On Friday evening Bron invited me to an art exhibition opening. The art was created by Randon9 which is a Canberra-based artists’ collective. 100 examines Canberra in a historical, political and cultural context. The exhibition is being held at the Belconnen Arts Centre at 118 Emu Bank.

It was an interesting exhibition. The BAC is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm. The Patron is Mr Jon Stanhope the former ACT Chief Minister. If you like art, it’s worth going to see and experience.

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Okay just a little rant here. One of the disappointing things about the BAC is the recent poor maintenance of its outside appearance. The yellow straw bundles each have a pavement embedded spot light shining up. Of the five or six bundles and lights only one works.

Yellow “straw” bundles at the Belconnen Arts Centre are street lights at night, although not now with only one working

This has been a deteriorating situation for nearly a year. They have evening exhibitions so I assume the managers are aware. Perhaps there is a conflict between the BAC and territory and municipal services (TAMS) It would be good if it could get fixed. Rant over

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After taking a look at the art we walked around to Black Pepper for dinner. We hadn’t booked but given it was around 6.30 pm we figured we had a good chance to score a table. When we arrived the restaurant was pretty bare and we got a nice table in the corner by a window.

The day in Canberra had been very cold and windy. We’ve really changed from summer-autumn to autumn-winter. It wasn’t quite bone chilling but the wind chill was very unpleasant. Inside the restaurant was cosy and warm even though it didn’t start to fill with customers until after about 7 pm.

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The dinner menu is relatively new and looked pretty good. It can be downloaded from the Out in Canberra site.

For an entrée we chose to share the Panko crumbed brie cheese for $13. It consisted of Japanese crumbed and fried brie cheese with orange and fennel salad.

Brie cheese

This was delicious and sharing half each was more than sufficient

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For mains, Bron chose the Swiss potato roesti stack for $15.50. It was layered with Napoli sauce, Swiss cheese and grilled eggplant, served with broccolini and gazpacho vinaigrette. I didn’t capture an image of it.

I chose the Scotch fillet and horseradish for $26.50. The Scotch fillet was served with garlic mash, horseradish cream, red wine jus, greens and game chips.

Scotch fillet

I like my meat rare. The beans were really squeaky on my teeth so I swapped them with Bron’s broccolini.

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The dinner menu was pretty good. I think Bron’s potato roesti was good value for money. My steak was nice but I’m not sure it was worth $26.50. It’s certainly better than what I’d get at a pub or bar but I would think between $18 and $22 is how I’d price it. The entrée was good but I’d probably be happier if it was priced at around $12.

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Afterwards we watched the ANZAC test match between the Australian Kangaroos and the New Zealand Kiwis. I was so happy to see military bands used to play the national anthems. One of my pet peeves (well it’s more than a peeve it’s a hatred) is the use of pop stars to sing our national anthem. More often than not (I kid you not) they mangle the anthem into their individual interpretation as part of their artistic expression. I can’t stand it. Not only is it painful on my ears, it’s disrespectful to our nation. Apart from a military band, my preference would be for a school choir to sing the national anthem. Channel Nine offers excellent coverage of Rugby League matches in Australia. Before the match a minute’s silence was observed for the death of Ross Livermore. Mr Livermore was the heart and soul of Queensland Rugby League (QRL) for 31 years. Queenslanders, especially lovers of the XXXX Maroons owe so much to Mr Livermore and what he did for Rugby League in Queensland and Australia. Needless to say it is very sad when such a great person dies. The Australian Kangaroos wore black arm bands in memory. It was shocking to hear louts in the crowd disrupt the silence with jeers and noises as a sign of disrespect. It’s a pity the ACT Police were not called in to remove the louts and cowards. Rest in peace Mr Ross Livermore. The game ended in an Australian victory.

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So this morning we needed breakfast. Out of convenience we ventured back to Black Pepper. I couldn’t help but notice a patron sitting near us.

My daughters tell me Crocs are a crime against fashion, I think mismatched socks do not help in the fashion stakes.

Fashion Fail

There’s a hole in the right heel too

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I didn’t want a huge breakfast but I did want something that would keep me going all day.

Poached eggs and a side of hollandaise sauce

The Black Pepper hollandaise is to die for

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This afternoon after a trip to Costco (optometry appointment for me) we went to see Oblivion IMDB and Google+. We’d seen the shorts for this movie while watching Top Gun at the Darling Harbour IMAX theatre over Easter.

I won’t be a spoiler for this movie suffice to say I enjoyed it. I’m a fan of a lot of science fiction, especially simple action genre science fiction. I’m a huge Star Trek fan and am eagerly awaiting the new Star Trek movie. I know Tom Cruise cops a lot of flack as an actor. I haven’t watched all his movies and probably won’t. I really enjoyed Top Gun, I enjoyed the Mission Impossible franchise and recently on a flight to the USA I watched Jack Reacher and enjoyed it. A Few Good Men and Taps are also favourites. I know there was a lot of controversy about Tom Cruise in the starring role for Jack Reacher. I understand Jack Reacher is portrayed as a giant of a man which Tom Cruise isn’t. Without having read the books, I can’t really criticise. I did enjoy the movie.

I would recommend Oblivion to anyone who likes science fiction that doesn’t require a lot of thought. There were a couple of question marks for me in terms of inconsistency but not enough to put me off. We also saw this movie at Hoyts Belconnen in their Xtremescreen cinema. The experience was really very good. Watching an action movie in the Xtremescreen cinema is very worthwhile.

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Tonight Bron is cooking up a storm, I’ll blog about that tomorrow. If you want a sneak peek though, follow me on Instagram | Facebook | Twitter for a glimpse of what she is cooking tonight.

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One last thing, I’m thinking of a rating system for restaurants based on two non-food criteria. If I remember I will offer a dunny rating and a napkin rating. I believe a good rest room (toilet or dunny) should be specific for gender (preferably not unisex), have urinals set at adult height and not just pædiatric height, pedestals with out swinging doors (for emergency situations), have paper towel (cloth for the really posh ones) and/or a Dyson air blade or XLERATOR™ air dryer. I’ll elaborate on this in future posts. For Black Pepper it gets a four out of five dunny score. For napkins I prefer cloth napkins over paper. My ranking would be fail | pass| excellent. My napkin ranking for Black Pepper is fail.

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Belconnen Arts Centre http://www.belconnenartscentre.com.au/
Google maps http://goo.gl/maps/dxrLf

Black Pepper http://www.outincanberra.com.au/blackpepper
Google maps http://goo.gl/maps/2uxsW
The marker is in the wrong position. I’ve moved it and Google is reviewing my suggested move. If they agree the marker will show the correct placement in the future.

Costco http://www.costco.com.au/index.shtml
Google maps http://goo.gl/maps/NtGyt

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