Tag Archives: Lunch

University hijinks and fish fingers

I was on the telephone chatting with a friend the other night and she was cooking herself fish fingers for dinner. I explained that when I was in university we used used to visit a friend’s house and have fish finger sandwiches.

That was a really good time in my life. I had entered medical school as one of twenty boys from my high school into a class of 220. In my third year I decided to take a year off and complete a Bachelor of Medical Science. This meant I said good bye to people I’d become very familiar with and some friends who I’d sat in classes with for eight years. After I completed my BMedSc I had to join a new class and get to make new friends. I happened to be put into a group with five others who had all spent the first three years as university college residents. None of them were from Brisbane. This was a great group of people. During the winter one of my fondest memories is spending some lunches at Jo’s place. She shared with another medical student in a different group and a physics student. We would go to Jo’s and make toasted fish finger and cheese sandwiches.

At the time a couple of the blokes in the group were still residents of a university college and when we spent days at hospitals they would get a cut lunch. The lunches consisted of sandwiches and fruit and were presented in a brown paper bag. One day I remember taking his brown bag out of his bag. I carefully unwrapped the sandwich and then took a single large neat bite from his ham and cheese sandwich. I then wrapped the sandwich again and put it back into the paper bag which went back into his bag. I then waited patiently for lunch time. It was so funny. I did it a couple of times after that and became known as someone not to be trusted.

Toasted fish finger and cheese sandwich for students and adults

Fish fingers
Students pan fry the fish fingers in butter until golden.
Adults cook fish fingers in an oven without any extra fat.

Cheese
Students use four slices of Coon. Two on each side of the fish fingers in the sandwich.
Adults use a little blue cheese on one side.

Bread
Students use white bread and liberally apply butter to the outside so the sandwich has a rich buttery smell.
Adults spray a little olive oil on the sandwich press and nothing on the multigrain or wholemeal bread.

Accompanying drink
Students enjoy their toasted sandwich with Coca Cola.
Adults enjoy theirs with sparkling mineral water or a cup of tea.

The Park Hyatt Buffet lunch

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Bron and I went to lunch today. We went to the Park Hyatt Hotel‘s buffet lunch in the Promenade Cafe. The buffet lunch is well known to residents of Canberra and is an institution at the Park Hyatt like their afternoon high tea is. Interestingly enough John-Bryan Hopkins of Foodimentarian has blogged that today is “I Love Food” day. It seemed fitting to enjoy a buffet lunch.

I’ll describe the lunch in pictures of each time I went up and came back to my chair.

Plate 1

In the background is part of a whole cold salmon. It was the best dish of the day. It only came out once and I kept looking around for more, sadly there was only ever one tray. My tip is to get in early before 1230 to get some. It was later replaced with smoked salmon which was also very nice, but not as nice as the whole cold salmon. In the foreground is a small saucer of prawns and greens. This was very tasty. I’d have a whole salad plate of it if I could. The Moreton Bay bugs were fresh and full.

Plate 2

I got my share of salad with a Caesar salad, some sardines, octopus, and cold meats. The sardines were nice but a little bony. The bread was also amazing. Very tasty.

Plate 3

Here you can see fresh prawns, oysters, mussels, octopus and smoked salmon.

Plate 4

The hot food options were disappointing. I chose a chicken thigh and creamy mushroom dish with some potatoes and a warm baked salmon. The salmon was really disappointing. It was tough and smelt “fishy”.

Plate 5

I finished off with some more seafood.

Cheese and dried pear

One of the waiters told us the blue cheese was fantastic. It was.

Dessert 1

Okay the lighting was pretty poor for this. I’m sorry. This is a strawberry mousse cake with a lavender macaron plus a caramel cheesecake supported by whipped cream. The chocolate thing was tempered nicely.

Dessert 2

This is a creme caramel which looked better than it tasted. It was a little too firm. A fork went through and the dessert stuck to it tightly.

Ear Grey Tea

Like John Luc Picard, I like Earl Grey tea. It was a great relief after a large lunch. I was so tempted to loosen my belt. I waited until I got in the car.

So what is the verdict. It’s definitely worthwhile. It’s not the best buffet meal I’ve had, not even close, there are many other places that do it better in terms of quality and quantity. Certainly the Park Hyatt is not about quantity. That’s a good thing too. Can you image how much food is wasted every day, especially all the glorious seafood. Probably the best buffet I’ve enjoyed is the Sidewalk Cafe at the old Sheraton Hotel in Brisbane. That was amazing. The quality was always high and the quantity and variety out of this world. That was probably the disappointing thing about the Park Hyatt, the variety wasn’t huge, especially the hot offering. It was the usual stuff but nothing exotic and nothing like a big international hotel might have in Hong Kong for instance. Even the cheap and cheerful seafood buffets in Darwin would rate slightly better in terms of quality (freshness of seafood) and value for money. I apologise to the Park Hyatt if they think I didn’t enjoy myself. I did, it was a great lunch today, great company, good service and fabulous food. I would definitely recommend Canberra residents and visitors to enjoy a lunch at the Park Hyatt Canberra.