Frances Summers: ticking off the HerCanberra foodie bucket list

Posted on 29 July, 2019

Meet Frances Summers, who has been steadily ticking off our HerCanberra foodie bucket list, or, 100 Canberra food experiences you must have before you die.

Being with Frances Summers can feel a bit like you’re on her personal foodie tour – which you are.

“I think this one is on the list,” Frances says, when we meet at Barrio Collective Coffee in Braddon for a coffee.

She looks around at the wraparound bench, the stools, taking it all in. Afterwards, she’ll explain to the staff what she’s up to and order a double cheese toastie.

They’re curious, but not taken aback. For such a tiny space, people get up interesting things there: have photoshoots, do the crossword, knit, take their cats on excursions.

Sure enough, a post will appear on her Facebook page Frances’ Foodie Forays that same day.

Frances Summers. Credit: Sarina Talip.

“Now how exciting can a toastie be?” she writes. “Nonetheless, the double cheese toastie was quite tasty: a piping hot mix of vintage cheddar and scamorza, with a spicy green relish, inside two slices of sourdough.

“When I asked what was in the relish, I was told ‘jalapeños, coriander and stuff.’ The sandwich reminded me a bit of Welsh Rarebit, with attitude.

Frances has been steadily ticking off our HerCanberra foodie bucket list*, or, 100 Canberra food experiences you must have before you die. (The Barrio double cheese toastie is #29.)

She started her blog a bit more than a year ago on 10 July, and since then, has tried 62 of the 100 foodie experiences (which are listed in no particular order).

The retired public servant and her sister look after their mother full-time, and Frances says she started the project as a “little interest and a bit of a personal challenge.”

The HerCanberra foodie bucket list was in the “back of my brain,” when Frances happened to be at Baked on Mort in Braddon. (Apple roses tarts: #1.)

“Which coincidentally, is no longer there,” Frances points out. “I saw that they had their apples roses, so I thought, right, I’ll just start going through this list.

“It’s a fun thing to do, and I’ve always been on the lookout for Canberra’s best restaurants, and I’ve also got a lot of foodie friends.”

She has ticked off a lot of places on her own, but she also asks her friends to “indulge” her when they go out for lunch or dinner.

She’s thrilled that “some of the best ones have not been the most expensive ones.”

Potato scallops (#97) from Catch in Braddon (which has also closed since Frances tried them) were “fresh and crisp.”

The casual street food dished up at the iconic and colourful Mandalay Bus in Braddon “was a real surprise.”

“I am quite ashamed to say that I have never, in my 32 years living in Canberra, been to this Canberra icon. What a discovery it was!” she writes on her blog.

Frances Summers. Credit: Sarina Talip.

She was reluctant to try the fried chicken wings (#74) because she doesn’t “really like” wings, but they were “delicious, with a sticky, plum and hoisin sauce.”

She met with the owner Stewart Thaung, son of the original owner George Thaung, who was “lovely,” and “super friendly and generous.”

He gave her their signature dish satay chicken with kimchi on roti bread on the house.

“It was delicious – just tasty and fresh. The roti was crispy and the kimchi added a bit of a bite,” she says.

“It was nice presentation too, and looked reminiscent of some of these foodie shows that I sometimes watch.”

On her blog she writes: “It is all very messy finger food, eaten outside on makeshift furniture (or taken away), but who cares when it is just as good, if not better, than restaurants, with no atmosphere, which charge much, much more. Recommended!”

A “½ size jumbo laksa (a combination of chicken, duck, pork and seafood)” at Dickson Asian Noodle House (#9) was “flavoursome” and had a “nice texture.”

Frances expected to have to bring home a doggy bag “because laksas are generally so huge,” but was pleased that she could buy a half size.

The keen foodie writes the way she speaks. Her blog is like a little window into her charmingly frank manner – peppered with smiley faces, and a lot of food and drink emojis (burgers, tomatoes, chinking beers.)

Still at the cheaper end scale of the market, another standout was a Turkish kebab roll from the Yarralumla Turkish Halal Pide House (#3).

“It was really delicious and really good value and the place was humming and again the owner was really friendly,” she says.

She got “the mixed meat kebab with the works (lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, jalapeños, homemade hummus, homemade tabbouli, homemade pickled turnip, and homemade mixed chilli sauce).”

The serve was so generous Frances had to take it home for lunch the next day, but she will always choose a dish with “the works.”

“It’s the same when I have pizzas or laksa, I always have the one with everything,” she says, laughing.

She met the Yarralumla Turkish Halal Pide House owner Tony Kocak, who was “very friendly and helpful.”

When Frances started the foodie project she says it was “very basic,” and just detailed what dish she was having.

“But now it’s evolved to a whole foodie experience,” she says.

“I talk about what else I’ve eaten there, and I also take photos and give a bit of an impression of my overall feeling of the place.”

She will often tell the restaurant, bar or café owner what she’s up to as she takes photographs.

“And some of them don’t even know they’re on the list,” she says, amused.

Moving towards the upper echelons of the Canberra restaurant scene (read: pricey), Frances says there were a few standouts.

