Last night Tom and I celebrated our twelfth anniversary with a dinner at Aubergine restaurant in the Canberra suburb of Griffith. I had only been there once before, some years ago when it had a previous owner and chef but I remembered it fondly and I am happy to say that it is still a great restaurant.
We had a window seat which was very nice (not that the window actually faces onto anything interesting! It would be nice of there was a little garden there or something. Still, it is nice to sit in the window). The restaurant was full but it is one of those places that has been designed well to absorb the noise with fabrics and the like so it was not noisy and overbearing as modern restaurants often can be. The outdoor terrace was full of people too and that looked very pleasant.
Service was friendly and generally efficient (the only small hiccup is that one of my glasses of wine did not appear until after I had finished eating the matching course, but this oversight was duly apologised for). The menu is very good for someone like me in that I do not like to make a lot of choices. There is a 5 course degustation menu which looked great but which I did not wish to have alone (Tom does not drink you see). So instead we ordered from the dinner menu and I ordered a wine flight where they bring you wines to match each of your courses and you don't have to bother choosing them. That kind of thing really appeals to me as I do not like to make too many decisions when I go out to dinner.
I had a generous entree platter of ocean trout, oysters, pickled cucumber and a quail egg, followed by veal and polenta and a delicious crepe Suzette for dessert. Tom had quail, followed by John Dory fillets and gnocchi and quince panna cotta for dessert.
It was a very enjoyable and relaxed evening.
