Brodburger - update on the Glassworks move

An update on the Brodburger move to Canberra Glassworks - the opening date has been pushed back, but word is that the new incarnation of Canberra's favourite burger joint should be up and running by early March (though I couldn't get a specific date). Sigh.... it won't be a moment too soon.

Kingston Hotel

Having moved to Canberra, I've come to realise that Sydneysiders really take their local pub (or if you’ve had the good fortune to live in Surry Hills, your local seven pubs) for granted. Canberra, for all its merits (like being able to buy booze in supermarkets and random corner shops) is not exactly known for its thrivin’ pub culture. Feeling steak–and-chips deprived, I set out to discover what would be the closest thing to my ‘local’, which turns out to be the rough-and-ready Kingston Hotel.

The ‘Kingo’ is a spacious, no-frills affair, incorporating two restaurants, three internal drinking/dining areas, a function room, a large back courtyard and a very well-stocked drive-in bottleshop, The Thirsty Camel, at the front. It has an ultra-casual vibe and, given its fairly well-to-do surrounds, can get surprisingly rowdy (think wolf whistles to passers by) on weekend nights.

Inside the pub’s front restaurant, the cook-it-yourself Kingston Steakhouse, burly men hover round a big barbecue plate flipping everything from rumps and rib-eyes to salmon cutlets and sausages. If, like me, cooking your own food at a restaurant isn’t really your thing, there’s also a selection of pizzas and pastas cooked by the kitchen.

But on our two visits we’ve bypassed the somewhat smoky steakhouse and headed out back to Maddie’s, where the menu reads like a blueprint for the typical Aussie pub – steaks, schnitzels, burgers, pastas, fish and chips, and of course, good old chicken parmi. There’s also a few vegetarian options, such as chargrilled vegetable skewers with chips, a vegie burger and a pumpkin, parmesan and pine nut salad.

But back to the meat. A 300g porterhouse steak arrives on what would most accurately be described as a serving platter, laden down with chips and a garden salad. It’s nicely charred and only a touch over the requested medium-rare, though the accompanying mushroom sauce is tepid with a strangely sweet flavour. The chips are crisp and straight-from-the-fryer hot, while the salad is decent enough and plays its role in putting something green on your plate.

A knife stabbed dramatically through the Kingo Steak burger proves to have functional as well as aesthetic qualities, keeping the towering mass – which includes a generous slab of porterhouse steak, bacon, egg, cheese, pineapple, beetroot, tomato and lettuce – all intact for the trip to the table. If you’re going to make a burger your namesake, then make it one to be proud of, and this is – the ingredients melding together nicely in crusty ciabatta bun and served with a chunky tomato relish.

On another visit, an Indian-style vegie burger proves less impressive. The zucchini patty is spongy and overloaded with cumin, and a topping of melted cheese makes for a strange clash of flavours. It’s loaded up on a garlicy yoghurt-smeared bun with lettuce and tomato.

Next the Caesar salad – something I hold as a benchmark for pub food judgement. In case you were wondering, this miraculous dish was invented by a resourceful Italian chef who, short of supplies, threw together a seemingly hodge-podge combination of ingredients and tossed it all together in dramatic fashion right at the table – a finishing touch which ensured the lettuce stayed crisp and was just lightly coated in the sharp Worcestershire-laced dressing. This history makes Kingston’s deconstructed, pre-tossed chicken version all the more annoying. It appears to be less for appearances sake than for kitchen practicality – so the lettuce, bacon, parmesan and dressing can be mixed together in advance and chicken, egg and croutons cooked and added to order. Predictably, the lettuce has started to wilt in the dressing, which is mild and lacks that Worcestershire-bite. Perhaps the annoyance of having to construct the salad myself has made me harsher than I should be on the poor Kingo Caesar. On the upside, the poached egg is a nice touch, and the chicken – though a little pasty in appearance – is tender.

All up, the Kingo is no gastro pub and it’s unlikely to be walking away with a chef’s hat anytime soon, but then that’s not really the point. The point is functionality, which it does with aplomb, dishing up generous, carb-heavy serves that are perfectly fit for purpose – lining your stomach for the ales to follow.

The Kingston Hotel

73 Canberra Ave, Griffith, 2603

Ph: (02) 6295 0123