Chairman & Yip is always “consistently good,” and while she enjoyed the roast duck and mushroom pancakes (#42) she thought the Okinawa cuttlefish and fish of the day (ocean perch) were “superb.”

Les Bistronomes in Braddon’s beef wellington was “enjoyable,” but the Francophile and French speaker is a regular in any case at the French bistro’s Saturday $55 five-course degustation lunch.

Staying in Braddon, Italian and Sons’ tiramisu (#23) in was “delicious.”

“Not too sweet, heavy or rich (but with not as much liquor as when I make it myself!” she writes.

“A lot of sweets are too heavy or too sweet,” real-life Frances explains to me.

As a main she had the “pesce del giorno” (fish of the day), barramundi, with Sicilian eggplant caponata.

“The fish was cooked to perfection, with a fantastically crispy skin, on top of a bed of mildly sweet caponata, made with, inter alia, eggplant, capers, pinenuts and currants,” she writes.

“My friend had the delicious cavatelli al ragú di agnello (pasta with suckling lamb, tomato and red wine ragú and pecorino), followed by the very hazelnutty gelato.”

Portia’s place in Kingston was a “surprise.” She’s not normally a fan of Chinese cuisine but the King Island fillet steak with black pepper sauce in claypot (#87) was “very tasty.”

“Melt-in-your-mouth beef, served with onion and mushroom in a flavoursome sauce,” she writes.

She and her friend also had the duck spring rolls, with sweet and sour sauce, and minced-prawn-stuffed eggplant with chilli black bean sauce, “both equally tasty.”

But it was the little touches that really made the experience and service memorable and enjoyable, Frances says.

“We got little nibbles and fortune cookies on the house and there was proper cutlery and proper napkins and a warm cloth at the end to wipe your hands,” she says.

“It’s the little things that make a difference without added cost.”

Frances has now been to a lot of casual eateries and higher-end restaurants and everything in between and believes it’s the details that make a place enjoyable.

She’s not into the “modern trend” of warehouse-style restaurants, without the “softening” of tablecloths and carpets to absorb loud noises and music, making it impossible to have a conversation with friends.

And she recently went to a Thai restaurant and was horrified at the poor service a couple sitting near her received.

“They wanted some chilli sauce and [the waitperson] said, Oh that’ll be an extra 20 cents, and they looked at each other and I looked at them,” she says.

“In the end they didn’t have it. The money wasn’t the issue. I mean, what was it to them [to give them some extra chilli sauce]?”

She doesn’t usually like the “modern trend” towards deconstructed food and drinks, but thoroughly enjoyed a “deconstructed G&T” at the Tipsy Bull (#34 on the HerCanberra foodie bucket list.)

She’s no “gin connoisseur” but she liked the whole Tipsy Bull experience of choosing a gin from a “huge selection,” which gets matched with a tonic and little accompaniments.

“I chose a Canberra gin from Underground Spirits (Australian river mint, local basil, lemon myrtle), served with Fever-Tree tonic, a rosemary sprig, juniper berries, and slices of grapefruit, lemon, and lime,” she writes.

“This is the one occasion I didn’t mind it being deconstructed!”

And she started buying Bentspoke craft beer after trying #55, which surprised her, as she’s “not really a beer drinker.”

She doesn’t have much of a sweet tooth so she wasn’t “particularly looking forward to,” a freakshake at Pâtissez in Manuka (#30).

She purposefully chose one of the least sweet freakshakes, the Nutcracker (“maple roasted almond and pecan popcorn, slathers of awesome salted caramel, vanilla soft serve, almond and pecan popcorn crown, more salted caramel.”)

“I didn’t think it was going to be any good but I did actually quite enjoy it,” she says with her characteristic honesty.

Frances moved to Canberra in 1987 and appreciates that there’s “a lot more variety,” in the Canberra food scene.

Over the course of the year of her Canberra foodie experience, naturally, challenges have arisen.

“Places close, and things aren’t on the menu anymore,” she explains.

When she went to lunch at the Lanterne Rooms in Campbell she hoped to “tick off” #92 – the mud crab Kam Heung style.

“But it was only ever available as a special on the dinner menu, and now was no longer available,” she says.

“But I explained my predicament to the waiter and he suggested their signature dish, which was the tom yum infused prawns with rockmelon and apple.”

She appreciated Ottoman’s salmon dolmades (#28) but she especially loved the homemade cardamom ice-cream. Again, it wasn’t on the list.

“The thing that you should do when you’re there is just ask them, and this is often the case in the restaurants,” she says.

“I ask the waiters or the chef what’s the best thing on the menu, or what do you suggest, and that’s the best thing to do in Ottoman.

“When you do that, just ask what they recommend or what’s the best thing, well, invariably you get good things.”

Want to try your luck at our HerCanberra foodie bucket list*? Click here. 

*Editor’s note: We do acknowledge that some of the items on our original bucket list are no longer available. We try to update this list periodically with new favourites (as it’s no fun looking for something that’s no longer there) but please have patience with us and the establishments we recommend if you get caught unawares. With love and butter, HerCanberra). 

Feature image: Sarina Talip.