Life with Bees

We were converted to the Brazilian churrasco experience earlier this year when we ate ourselves silly at Braza in Sydney's Leichhardt. Braza was a lucky find - TK discovered it on his phone while we were in Sydney for Top Gear Live and it capped off a delightful weekend. The churrasco - or Brazilian barbecue - proved an instant hit with its endless parade of roasted meat, game and fish served on swords, known as rodizio-style barbecue. The punchy, sugar-filled Brazilian cocktails and platters of traditional sides such as plantain chips rounded out the meal and gave a counterpoint to the vast meat array.

So the guys have been excited about the prospect of Canberran churrasco in the form of Mistress at Manuka. This fairly new restaurant sits on Manuka's main food strip, alongside Paparazzi bar and Lawson's Grill, and also does service as a tapas bar and red-lit nightspot.

The two men had the full all-you-can-eat churrasco ($55) while I, mindful of my small and useless stomach, had a half-churrasco ($35). The entrees were an assortment of chicken wings, beef ribs, grilled mushrooms and tiny meat skewers (I didn't have one so I can't remember what they were). A couple of deep-fried haloumi made a good snack but a similar pile of prawns just tasted like seafood Burger Rings.

Next a platter of accompaniments - sliced green beans, canned mango and onion, generic salad and banana fanofo, a traditional side dish which at Mistress amounted to little more than shrivelled cubes among dusty breadcrumbs.

And then the parade of meat began. Everything melded into one - not because of the sheer size of the array, but more the immense blandness of the meat. TK, who had rubbed his hands in glee when he saw Mistress promised to grill its meat over ''bourbon soaked hickory chips", inspected everything for a smoke ring and was disappointed every time. There was beef, and then pork, and then something else, each promising a flavour, a twist, an idea, on the menu but delivering a generic barbecue taste. A lime and quince chicken stood out - it actually tasted of lime. A blackened scotch fillet was given approval. Several baby octopus looked promising, but were buoyantly rubbery. They were only memorable visually. My gentleman companions, who had enthusiastically eaten everything in sight at Braza for about three hours, laid down their meat tongs in disgust after an hour at Mistress.

TK christened it "Meh at Manuka'' while Si said it was "mediocrity in all the right places''. Perhaps, like all mistresses, the lady at Manuka is fickle and there is better barbecue on other days. And when you compare her to Braza, where delights are found for $40 a head, she is a very expensive roll in the hay.

Mistress at Manuka
42 Franklin Street, Manuka
Food: 2/5
Service: 3/5
Value for Money: 1/5