Have you ever been to a restaurant where you’re asked to BYO ingredients?! It’s a cool concept that the guys at A. baker in Canberra are keen to get off the grounds in our home town of Canberra.
We were quick to jump on the booking list for the event + lucky to get a spot! Unfortunately, our veggie garden is quite young (aka: not growing, aka: we haven’t planted the seeds yet… we have a lot to learn in this area!) But the guys at A. baker don’t discriminate… they said we could bring the table decorations instead! We got creative + filled jars with hand-picked flowers from the merrymaker garden (lucky for us, super rustic is ‘in’ at the moment… ha!)
The moment we walked through the A. baker doors, we knew we were in for a treat. Greeted by Chris (one of the brains behind it all), we had our very own tour of the entire place: restaurant, outdoor courtyard, underground bar (very cool!) + even the kitchen!
Another reason we were instantly in love, was that A. Baker uses mostly local produce (but definitely all Australian)… even their sparkling water comes from a farm just 3 hours away! YAY for this!
Now for the important part… the menu. We told Chris of our paleo-ways + without hesitation said they could cater (always check in with restaurants beforehand, or at least check out their menu… this will alleviate any awkward walk-outs… “actually, we’re going to have to eat elsewhere…” Ha!)
So the menu:
To start off with, other guests enjoyed A. Baker’s freshly in-house baked bread… we, of course opted for olives! Which were (we’re sure) just as delish!
Entrée:
Murray cod, silverbeet, smoked pistachios + charred leeks (yum)
Main:
Duck breast, fennel, snowpeas, ‘Bredbo’ black garlic (double yum)
Dessert: (we had a paleo-fied version of the roasted rhubarb, gingerbread + burnt butter mousse… this looked REALLY good), instead we had:
Roasted rhubarb, peach+ pecans (triple yum)
One word: DELISH! As much as we’d like to tell you about all the different flavours we tasted + how the cod flaked away perfectly + the duck was terrifically (never used that word before!) tender… that’s not really our style (in fact sometimes we get our herbs muddled up… hey, we’re only human! We’re still not even sure the dessert was peach… but whatever it was, it was good).
We are happy to say that we will definitely be venturing back to A. Baker, not just for the food. When it comes to dining out, it’s a whole experience for us. Thumbs up to the staff: they were friendly AND funny (two of the best characteristics a person can have!), it wasn’t too loud, they cater for dietary requirements, they even made us a ‘paleo’ friendly cocktail! GASP! (Yes, we drank it!) We enjoyed a grapefruit mojito, minus the sugar but with a dash of honey… PLUS (yes, there’s more), they are open for breakfast + you guys know how much we love a big breakfast!
What’s not to love?! See you soon A. Baker!
Always merrymaking,
Emma + Carla
p.s just to let you know, we attended this event as a guest + happily paid full price! We just had to share with you all how much we absolutely LOVED A. Baker. Like them on facebook!