Grab your lunch from this little Thai tuckshop in the City

Nat Yota and her brother Oran have convinced their mother Sou to revive her dishes, which were popular in the early 2000s via the Thai Spice restaurant in Woden. Sou's recipes originally came from her own mother Nith.

"Our grandmother Nith Chantharasy came to Australia with her children in 1983 and with very little English, she started up the Thai House restaurant in Weston Creek," says Nat.

"Then our mum, Sou opened the Thai Spice restaurant in Woden in 1999 and only sold it in 2007 when dad passed away."

Now, Nat and Oran have opened Tuckshop Tamada, tucked away in the hole in the wall on Bible Lane, around the corner from Akiba, where Flash Burgers used to be, using the authentic family recipes as their base.

Sou is back in the kitchen, with the help of her chef Num Jeamwattanasirikit. They've been cooking together for 20 years.

Nat mentions how her mother Sou was "impressed by her mother's tenacity, love for food, and sheer delusion", and laughs that perhaps she shares similar qualities.

"We've never lost that spark for Thai food and another restaurant was always on the cards, so we've decided to do this as a family as well," she says.

"I'd like to think we've given those traditional recipes a little twist to make them our own."

On the menu at the moment is a massaman curry "which we've done with a beef brisket cut just to make it something different". It's been a popular choice during the soft launch, "and might well become our signature dish."

There's also a prawn choo chee curry, a chicken green curry and a vegetarian pumpkin curry.

As well, there's pork, chilli and basil with a fried egg; crispy prawns in tamarind sauce; a chicken larb salad; and a Thai beef noodle salad.

Add in a couple of little snacks, some chicken satay skewers, or some pork and prawn cakes.

"And the enoki mushroom cakes are a really modern take on prawn cakes and really tasty."

Top it all off, too, with some authentic drink options, with milk tea, lemon tea and a chrysanthemum tea all at $7.

And keep an eye on the specials blackboard which will change regularly, too.

Nat realises they're after the quick lunch crowd and price point was important. The curries all come in under $17 a generous serve, with rice; snacks are $10 for three.

"There are so many options for lunch in the City," she says. "We just wanted to be able to grab our share of the market when so many people are looking for good quality at a good price."

They're only open between 11am and 2.30pm at the moment, but might think about dinner if they can get a permit for some outdoor seating.

In the meantime, get into Tuckshop Tamada for some of those third-generation recipes.

Time to head over to Joe's at the East Hotel where executive chef Francesco Balestrieri has brought back some of the old favourites.

"The crispy golden polenta chips, the delicate white anchovies with pickled chillies, are back," he says.

"Alongside some seasonal dishes like burrata with fresh figs and crispy prosciutto and comforting meatballs in tomato sugo to warm you up as the weather changes to cooler nights."

It's not too late to put the Narooma Oyster Festival into your calendar. It's on from May 3-4 and even if oysters aren't your thing the cooking demonstration program is worth the trip alone.

It features two of Canberra's favourite chefs - Hao Chen from Raku and Serif Kaya from Ottoman (even before he reopens the restaurant in May) - alongside Courtney Roulston (MasterChef, Farm to Fork), Elodie Marion, who's the head pastry chef from Mimi's Sydney, and Belinda Dorsett from the Mossy Group.

Recipes which will be demonstrated include fish curry with lemongrass and coconut, kingfish sashimi with yuzu truffle dressing, rock oysters with tosazu dressing, seared local yellow fin tuna with eggplant relish, eggplant dumplings, crumpets with sea urchin garnish and kaki fry with oroshi ponzu dipping sauce and shaved cabbage.

Entry to the demonstrations is included in your Saturday general admission ticket. You will also get all the recipe cards to take home and a tasting if you're lucky.

Ella Mittas is a chef and writer from Melbourne, who has a fascination with the traditional foods and cooking styles of Greece and Turkey. We're super keen to see what happens in this collaboration with Canteen, how the Japanese might play into it all.

To be held on May 20, out at Dairy Road, the shared menu is $95, another $60 for matched wines and sake, matched non-alcoholic for $50.

Keep an eye out for some recipes from her new cookbook Ela! Ela! To Turkey and Greece, a journey home through food (Murdoch Books, $39.99, out May 1) in Food and Wine soon.

Food and Wine helped solve a query about a gift voucher this past week. With restaurants opening and closing at a ridiculous rate, it's always useful to know your rights. In this case, it was a matter of mis-communication but further information about consumer rights with regard to gift cards can be found via the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

For the record, the restaurant involved was Sage, which closed during COVID, and never reopened as the lease was unable to be extended due to the heritage-listed renovations.