Stomachs on legs are proud to present

Actually I have no idea. Although Phil informs me that Canberra has the most food bloggers per capita than any other city. For the life of me I have no idea what they have to write about.

The food here is Terrible. Yes with a capital 'T'.

I can't even begin to tell you how many disappointing meals I've had here.

There are no good kebabs/ souvlakis, no decent pizza, no great noodles, no worthwhile hot pot, no good yum cha, no good Korean, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Mexican, Lebanese, or Thai food worth paying money for and so on and so on. And don't ever let a Canberran convince you otherwise. I've ordered prawn pad ka paow, with no ka paow. I've had terrible fluffy based pizza's prefixed with the foreboding "gourmet", I've eaten the worst Vietnamese of my life...Spanish....??? there isn't any?

I think Hock summed it up rather eloquently on his recent trip here when he said "Canberra is full of immigrants who think they can cook, but they can't, they really really can't"

And if you only eat in the restaurants of this "city" then this is indeed the impression you are left with. However, I've come to another conclusion. Canberra is full of immigrants who can cook, except they are not the one's who open restaurants.

Since I've been here I've been invited to numerous Afghani/ Malay Indian feasts with new pals Amrita and Kibir

Kibir (sp) refuses to eat out and is known to conjure fantastic Afghan chicken dumplings in a jiffy

Amrita's prawn curry is kick ass

Tonight, I spent the evening with some other eating pals, Mar and Sai. We are all obsessed with duck so I grabbed a bbq duck from Dickson and Mar made the pancakes. Then I made san choy bao. Mar makes excellent Burmese chicken curry and Sai proclaims he is a dab hand with Shan food, but I've never tried it because Mar never lets him in the kitchen.

Antonella, when she is not working on her thesis has been known to cook for the odd ambassador, craving a decent Italian meal.

Kumiko and Sebastian take turns simmering proteins in either soy and mirin or garlic and red wine respectively, with impressive results. Especially when Seb gets his hands on a wild hare from the winery he works on.

Sango makes great Indian vege curries.

So it is possible to eat well in Canberra, but its all down to who you know and dinner invites.

The produce here is pretty good too. Generally I find almost everything I wish for (except good cheese) in the markets here. The Belconnen markets have a good fish shop (except they sell escolar labelled as "Atlantic Cod"). And no sushi grade fish sorry.
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The farmers markets in exhibition park has some great vendors including an excellent eastern european smoked meats guy, and some great organic producers. But you have to be prepared to get up early on a Saturday morning, a rare occurrence for me.

Fyshwick markets are also worth a try, but a little pricier. Don't bother with the overly twee Bus Depot Markets.

And whilst out in the markets I have discovered the odd good bite. There is the extremely utilitarian Indian diner inside the Indian grocery shop in Belconnen. It's a bit hard to find but they make a great array of Indian sweets and thalis.

And the new Asian grocery store out in Belconnen called the "hub" has a pretty good banh mi counter (although it is run by Thais)

Cornucopia Bakery in Barton has excellent pies. Finally a good pie. I especially like the chicken.

And the best roast duck, although it is closed on Sunday's as I discovered today, is Hidden Dragon in civic.

And that's it. That is all I have to say for now about Canberra. Yes that is all I have discovered in the approximately 12 months of living here I have accumulated over five years.

If you have any other eating suggestions, all you hoards of food bloggers...please enlighten me