we were so short of time, we just stayed there.

After leaving our stuff and checking an entertainment guide for places to eat, we went to check the hotel’s facilities: tempered swimming pool, sauna and gym. The access to those was through the fire stairs, getting there gives you the feeling of going to an underground parking lot, with all that concrete and lack of sunshine.

The pool looked clean, I didn’t look inside the sauna because I didn’t intend to use it, but I was very interested in the gym. It was small, as most hotel gyms I’ve been to (except the cool one in the New Delhi Intercontinental hotel), with a few dumbbells (up to 10 kilos only), weight machines, a pull-up/chin-up/dip/Roman chair combo, a couple of treadmills, a rowing machine, an elliptical machine, and a gym mat. Everything was pretty old, and the carpet was really dirty, as if it hadn’t been vacuumed for at least one month. (By the way, when we walked from the lift to the fire stairs we noticed that the carpet on the first floor was all stained as a result of a flood or something similar). There was also an old TV in a rack, air conditioning, and bottled water that we chose not to drink, just in case.

We left the hotel and walked a few hundred meters towards the city centre, which is actually made of a few blocks with shops, cafes and restaurants. We decided to get a coffee in one of the recommended cafes of the guide: Gus’ Cafe. The place was packed, so it seemed like a good alternative. The coffees were not cheap ($3.80 for a latte and $4.70 for a soy cappuccino), so we expected the best. Gladys’ latte was really small. My cappuccino was about the right size but seriously overpriced. A few minutes after, we saw Matthias and Niels passing by with their backpacks; they had just arrived from Sydney. They joined us with tea, coffee and a nice chat.

Due to the size of the latte, Gladys still needed some caffeine, so when the guys left we crossed the road in search for a cheaper place to have a second fix. I spotted another recommended place: Babar Cafe & Bar. It looked a bit like a fast food restaurant, there was a family beside us eating pizza and pastries. The coffees were a bit cheaper: $3.20 for a regular cappuccino and $3.60 for a soy cappuccino. Unfortunately the taste was not good: they were bitter. Then I looked at the baristas and realised they were very young (probably too young to drink coffee themselves), so I suggested looking for older baristas next time.

So far we didn’t have a very good concept of Canberra’s food scene, compared to Sydney it seemed overpriced and lower in quality (compared to Lima, it just makes you consider living on bread and butter instead).

We went back to the hotel and put on our workout clothes: it was time to use the hotel’s facilities and get the most out of the money we paid for the room. We trained for one hour, then went back to the room to take a shower and put on our swimming suits. We went back down to the swimming pool, the water was not chilled but it was not warm either. We swam for a while, but got bored pretty quickly (I’m sure being trapped in a basement had a lot to do with it) and got back to the room for another shower. We got dressed with warmer clothes this time, as the temperature started falling down, and headed to the opposite direction this time, looking for more recommended places.

That area of Canberra is more on the “industrial” side, with some car dealers, etc. We checked out four restaurants and decided to stay in Kitschen, which has a Modern Australian menu with Italian influences. We ordered “herb bread” as a starter, plus Penne Chorizo with chicken and napoletana sauce for Gladys and Vegetable stack with polenta wedges for me. The “herb bread” arrived and we ate it just because we were starving (it was 5:30 pm already, and we hadn’t had a proper lunch). A better description in the menu would have been: “four slices of white bread soaked in butter and with a few sprigs of dried herbs on top”. We paid $5.90 for that.

A while later the mains arrived. Gladys’ pasta looked good, with shaved Parmesan on top, but the portion seemed a bit small for the price ($16.90).

My meal looked small too, especially considering it costed $19.90, but the plating was interesting. On the bottom there was a grilled portobello, then a wedge of grilled polenta, then grilled eggplant, then another polenta wedge, then more grilled eggplant, more polenta, grilled capsicum and grilled zucchini, topped with a tablespoon of crumbled Bulgarian fetta cheese. On the sides of the plate there was some pesto and napoletana sauces. Unfortunately, only the sauces and the cheese had flavour in them. I had been craving polenta for a while but it was completely bland. Same with the veggies.

We were tempted to order a dessert but decided it was too risky. We left and started walking in direction to Mahamudra House (the Buddhist centre in Canberra), to the North-West of where we were. We walked for 40 or 45 minutes, calling Matthias every 10 minutes to check if he would be there. He never answered, so we kept walking. I remembered Mark had once said that Mahamudra House was in “the Newtown of Canberra”. As we walked through big houses with massive gardens and no people at all we wondered if that was true or just a marketing plot.

Finally we arrived to the “busy” side of the suburb. Less than a block with a few shops, a cafe, a pub, a Post office, a big restaurant, a chemist, and a medical centre. Oh yes, and a wall with graffiti. Mahamudra House was closed, so we sat down on a bench to wait until 8 pm, the official meditation time. We were a few meters away from the centre’s door, so we couldn’t see if the lights were on, we checked at 8:10 approximately and they were on. We stepped inside, where we met Wanda and her daughter Mika, Rob and Maika. We meditated with them and accepted Rob and Maika’s generous offer to drive us back to the hotel.

It was still quite early, around 9:30 pm, and we felt like having a glass of red wine and something to nibble on, to fight off the cold weather. We checked the menu in the hotel’s restaurant, but they didn’t have any appetizers, so we went back to the city centre. Nothing there appealed to us and we went back to the other side of the hotel, close to where we had dinner before.

The first place we passed by was Delissio Brasserie. It had wines by the glass and appetizers, so we got in and sat at the bar. Busy and not busy waiters passed by, anyone ever looked at us, anyone gave us a menu or told us to wait to be served. That’s when we had the certainty that customer service in Canberra simply does not exist. We put our jackets back on and looked for other place.

A bit further was Debacle, which is more a pub than a restaurant. They had wine by the glass as well, but unfortunately the kitchen was closed. We stayed anyway and drank a glass of wine each (the bottles were not properly sealed or refrigerated, so the wine tasted a bit spoiled already). On our way back, still with a bit of hunger and a big craving for something to nibble on, we bought a bag of Doritos.

We went back to the hotel, assembled the sofa-bed and went to sleep. I couldn’t sleep very well because I was really cold, and we were so tired we totally forgot to turn the heat on.

Gus’ Cafe
Shop 8 Garema Arcade
Bunda Street
Civic ACT 2601
(02) 6248 8118

Babar Cafe & Bar
9/20 Allara St
City ACT 2601
(02) 6248 6446

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Kitschen
18 Lonsdale St
Braddon ACT 2612
(02) 6247 2946

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Delissio Brasserie
Elouera St
Braddon ACT 2612
(02) 6257 5733

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Debacle
30 Lonsdale St
Braddon ACT 2612
(02) 6247 1314

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