dinner
$14 Polish Dumpling Dinner at the Polish White Eagle Club in Turner, Canberra
3 Canberra Beanies!
I have to admit that most of my past reviews have been about lunchtime specials. I will try and include more affordable Canberra dinner options in future, starting with this one!
My new fave Wednesday night dinner is the $14 Pierogi special at “The Polo”, which is the restaurant inside the Polish White Eagle Club in Turner.
Locals would be aware that the club was destroyed in a fire in 2014 but has since been rebuilt through a big community fundraising effort and it’s well-regarded restaurant has re-opened.
The Polish Club has a Facebook page, which regularly reminds followers about specials and special events.
I dropped in and wandered up to the window between the restaurant and kitchen to place my order with the friendly staff.
I chose the pork dumplings from the menu of Wednesday night specials.
When you order the special you get a small voucher to exchange for an authentic polish beer at the bar. You have three beers to choose from.
The service was quick and I had just enough time to take a few photos, scribble some notes about the menus on the wall and drink some wheatbeer before my buzzer started buzzing.
The dumplings were cooked to perfection.
I will be back and intend to sample more from the extensive menu.
AS well as great food the club also hosts regular community events and is a regular gig for the Canberra Musicians Club. More info on events at the Polish Club can be found on the website “events section”.
Highly recommended for value and taste! – Three Canberra Beanies!
Meet a non-Canberra Foodie – or two – Helena and Vikki from My Kitchen Rules
I was delighted to hear last week that Helena and Vikki, who competed in the 2014 series of the 7 Networks, My Kitchen Rules, will be honorary Canberrans for a day later this month when they host a dinner/masterclass at the Hellenic club in Woden.
The cooking sensations will talk about their Greek heritage, their inspirations and their reality TV journey. The popular TV personalities will demonstrate how to prepare and cook some of their favourite meals just for you. You may also hear about their brand new cookbook project and share a few laughs while you enjoy your three course feast.
Helena and Vicky from My Kitchen Rules!
Thanks to the geniuses marketing this special event I’m honoured to have been offered the chance to blog about it and interview these two lovely women. Like all Canberrans I was very disappointed to watch our two local representatives Andrew Hinge & Emelia Vimalasiri bundled out in the first elimination. I’ve since had the opportunity to meet Emelia through the HumanBrochure program and she is a lovely person and great cook. But the two young Greek-Australians from Melbourne stole the show as far as I was concerned. I loved their honest Mediterranean banter as well as their cuisine. There’s a lot of similarities between Greek and Lebanese cuisine, so maybe that explains part of it. I also have a habit of always barracking for the new-Australians on reality television, probably still scarred from growing up in Australian suburbia in the 70s & 80s 🙂
I’m looking forward to asking Helena and Vicki some tough questions about their cooking, the frenemies on the TV reality show, as well as their views on Canberra and it’s growing sophistication as a cultural and foodie destination. In the meantime, I have to brush up on some facts and figures about My Kitchen Rules.
When: Saturday 30 August 2014
Time: 6:00pm
Where: Hellenic Club, Matilda Street, Woden ACT
Cost: This is a ticketed event for the public. Tickets are $100 and include a 3 course meal and wine match, and a masterclass by Helena and Vikki.
Full menu a info: http://www.hellenicclub.com.au/events/enjoy-dinner-helena-vikki/
Enemies or Frenemies? 🙂 so where My Kitchen Rules ‘rivals’ Chloe and Kelly and Helena and Vikki frenemies or clever TV mates? You might have to come along to the dinner to find out.
Some background on Helena and Vicki:
Helena and Vikki, the “sassy twins” as they call themselves, ooze confidence. Multi-talented; Helena with a background in radio was a host with Adelaide’s FRESH FM, and Vikki employed her sharp eye for aesthetics to study graphic design. These identical twins not only look alike, but think alike – one, an extension of the other – and nothing quite represents that like their love of food. They thrive on elevating fresh, clean flavours into next level cuisine. Their passion for cooking – in particular authentic Greek food – has been an inspiring journey that has been passed down from their Mother and Grandmother.
Family means the world Helena and Vikki, having lost their father when they were just 12, the ambitious twins matured quickly and possess and strong pull to connect with relatives in Greece as often as possible and forever strive to make their mother proud. The twins made more than just their mother proud with their recent stint on Channel Seven’s ‘My Kitchen Rules’, the audience darlings not only brought incredible food to Australian screens, but a sense of humour, fun and enviable style.
