Trev’s at Dickson, Dickson*

* I reviewed Trev’s at Dickson as a guest.

Not that long ago, Trev was The Lodge’s resident chef for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. A little over five years later, Trev leads his eponymous cafe/restaurant tucked away in the office area of Challis Street, Dickson.

Trev’s is open seven days a week for breakfast/brunch and dinners on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Today’s a Thursday at what seems a very early 7.30am. On arrival we’re greeted with requests for coffee orders and my large chai latte arrives truly large with a yummy crust of  cinnamon sugar on frothy milk.

Trev’s is also renowned for its similarly eponymous dish: the Trev’s Taste Collective. Have you ever perused a breakfast menu and felt like you really want something sweet but you also really want something savoury, and somehow early on a Saturday morning you’re still required to make that very difficult choice? For me it’s almost always pancakes with fruit and ice cream versus a dish – any dish – that has poached eggs. The eggs usually win (unless it’s pancakes from Ha Ha Bar – then pancakes are victorious!).

Trev’s Taste Collective goes some way to solving this. At $18.50 you get a small stack of thick pancakes with strawberry and basil compote, marscapone and a smatter of icing sugar, a very thick corn fritter with a heaping of avocado and tomato salsa and a bacon rasher, followed by a two-fruit salad (today it’s strawberries and watermelon) with kaffir lime syrup and a wisp of fairy floss. It all comes with their mini JOD (juice of the day) – today it’s apple, orange and cranberry and it’s tangy and delicious and all too small; I’d love it slightly larger with an ice cube.

Corn generally is not my thing but what I do have of the corn fritter is tasty. The generous helping of avocado salsa is a stand out and I could eat plenty of it with the bacon. The strawberries and watermelon are sweet and fresh and it’s easy to devour. The pancake batter is a little thick rather than fluffy but they’re just enough to make the whole dish very, very filling.

I’m sure a few friends have questions about eating it altogether or separately, and whether it’s weird to have sweet and savoury near or touching each other. While it’s clear from the photo that some of the juice from the berry compote and syrup leak under the fritter, I don’t know it at the time.

Trev’s idea is a very clever one which finally provides an answer to so many people’s early morning dilemmas. But to answer mine, it still needs a poached egg in it somewhere!

Date: Thursday, 8 October 2015

Where: Challis Street, Dickson

Cost: I dined as a guest of Trev’s at Dickson. The Trev’s Taste Collective costs $18.50 including a small juice of the day but not including coffee/s.

Want more? Trev’s has a very comprehensive website and detailed menus.

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Dickson Dumpling House

You might’ve thought I’d had my fill of dumplings in the last post, but how can anyone ever have enough dumplings? The day after enjoying dumplings at Shanghai Dumpling Cafe, we head to Dickson Dumpling House for a direct comparison.

Yum Cha at The Scholar, Dickson

Twitter tells me that if you’re looking for good yum cha in Canberra, you can’t go past the Dumpling Inn at Jamison, or The Scholar in Dickson (with the Hellenic Club a close third). While I’m partial to anything in Belconnen, I also don’t get to visit Dickson too often, so The Scholar won out (this time). We call a few days before and book four of us in for 11am on Sunday (sittings start at 10.30am).

Be My Wingman?

* This post was by T2, a co-author of In The Taratory from 2011-2013. *

Well, after a lengthy hiatus (big thanks to T1 for holding the fort while I was swanning around overseas!), I am back in our lovely nation’s capital. Gotta say, it was a bit weird being in Nice, France enjoying 15 degree weather and blue skies during their winter, while watching the mercury in Canberra dip below 5 degrees in summer! But I digress.
After spending my first weekend back unpacking, eating leftover stroopwafel and camel milk chocolate, I decided that I should spend my second weekend re-connecting with my Canberra mates. Then I realised that, while I’d been overseas, yet another five friends/drinking buddies had left for greener pastures. My social circle had shrunk yet again. Bugger.
Many will attest to the fact that Canberra can sometimes be a hard place to make mates. If you didn’t grow up or go to uni here, or join one of the government graduate programs, that ready-made group of friends isn’t on hand. You’ve gotta fend for yourself. I did come down here for a grad program, but that was back in 2008. The vast majority of my group left the department within a year or so (and so did I, but I didn’t move too far – from Belconnen down the road to Parliamentary Triangle!), most of them back to their respective home states. Sure, we’re still Facebook friends and all, but it just ain’t the same as catching up over cocktails and tapas. Besides, I spend enough time online during the week at work (don’t we all?) without doing ALL my socialising on there too!
Anyway, so when I was flicking through the Canberra Weekly magazine one lunch time, an ad for a ‘Be My Wingman’ event (let’s call it BMW) caught my eye. I went to their website to investigate further. ‘Locate new best girl friends in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra!’, the headline promised. For $40, you’d be invited along to a ‘unique social society for ladies’ (ooh, exclusive-sounding much?!), where you’d then be introduced to nine other girls around your age in a speed-date kind of setting. Oh, and you’d be given a couple of glasses of free champers. It sounded good to me, so I promptly signed up (plus, I was feeling rather guilty that I hadn’t written a blog entry for so long – I needed an interesting topic to cover!). I was excited – I’m not the type of person who is afraid of meeting new people and finding things to talk about; it’s just a matter of finding the right crowd. The thought of lurking around a pub by myself doesn’t get me going, but BMW sounded well-planned and friendly.

So, what does T2 reckon about Canberra in general?

* This post was by T2, a co-author of In The Taratory from 2011-2013. *

Canberra. The mere mention of this word usually results in a screwing-up-of-the-nose or rolling-of-the-eyes. I’m now used to this reaction when I tell interstate friends where I live. But, after three years of being based in our nation’s capital, I’ve come to realise that there’s much more to the city than meets the eye. While it certainly is public servant territory here, it really doesn’t have to be all work and no play.