Gus's Cafe

Location: Shop 8, Garema Arcade, Bunda Place, Canberra

Phone: (02) 6248 8118

Link: www.guscafe.com.au

Cuisine: Modern Australian, Cafe, Breakfast

The trouble with Canberra is the lack of decent restaurants in Civic. The positive side of that is that it's not too hard to decide on a place to go to.

Gus's was one of the few places I've been meaning to try for a while but more for breakfast than dinner.

First up was the steak sandwich. This was brilliantly done, and even better than the one at Gordon's.

Gus’ big steak sandwich: garlic foccacia with bacon, cheese, tomato, caramelized onion, seeded mustard mayo & garnished with sweet potato spears

The foccacia was nicely toasted and filled with a beautiful combination of flavours. The steak was well-marinated and cooked perfectly, The rest of the ingredients matched it well.

The sweet potato spears were more like crisps, but sweet, crunchy and not too oily - I could eat a plate of them!

Our second dish was a little disappointing.

Chicken breast linguini with roasted red capsicum & pine nuts in creamy basil sauce

Whilst the linguini was cooked al dente, the sauce was a little heavy on the cream and quite average in flavour. There wasn't much by way of red capsicum or pine nuts, which may have contributed to the disappointing sauce. Still, it was edible, just over-creamed.

Service: a little on the slow side, particularly since we went in early before there were many customers. Despite that, service was pleasant and the waitress was quite friendly.

Price: reasonable - mains mostly $16-$25

I've heard they do a very nice breakfast, so one day I'll be back for some brunch.

Overall Impression: 8/10