Okay, I admitted that I pushed very hard to make us to go to the Central Café in Queanbeyan for the lunch. It was the first time visit for both myself and my husband, but the difference between my attitude and his was, I have been hearing a lot of positive things about this highly regarded local restaurant, especially for its reputation of providing extremely large serve of meals and quite an impressive history in the mind of most of local Queanbeyaners. While my husband, being always not very keen on western food, as to not so much in the mood of exploring those western restaurants, did not expect that he would get anything that he likes to eat in here and walk out its door feeling well fed.
Anyway I made him go with me finally. He ordered the crumbed lamb cutlets, as recommended by one of my colleagues, and I ordered Roast of the Day. We waited about 15 minutes having a bit freshly baked garlic bread as our entrée and watching a funny entertaining wrestling show on the TV hanging on another wall.
The garlic bread was immaculately well made with golden colour of butter and trace of finely chopped green herb leaves. It was warm, smelled nice and we were hungry. We emptied the basket in like 5 minutes, husband seemed quite satisfied and happy to give appraise, then I started to brag about my decision of coming here.
The main course came over. Even having had an expectation of seeing a big full plate, I was still shocked by my husband’s order. I saw 3 pieces of golden crumbed face-sized cutlets sitting in his plate, next to them were chips and vegetables (carrots, potatoes in kind of sauces….); Mine had 3 big pieces of beef roast topped with gravy, with fresh salad and chips as well. Now we started to feel a bit pressure.
I ate and ate, he cut and ate and ate and cut and ate and cut and ate…..up to two third of meal finishing point, I can see him start to really struggle. I couldn’t believe that he decided that he couldn’t finish the meal, leaving quite some chips (which normally are his favourite), vegetables on the plate. The waitress came over twice checking on us and asked if we were happy and if we need to get plate taken away as if she knew my husband won’t finish the plate anyway. He had tried hanging on there for just a little bit longer and then he “announced” that he was going to give up by letting the waitress take the plate away.
At the check-out, the guy asked us if we were happy with the food and if we had enough….He made fun of me saying to my husband “did you see this lady, she still feels hungry”. He was joking, was he? Behind that jokily smile, I can see that he already knew what he was supposed to hear and what he should be proud of.
We walked out the door, wandering on the street and bathing in the early afternoon sun with a sticking out tummy (I had the impulse to rub it), thinking when we will come back again. Now I am sure there is another restaurant just being enlisted in our gourmet pursuits program.
By the way, the cutlets were really really nice and worth trying, given that this was not so much my comments, but given by my husband, whom I believe to be a fussy eater. Hee, I could have ordered that today.