Greek culture and the sharing of food through generations play an important role in their cooking style today. “I love food, as it has been a huge part of my life since I can remember. Growing up in Adelaide; South Australia as a Greek girl I have learnt that food is your home” says Vikki. Helena shares the same sentiment “My Koula took me under her wing and taught me the essentials of Greek food, which I will carry on through generations. The best memories I have are of food bringing the family together as one”. Currently working on their debut cook book with Hachette Australia Books, the journey is far from over for Helena and Vikki; in fact this is simply the beginning of their careers in food.
Helena and Vicki are also active on Instagram and Facebook.
Here’s a post from facebook about the event as well Elias Hallaj Facebook
Want a cheap dinner in Civic? Sorted (Mondays and Tuesdays anyways)
If you’re looking for a cheap meal on a Monday evening or a Tuesday evening in Civic or just can’t be bothered cooking at home before or after some shopping on the way home from the office, here’s a couple of options:
1) Monday nights: $4 Burgers at the Uni Pub. Pretty hard to beat. Particularly if you live the life I lived while I was studying engineering at uni… i.e. spending most Monday nights at the Uni Pub (different uni though 🙂
Anyways, I tried one of their burgers a while back (check it out here) and it was quite ok. Beer was cold too!
2) Tuesday nights: $7.90 Chicken Schnitty (with chips & salad) OR Battered Fish & Chips (with salad) at the City Labor Club. They might charge you a bit extra for sauce but you’ll walk away full and satisfied. They also have a Movie Meal Deal with Dendy that includes a main meal and a movie ticket at the nearby cinema for only $15. Bargain!
A list of #Canberra food blogs
After a brief chat with a few other Canberra food bloggers I thought it would be worthwhile complimenting my Twitter list of #Canberra Foodies (i.e. people in Canberra who share food stories on twitter – I’ve identified over 234! see the list here) with a reasonably current Canberra Food Bloggers list.
When I started tweeting from @CBRFoodie last year I noticed (after a little bit of research and googling) there seemed to be hundreds of Canberra-based food blogs, but most seemed to have died a quick death. I’m guessing this is because a lot of people try and then abandon the idea of blogging when they realise it can be time-consuming, has technical challenges and it involves occasionally interacting with some very strongly opinionated people. (So perhaps a background in politics may help? 🙂
Anyway – back to the topic at hand. Here’s a short list (only 75 at last count!) of my current favourite Canberra-based food bloggers (in alphabetical order). As you can see I’ve discovered most of these via Twitter or Facebook. More recently I also discovered two relevant facebook groups (which are appropriately moderated to keep the content relevant): Canberra Bloggers Collective and Canberra Food Bloggers. Both are closed groups just for bloggers and both are moderated to keep posts on topic. Even more recently a friend Anna (@eatnik) pointed me in the direction of another ten or so additions to the list which I had missed!
If you know of anyone not on this list please let me know and I’ll update it. After a few iterations I was advised that it would be more sensible to try and keep the list in alphabetical order, so it is alphabetised on the basis of the blog name.
Absolutely Jas @absolutelyjas
Adventures in Winterland by Sharon Trauki @Sharon_inez
A Kitchen Cat Natash (aka A Kitchen Cat) was a contestant on the 2014 Master Chef TV series! here’s a link to the story in the Canberra Times including the cheeky tweet from Rachi Perera which revealed the news 🙂
Andrew and Emelia’s Food Adventures @EVimalasiri
Bake Bike Blog @bakebikeblog
You Berra believe it @LindaSoo
Bizzy Lizzy’s Good Things @bizzylizzycooks
Blithe Moments @LisaRobey
Brazen’s (mostly) gluten free adventures!
