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We took advantage of both boys being away at sleepovers on Friday night, and arranged for a fancy dinner and B&B. We've both previously stayed at the Vue Grand for respective work conferences, but I think this was the first time we'd chosen it (rather than being chosen for us). It was a very straightforward exercise to book online (once I was using a Flash-capable device - that is, not my iPad), and a courtesy call the next business day confirmed they had received my booking. Although their dinner/room/breakfast deal was supposed to finish at the end of September, I could still book my choice of room (traditional, balcony, spa or superior spa) plus choice of either the tasting menu or a la carte plus breakfast for the discount rate of $300/couple.
The sample menu in the Entertainment Book looked very enticing, and we later discovered that their head chef was the former head chef at Pettavel. I believe it was on this basis that it was included in the most recent Age Good Food Guide (due to the timing - the book would have been at the printers by the time he came on board.) As one of our top three meals ever was at Pettavel, this was most encouraging. (The other two would be a family dinner at Jimmy Watson's, on Lygon St, yonks ago, and a birthday dinner at Rockpool a couple of years back.)
THE HOTEL
The Vue Grand Hotel is a grand building, initially built in the 1880s. It has been modified several times, not least due to a major fire in the late 1920s, and was completely gutted and refurbished in the mid-1980s. It is located in the middle of the main shopping street of Queenscliff, a popular seaside town about 35minutes from Geelong, 90minutes from Melbourne.
We arrived a little after 6:30pm, and although Reception was supposed to close at 6pm, Kate was still there as we were not the only guests travelling down after a full day of work. We did a quick few sums and determined that the discount package was about the same as their standby room rate ($175 incl breakfast) plus dinner with drinks less the Entertainment Card discount, so kept the discount card for a later time.
THE ROOM
The 'superior spa' room assigned to us was a spacious room on the corner of the ground floor. This meant that we had windows on two walls facing the street, but could open at least one of them (always a fan of fresh air in hotel rooms!). I'm not sure I'd want a ground floor room during peak season, but on a quiet night in early October, it wasn't an issue.
The room included a king-size bed (which, like many hotel king-size beds, had an identifiable seam down the middle where it could be split into two singles), and several pieces of period-appropriate furniture (desk, tub chairs, side tables etc). And a bar fridge, which seemed rather incongruous. Like
I fell asleep very promptly, to my husband's dismay, and slept very soundly. JD didn't sleep quite as well, due to the firmness of the bed and the bodginess of his shoulders. Still, give us a firm bed over a soggy one any day.
THE BAR
We brought our dinner booking time forward from the earlier-nominated 8pm sitting, to 7:30 - three-quarters of an hour before dinner was better than an hour and a quarter, and retreated to the bar. We avoided the bar proper as it had a gaggle of shrieking women, and sat next door in the lounge. (It was a little chilly to sit outside in the courtyard.) After two glasses of wine each (Oakdene sparkling brut on my part - dry, pleasant, not terribly complex; Bellarine Estates merlot for JD), we went into dinner.
THE MEAL
After perusing the menu, we chose the five-course tasting menu (not that there was ever any doubt), with matching wines (ditto). With these degustation menus, we usually end up trying things we wouldn't have considered otherwise, and almost always enjoy every course.
Amuse bouche with full glass of Oakdene "Matilda" Pinot Chardonnay sparkling
I didn't catch the full details of this opener, but it was delightful. A milky, slightly eggy liquid, with a morsel of pink in the centre, bacon and crunchy salt flavours. Delicious. The wine was quite a dark yellow, with a beautifully complex flavour, and not sweet.
Crayfish raviolo with fennel, with fennel, citrus and sea foam with a half-glass of a verdelho (the online menu says it was a 2010 Sleepy Hollow, but I recall it being a You Yangs View)
Well-executed, but not brilliant. I've never been a huge fan of crayfish/lobster/yabbies etc - a lot of work for what you get. In this case, the raviolo was full of crayfish meat (and nothing else), and therefore very dense. The green pureed fennel, and the dark red-brown 'citrus' puree helped balance this a little, but the juxtaposition was too harsh. The sea foam was a soft-white, lightly salty, slightly oyster-y flavoured foam.
The verdelho was thin, both in mouthfeel and flavour profile, and quite sharp. Not a wine we would return to.
Venison, chocolate, beetroot, carrot and potato gallette with a half-glass of the same Bellarine Estate "Julians" merlot that JD had before dinner. As I don't drink red, they chose the Scotchman's Hill Sav Blanc for me.
