Stephen Downes

Restaurant reviews

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Stephen Downes

Author, food writer and restaurant critic

Churches

Stephen Downes

Australia's longest serving restaurant critic

Civic Involvement

Stephen Downes

Australia's most experienced restaurant critic

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Archive for 'Restaurant reviews' Category

Obama’s challenge

Jun 17th, 2009 by stephend | 1

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Enter your email address:Delivered by FeedBurnerDuring a fortnight in California from which I’ve just returned, I watched Barack Obama’s televised addresses several times. Formal or informal, they are brilliant [...]

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Cancel Zuni chook

Jun 17th, 2009 by stephend | 3

The more things stay the same the more they’re prone to change. That’s a rule of capitalism, and in the case of Zuni Cafe in Market Street, San Francisco, it has affected the restaurant’s signature dish, its roasted chicken.
I thought it was good enough four years ago that eating it was among the 100 food [...]

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Pity the performers

May 27th, 2009 by stephend | 1

I went with Dominique last night to hear Geoffrey Lancaster play — superbly — five Haydn piano sonatas at the new Melbourne Recital Centre.
Geoffrey strode on to the platform in black patent leather shoes, black trousers and a well-fitted Chinese-style charcoal smock and told us before he began that he was in heaven. Here he [...]

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Blues with bleu

Apr 22nd, 2008 by stephend | 4

Perhaps south Gippsland is another country. I swung through the region with la Dominique at the weekend, and discovered that its chefs have enormous problems cooking beef ‘bleu’.
Lunched on Saturday at the estimable Grand Ridge Brewery in the Main Street of the tiny village of Mirboo North, high up in the Strzelecki Ranges. We began [...]

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Palm Cove peace

Mar 7th, 2007 by stephend | 0

While Far North Queensland seems increasingly to deliver a garish caricature of Aussie-ness — with an eye out for international tourists, no doubt — Palm Cove has remained peaceful and sane.
I hadn’t been to the region for many years. Indeed, when I first visited Port Douglas in the late 1970s it was little more than [...]

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