Three reviewers walk into a restaurant: the Good Food year in review

We've booked a table at the new Braddon Merchant, in the Midnight Hotel, here for official work business, a discussion to review our reviewing, where we ate, what we ate, what we loved, what we didn't in 2019.

Tash is talking to the young sommelier who's happy enough to pour her a couple of tasting portions. Kirsten only drinks sparkling these days, she settles on a Borgo Molina prosecco. I can't go past a glass of local rose, so it's a Poacher's Pantry drop for me.

So where do we start ... I'm going to start with our inability to choose dishes. Give me a chef's menu any day, a feed me deal, better yet dine out with someone who's happy to do the ordering for you. I'm blessed to have a friend like that. When you're responsible for putting dinner on the table every night the last thing you want to do is have to decide what plates to order.

There is a Braddon Merchant experience available here at $55pp but the other two, who, if we're honest know way more than me about food, want to order specific things. We order some Moonlight Flat oysters, straight up, which taste of the sea; smoked eel with eggplant, sesame and sea succulents; a little serve of spicy piquillo peppers; roasted Li Sun king mushroom with millet, pickled garlic and charred spring onion; a casarecce pasta "risotto" with south coast strawberry clams and preserved lemon and parsley; a cheese filled agnolotti from the specials menu; and a fabulous gnocchi with cavolo nero and eggplant.

It's all in the middle of the table, we're in and out with forks and spoons, while we chat, tape recorder on, this is work.

We're not officially reviewing Braddon Merchant, we'll get to that in the new year for sure, but this is how I like to eat. Casual, shared plates, interesting choices, a fun wine list, great company, conversation.

The highlight of my reviewing year was Temporada in August where I put myself in the hands of chef Dave Young, figuratively, and ordered the chef's menu. The night was hard to fault.

"Temporada often gets compared to Aubergine, with Ben Willis having a hand in each," I wrote back then.

"While the city venue is more relaxed, perhaps that's what diners are looking for now. A more casual setting where there is nothing casual about the food, the wine list, nor the service."

I love eating like this. But not so Kirsten. She can think of nothing better than heading to one of her favourites, The Italian Place, or Baccaro, say, and just ordering a bowl of pasta and a glass of wine.

"There's a certain freedom to it," she says. "You save having to cook, get to have a glass of wine, there's no cooking, no dishes, it's the way it's done overseas, people eat out every night."

This gets us talking about why we eat out. Tash likes to eat things she'd never think about cooking at home, it's something of a break for Kirsten and her family, I just like to spend time with good friends and good food, whether that be out, or at home, if I'm honest.

Tash worries about the expense of it, young millennial with her eye on a mortgage, but says Aubergine is one of the best value two-hatted restaurants in the country.

She tends to eat, when she's not on The Canberra Times dime, at more casual restaurants. She'll travel across town to Florey to King Fook for their Peking duck.

Which brings us to suburban restaurants. Something I'd like to see more chefs take a gamble on. Imagine a place you could walk to that would excite you beyond the everyday and didn't cost an arm and a leg.

Kirsten doesn't believe there are any good suburban restaurants. But we throw a few back at her, XO in Narrabundah, Les Bistronomes now in Campbell (although that move threw her), Pilot is actually a mere stone's throw from her house.

She kind of concedes. I shouldn't be so harsh. She was the only one of us who ventured afar (you can't really count my trip out to Grazing) when she caught the light rail to Ogawa in Gungahlin.

And speaking of harsh. Don't get Tash started on service. With a little front of house experience she's the toughest of us all.

Both Kirsten and I have teenage children in the hospitality game, we're prepared to cut staff a little slack.

"I've become terribly forgiving about service," Kirsten says.

"It's easy to complain about bad service but it's an incredibly hard thing to learn. For restaurateurs who are taking on kids and making the effort with them and sticking by them, they're not only doing restaurants a service, but the universe a service, the kids a service, there are so many kids who don't have jobs or need the experience."

One of the most interesting events I attended this year was the White Jacket Effect gathering in July, a movement which aims to raise awareness of mental health issues in the hospitality industry. Ben Willis remembers having to tell staff that a colleague had committed suicide, Alex Piris from Fox and Bow now runs a regular catch up called What's on Your Plate where anyone is welcome to come along and, if they choose to, tell their story.

If there's one thing this gig has taught me is that sitting down to a meal, whether that be at Italian and Sons, or your local pub, is far more complicated than it first looks. It's given me a greater appreciation of where food comes from, who is making it, what they might be dealing with away from the kitchen, how fussy and picky and demanding some customers can be.

But if there's one more thing it's taught me, particularly this year, is that Canberra is home to a thriving community of people who care about food. And that means we're all trying to get the rest of it right, as best we can.