Lanterne Rooms

Every Australian city should have a Lanterne Room. Here are the flavours we love to call our own - the lemongrassy, soy-sticky, ginger-peppery, garlic-tingling joys of Malaysia's multiple cuisines. The seasoned restaurateurs of the Chairman Group have turned a suburban strip shop into a witty retro-colonial cottage, marked off by black louvres and filmy screens, with ceiling fans, a vermilion feature wall and shiny red Sino-kitsch stars. Mostly adept waiters ferry modernised pan-Asian dishes to festive gatherings of family and friends, date-night marrieds and an only-in-Canberra crowd of well-travelled academics and diplomats. Eggplant rounds with crisped tofu and roasted tomato take comfort from a thick black sesame sauce, while fried prawns with creamy tom-yum accented sauce, diced rockmelon and apple slaw sounds intriguing, but works. A similar play on fruity acidity comes to the fore in duck with jackfruit and lychee, and there's cardamom kulfi with peppered pineapple and sweet potato crisps for dessert.