When in Canberra, it appears Monster is a place to befriend. Housed inside Hotel Hotel which is located on the corner of a what feels like a dual carriageway, it oozes cool architecture and design. 

We enter the hotel and greeted by reception staff who advise us to head towards the iPad in the far corner of the room. It's a little strange that as soon as we enter the hotel, it opens out into a dining / bar area and there is Monster in all her glory. I keep looking for an iPad but struggle to find it. Turns out, I'm taking things too literally and it's not an iPad but a laptop. I guess literal and creativity aren't necessarily seamless in this place!

We're early for our table so take a seat on a fancy green sofa and wait a while before someone takes our drinks order. And it takes a while again for the drinks to arrive but we're advise it's because they're searching the store room for a mysterious ingredient that is crucial to my cocktails...

We drink our drinks, once they finally arrive and we're not asked if we want another nor is our table followed up...and it ticks past 8pm and when it looks like no one is going to help us or keep us hydrated, I ask and one of the wait staff tries to help us out but we're advised to keep on waiting as the previous occupants finish up.

Finally we are seated but that whole waiting theme continues...we wait a while for menus, for round 2 of drinks...and during our meal for our wine glasses to be topped up. Yes, it's busy and the size of the dining room means the wait staff have a lot of ground to cover and I suspect they are under staffed this evening which means service is thin on the ground.

We start off with:

• 38 hour pork neck bao, cucumber, kim chi
• Crispy fried quail, house made togarashi, kewpie, sriracha

The pork neck is a little cylindrical croquette and combined with the fermented and tangy flavour of the kim chi is pretty tastebud pleasing. The quail is also lipsmackingly good with an exciting tongue tingling heat from the spices and sriracha. So far so good.

And in spite of the service blips, we enjoy our corner seat in the banquette where we can people watch and although the wait staff are stretched, the atmosphere still manages to be relaxed and comfortable.

• Asparagus, baby leek, soft egg, burnt butter, nori and capers

This is a far more generous dish than the asparagus offering we had at Eightysix the night before although, granted it is $5 more expensive but I'd rather pay the excess and enjoy the "generous hospitality." The salty buttery liquid drips and flavours the chargrilled vegetables and balances that greeny yumminess of asparagus.

In terms of "main" or shared dishes as they're called at Monster, we go with three:

• Blood pudding, apple, radish. anchovy
• Pulled lamb shoulder, pistachio, yoghurt, vine leaf, pomegranate, brik
• Black Angus, flat iron, chimichurri, fried okra (unpictured)

The blood pudding is a generous slab and served on grilled bread. I enjoy the flavours but find the anchovy a little overpowering. I love anchovies and I love black pudding but I'm not convinced I love them altogether although the toast and the zippiness of the apple and radish salad help lift the heavy flavours.

The pulled lamb shoulder is a true crowd pleaser. The meat is tender and delicious large chunks flaboured with nutty pistachios and sweet and sour pomegranate seeds, softened by the labne.

The Black Angus also goes down well. It's a good steak already carved into misshapes and the fried okra has a delicious salt and vinegar seasoning to it.

I ordered one of their non alcoholic drinks, orange, passionfruit, elderflower & soda but request a spike of vodka and the barman enthusiastically responds but when my drink arrives it doesn't taste very much of vodka and later on the bill, we see we are not charged for the shot so it was probably forgotten. 

Onto food...we order to share between us:

• Duck bun with hoisin
• D'Affinois wafer
• Smoked chicken wing, maple glaze
• Cured kangaroo, horseradish, beetroot
• Asparagus, fines herbs & aioli
• Ghetto beef w salsa verde, rocket & parmesan
• ​Potato and gravy

Our comments are that the duck bun was tasty enough. Nothing particularly stand out but well received by our tummies and tastebuds.I think it would have been better if there was more filling. The D'Affinois wafer is effectively a piece of that creamy, lovely cheese sandwiched between two crumbly wafers and seasoned with some spices and a fruit chutney. Again a tasty morsel but not ground breaking.

Ground breaking though were the chicken wings. Giant wings that must have come from a chicken dinosaur, the glaze came separate so it didn't make the skin soggy. I've had plenty of wings in my life and these come up tops.

The kangaroo dish was as it sounds and again we had no problems consuming it. The asparagus was disappointing in that it was 4 slender pieces of asparagus and fines herbs to me means finely chopped herbs but this was a mound of herbs whole and chunky and certainly not "fines". So I guess it was more a herb salad with a smattering of asparagus. The lemon aioli was tasty but too much for the little asparagus we were served.

Ghetto beef was 4 slices of rare beef, thicker than carpaccio but far from steak...maybe sandwich steak thickness. I quite liked the beef with the rocket and parmesan but my tastebuds weren't quite so enamoured with the salsa verde. I found the texture a but gluey and the flavours not my thing.

Where the beef dish was light and summery, the mashed potatoes and gravy was much richer and definitely comfort food category. The potato was rich and creamy and the gravy salty and intense. It probably didn't quite go with the beef but we still consumed it all!

We were pretty tired by the end of this food and although the desserts sounded yummy and looked great coming out of the kitchen we decided to call it a night. Steve found the ambience too frantic and couldn't relax which probably didn't help to make us feel like staying for the sweet stuff.

For us, Eightysix was average. It's certainly popular and boy, I'd return just for a whole plateful of chicken wings but everything else just hit the average scores.