The Asian food century begins in Sydney

Almost ten years ago much fuss was made of the rapidly looming 'Asian Century', full of challenge and promise. I was working in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet at the time as Director of the National Cultural Policy Task Force. The discussion White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century being developed at the same time seemed part of a similar big picture approach to Australia's future. Today it seems even more relevant than in those times of more strategic governments. In Sydney you get a much sharper sense of the Asian Century – and its culinary reflection, the Asian food century.

In Sydney, you get a much sharper sense than in Canberra that we are part of the Asian Century. I always say though that the Asian Century began for Australia much earlier - when ancient Yolngu peoples in what became East Arnhem Land started trading with Macassan seafarers, long before Europeans ever appeared over the horizon. 

Dive into the Asian food century
On a quick visit to Sydney our dive into the Asian food century started on a Sunday, straight from the train from Canberra, at Lankan Filling Station. Nearly 50 years ago in Adelaide I was taken to a place that would have been the very first restaurant I ever ate in. It was a Sri Lankan restaurant called the Ceylon Hut, tucked away in a grey basement, and it was an Adelaide institution. To me, someone who had grown up in Tasmania in the 1950s and 1960s, it was a revelation.

Lankan Filling Station interior

On this occasion I ate in another Sri Lankan restaurant and had a contemporary version of that eye-opening moment. Lankan Filling Station, tucked away in Riley Street, East Sydney, a few steps from major thoroughfare William Street, was a pleasure from start to finish.

Eating out in a cold, funky city – Canberra comes of age in the Asian Century

Eating out in a cold, funky city. On a day and night which was bitterly cold – as cold as Canberra has been this year, with the hint of snow clouds overhead – I was reminded why I live here.

It had been a long day, with a bus ride to one of my favourite national cultural institutions, the National Library of Australia, to hear a talk like a detective novel, about the search for Indigenous words hidden in the vast collection. In a preview of the remainder of the day I had a tour of the newly refurbished Reading Room and Special Collections Reading Room, fitted out by local design firm, Designcraft, just as it should be, like some luxury apartment for books and manuscripts.

The National Library with Mt Ainslie wrapped in mist behind over the Lake.

At the end of the day I ventured forth again for the launch of the new Craft ACT design store, ‘Agency’, in the heart of hipster heaven, the rapidly funkifying precinct in Braddon. When I moved here almost 15 years ago, Braddon’s main feature was its car yards. The new store features top end craft and design work – you can even buy the lighting, shelving and display cases and hand-made clothes hangers – but not yet, we’re still getting in stock!