Life with Bees

Si and TK are conducting a campaign that involves plenty of Rock Band and whacky American food. The "Rocking the Foot Long" project is a manly and often meaty journey through the United Sandwiches of America. Truly.

This week they made Philadelphia cheese steak sandwiches. And got through the Rock Band AC/DC song pack.


TK cooked some prime wagyu on the egg and let it rest wrapped it in alum foil for about 20 minutes. He put a pan on the egg and gently fried some sliced onion and red capsicum. Then he cut the steak into thin strips and mixed it into the onion and capsicum. A generous helping of sliced provolone went into the pan and the whole smoky, melting mixture was turned out and spread over a sourdough loaf with a softly chewy crust from Silo.

Si and TK had half a loaf each. I declined on the basis that I was unable to punch that far above my weight in the sandwich department. But I did have a taste - the sandwich was a combination of richly flavourful meat and the sweet crunch of capsicum, with the gooey cheese and warm bread as an intermediary. The only drawback was the loaf was a little large. "I'm getting lockjaw,'' Si mumbled, halfway through a massive bite.

Afterwards the two guys sat limply on the sofa, groaning faintly and tittering about "my manwich!"

They had to play all the songs on the AC/DC Rock Band pack to perk up again.

Sometimes, a restaurant just doesn't get you - and you don't get it. The dishes sound good on the menu, they're attractive on the plate, and passably well-executed when you start tasting. But there is no spark of delight, no chemistry between your palate and the flavours. And then there are the other factors - service that looks good but is horribly inefficient, and prices that compound the pain. That was our night at Flint earlier in the week.



The restaurant is in the New Acton precinct, a former government block turned into a fashionable collection of swank hotels, bars, beauty salons, and restaurants. Flint was full when we rang up but we got a table out in the corridor, with a little sofa banquette in a corner. All pleasant enough, but very dimly lit, causing TK to mutter darkly about "Flint, not squint".

We had been told by TK's friend Carly that Flint boasted the best pizzas in town. She was distinctly wrong. The pulled chicken pizza ($24) looked promising but failed to deliver. The basil was overly sweet, the cheese a little offputting and TK deeply underwhelmed. "First she gives me a cold, and now she recommends a bum steer pizza.''

The twice-baked goat's cheese souffle ($17), an entree ordered as a main, was delicious and piping hot. Just creamy enough, though not particularly goat-like, and surrounded by a little puddle of butternut squash. Si's steak frites ($28) was a good serve of tender meat, the frites curly and crispy-deep brown. But "medium please" hadn't got through to the kitchen and the bavette was wine-dark red in the middle, visible even in the semi-darkness of the corridor.

Desserts were an improvement - albeit an extortionately priced improvement. TK had a chocolate platter ($15) which came with a shot of mousse, a chocolate log and two curious home-made "Twix'' sticks. The first two went down more than acceptably but the Twix stuck in the throat - a dry piece of shortbread with a coat of chocolate and missing the caramel sandwich layer of a normal Twix. "It's like one of those dodgy sports ovals where everything's just sand and grass,'' Si choked out. I had a slice of nougat ($15) with strips of apple and grape on the side. It was honey sweet and rippled through with fruit and nuts, nicely balanced against the slightly tart fruit. Si's parfait glass of coconut-milk tapioca pudding ($15) was possibly the best of the trio, a layer of passionfruit, lemon sorbet and pearls of tapioca topped with cloudy cream. The only problem here was a technical one - the dessert spoon didn't fit the parfait glass, leaving a tantalising goo of passionfruit on the bottom. A small detail, but an important one.

Bryan Martin in the Canberra Times suggests the floor service is Flint's weakness. It doesn't appear to have improved since his 2008 review in the Times food and wine section. We had three different waiters and waitresses, all pleasant enough and cheerful, but the wait times between menu delivery and ordering left much to be desired. TK, somewhat rudely, resorted to waving the menu in mock frustration and pointing at his desired dessert on the page. Perhaps it was harder to keep track of us sitting out in the corridor but at times it felt as though the restaurant was full of waitstaff busily ignoring the customers.

The cooking at Flint is not too bad and the chefs are looking to expand their menus but the value for money and service lets it down. The food, like a nice girl on a first date, just didn't click. "It was like playing battleships with a five-year-old,'' TK pronounced, glaring through the warmly lit windows at the kitchen staff and portraits of Barack Obama on the wall. "Lots of misses and not many hits.''

Flint Dining Room and Bar, New Acton, Civic.
Food: 3/5
Service: 1/5
Value for Money: 2/5

The cheese returns for another year. 2009 was not the best vintage Eurovision - a Soviet bloc of dullness interspersed with bursts of truly awful. But there must be highlights and here are some of ours.

Ukraine - Be Very Afraid


The frankly terrifying Svetlana Loboda beat us into submission with her raspberry red collagen lips, half-naked Trojans and the Hell Machine, a device used for instantly Britney-fying your life. Her performance, entitled Be My Valentine (Anti-Crisis Girl), could kill a bull elephant at 20 paces. It got top marks from everyone, which shows just what Euro trashbags we are.


Greece - This is Our Night to Travelate


Greek pop god Sakis Rouvas returned to perform his patriotic duty one more time at Eurovision. The former Olympic gymnast gave it everything he had - gleaming man cleavage, haystack hair, and a white suit. In other words, as the Guardian put it: "Sakis gets to jump off his podium a lot, barking "Fly!" upon each descent, with a misplaced optimism that would have shamed Icarus." His podium transforms into a travelator and then into a giant stapler upon which Sakis poses triumphantly, shirt flapping open, cleavage heaving. Pure Olympic gold.


Moldova
She got points for sheer gumption and for being 45 and loving her purple boots.

After our discovery of Mamak several weeks ago, we were directed to the similarly-named Mamak Corner restaurant at the Garran shops in Canberra. The direction, I hasten to add, was purely on the basis of the similarity of name. TK's colleague Elisa asked us to check it out and see if it was as good as Mamak, or even any good at all.

Well, it isn't. We went on a Tuesday night with our friend Simex and ordered a variety of Malaysian dishes. But they were all found sadly lacking. The chicken rice had a suitably broth-filled rice and the chicken was crispy on the outside, but bone dry on the inside. The char kuay teow had the requisite flat kuay teow noodles and some prawns - but that was about it. It was better oiled than Victoria Beckham at St Tropez and twice as dark.

Mamak Corner also failed the roti canai litmus test. They were soaked in oil, soggy and limp. Even TK, who sometimes has to be prevented from eating too much roti, refused to eat any more after an initial test mouthful. Simex, with the enthusiasm of a neophyte, became instantly addicted - much to TK's distress. Poor Si was forced to come home with us and eat a semi-decent roti from a frozen instant packet, and promised a trip to Sydney to visit Mamak.

So if you ever find yourself at the Garran shops, keep well away from the little Asian restaurant on the corner.

Mamak Corner Restaurant
Shop 4, Garran Place, Garran.
Food: 1/5
Value for Money: 3/5
Service: 3/5