Café Cat @the_cafeCat
Canberra Gastronome @CanGastronome
Canberra Times Food and Wine (Choose your “location=Canberra”) Current and previous Editors: @NatashaRudraCT and @kirstenlawsonCT
Capital Food Journal @capfoodjournal
Capital Gourmand (Tom moved to London last year but his blog is still excellent) @FreeHugsTommy
Cara Phillips @_caraphillips_
CBR Foodie (me! :)) @CBRFoodie
Charinya’s Kitchen @CharinyaR
Dreaming of Almonds (and a nicer world) @Almond_Dreams
Emiko Davies @emikodavies
Feeding the Sonis https://www.facebook.com/pages/Feeding-The-Sonis/595780520501408
Food Porn journal https://www.facebook.com/foodpornjournal
Food Wine Travel @ChristineSalins
Freak Biscuit “gluten-free vegequarian”
Exploring the taste of language
Good Food Week @GoodFoodWeek
Green Foodie @greenfoodie
Her Canberra @HerCanberra
In The Taratory @InTheTaratory
The Intolerant Chef (not active on Twitter)
Karin’s Recipes and Random Musings
Kate Freeman Nutrition @KFNutrition
Kiriels Kitchen Medieval and Renaissance cooking
Le Bon Vivant @Rachiperera
Love at Every Bite @loveateverybite
Makeitbakeitsnapit @kirsty__young (previously known as ‘In the Kitchen with Kirsty’)
Miss K Licious As Anna (@Eatnik) explained, MissKlicious is Sydney-based but reviews many CBR restaurants and deserves an honourable mention 🙂 she’s on twitter too @missklicious
mnfdblog – maybe about food, maybe not @neildoody
Mouthless Mutters @ezzbez
Mumchic @mum_n_chic
My Canberra Table @girl_who_cooks
My Nutritious Journey @KaseyBateup
Netherleigh @netherleighblog
Nilbarcodefood @nilbarcodefoodNilbarcode
Nutrition In Action @Eucale_Stanes
One Hungry Hen Heidi lives in Cooma, just south of Canberra but spends a lot of time here and blogs and tweets regularly about Canberra food and happenings @onehungryhen
Raving Recipes @ravingrecipes60
shenANNAgans @AnnaJ31
Shrinking Single @shrinkingsingle
Sir and M’Lady Dine Out mainly outside of Canberra but they have a Canberra section to their blog and they’re on Instagram http://instagram.com/restaurantfoodpictures#
Taiwanxifu https://twitter.com/Weekendparent
The Bread and Butter Chef https://www.facebook.com/BreadandButterMum
The Canberran @TheCanberran
The Cinnamon Scrolls @cinnamonscribe https://www.facebook.com/thecinnamonscrolls
The Constance Search For Gluten Free https://www.facebook.com/theconstancesearch4glutenfree
The Food Avenue @thefoodavenue
The Food Marshall https://www.facebook.com/Thefoodmarshall
The Girl Has Sparke @girlhassparke
The Martini Whisperer @martiniwhisper1
The Merrymaker sisters @fithealthymade
The Patient Cook https://www.facebook.com/thepatientcook
The Wooden Spoons https://www.facebook.com/thewoodenspoonsblog
Travel and beyond @TravelnBeyond
Vegeterannean Editor Charlotte is a well-known journalist, publisher and researcher in Canberra writing circles and active in social media on twitter via @vegeterranean and Editia
Woodkitchen by Lucy feihua.cao@gmail.com
Yummy Lummy @garydlum
Also, I have to mention there are few Canberra people who may not be trying to be food bloggers but who share plenty of food stories and Canberra stories and who follow these sorts of conversations very closely on twitter to the point where I think of them as fellow-Canberra foodies (I’ll explain why in some detail in a future blog).
@RichardTuffin … https://www.facebook.com/atrtphotos
@TweetCanberra (aka @JamesTew) … www.raising3daughters.com
@PaulJurak … www.kayakcameraman.com
@martin_o (aka Martin Ollman) … techosapien.com
@gcnelson (aka Greg Nelson) … gcnelson on vimeo
@Honey_Delight (aka Carmen) …honeydelight.com.au
@jaysullivan2 (aka Comedian Jay Sullivan) has a regular blog which I like reading called Dear Weetbix
I’ve also decided to list recently inactive Canberra food blogs (for two reasons, in case I stumble across them and wonder if they’re on my list or not, and also in case they are reactivated and I want to add them again to the master list).
The Canberra Cook Cath hasn’t blogged since 2013 but she’s on twitter at @CathCanCook
Canberra Vegan (last post December 2013)
Fooodgasm (last Canberra-related review January 2013)
Happy Bites (last post November 2013)
Honey and Soy @honeyandsoy (blog inactive since 2013)
Progressive Dinner Party (the last blog entry to this awesome Canberra food blog seems to have been in May 2012 but the author Zoe is still active on twitter at @crazyBrave )
The Papillon Pantry (last post March 2013)
CBRfoodie 