Again, interesting, but not outstanding, and the whole didn't work together as well as it could have. I think for venison to go with chocolate, it needs to be somewhat gamey, rather than the delicate farmed venison that this was. Again, each component was perfectly cooked and presented. The venison was a finely sliced, impeccably cooked piece of meat; the baby carrots and beet (trimmed to the same shape and size) were just the right amount of firm; the gallette was wonderful, but the smear of chocolate across the plate detracted rather than added.
JD's wine was good, although possibly a touch robust for the delicate venison, and my sav blanc had a good body and flavour profile.
Main course - choice of:
Shepherd's pie, lamb loin, root vegetables and redcurrants with a 2008 Nalbra Estate Shiraz (per menu listing) - JD chose this
Bream, oyster beignet, cucumber, caviar with a 2008 Marcus Hill Vineyards Chardonnay - I had this
Possibly the most successful of the courses, after the amuse bouche, but still lacking a wow factor.
JD's shepherd's pie was a cylinder of good smooth mash atop a rather dry mince; the lamb was good and again, perfectly cooked, the vegies good, and redcurrents provided a tart counterpoint to the whole.
My bream was excellently cooked - two small fillets, crisp on the skin side, and tender throughout; the oyster beignet seemed to be an oyster encased in smooth mashed potato and then lightly fried, and very good. The dish didn't come with a spoon so I wasn't able to scoop up the lovely juices, speckled with green spheres of caviar.
I don't have any particular recollection of the wine, but given I'd already had four full glasses, that's not terribly surprising.
Dessert course - choice of:
Pineapple mille feuille, chilli, coconut ice cream
Cheese of the day both served with the 2010 Banks Road Dolce Blanc.
JD chose the cheese of the day, which was a large serve of a good french goat's milk blue, from the Pyrenees, if I recall. It came with an assortment of thingies - a fanned pear half, an almost cake-like molasses, poppyseed and walnut bread, some crispy pastry(?) thing, and slow-dried raisins.
I had the pineapple mille feuille, which wasn't terribly successful - four diffent ways with pineapple is just a bit much. The mille feuille was very thin slices of fresh pineapple alternated between quite thick biscuit (think graham crackers, if you're familiar with those), stuck together with a light cream. There were some quite good cubes of gelled pineapple juice (being food techs, we tried to work out the gelling agent, given gelatine doesn't work with pineapple, although a quick google tells me that cooked pineapple juice might). The ice cream was good, if unremarkable, and the whole was sprinkled with little cubes of dried something, possibly apple or pineapple, or who knows. I have no recollection of any chilli in the dish.
In the end, it just didn't really work.
The dessert wine, on the other hand, was good. I don't like the sweet syrupy wines that are usually served as dessert wines, but this had the balance right. Somewhat viscous, but not syrupy; a hint of sweetness, but far from overpowering. A good match for the cheese, but the pineapple needed something with more oomph to counter the, well, pineapple-ness of the whole thing.
With the equivalent of five glasses of wine (probably seven or eight standard drinks) under my belt, plus a hot spa bath after dinner, I'm not remotely surprised that I slept like a log.
THE BREAKFAST
We had to collect the younger boy from his sleepover birthday party at 11am, so we couldn't luxuriate in a long sleep-in. That, and the fact that there were only two English Breakfast teabags supplied in the room, meant we got to breakfast relatively early. We could choose items from the buffet (cereals, juice, lovely breads with a range of toppings, tea and coffee), but for hot foods, we had to choose from the scant a la carte menu. With the salmon option unavailable, I chose scrambled eggs with mushrooms and spinach, and JD had the same, substituting bacon for spinach.
I very rarely send food back, but I should have sent back the spinach - it was far too heavily salted, so as to be almost inedible. The mushrooms were okay, and the eggs a little too firm. JD's bacon was curled into tight scrolls, but well cooked. However, I did get to have three more much-needed cups of tea and a couple of glasses of juice, and a couple of slices of a dense raisin bread.
With three-quarters of an hour before we had to collect Ky, we went for a wander up and down the main drag. Most of the shops were still shut, including all the bookstores (Queenscliff has at least twice as many bookstores as Geelong, which is to say it has four, including a second-hand store.) We wandered out along the pier, before heading back to the car, and back to town.
THE SUMMARY
A pleasant but not spectacular meal, with some very good wines, and a solid night's sleep.
We might return for dinner, but would make that decision after checking the menu online first.
And we're very very picky.
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