Melbourne Cup Lunch at Gowings Bar and Grill!

I cannot begin to describe my excitement when I found out that we were heading to Gowings Bar and Grill for Melbourne Cup! Firstly, it was my first ever Melbourne Cup celebration - due to the bittersweet fact that my exams have not even started yet! and IT WAS AT GOWINGS BAR AND GRILL!!!!!

When you arrive in the hotel you are whisked up to the restaurant by the VERY attentive staff. The lifts have sensors that change music depending on the "crowd," I was soon reminded I was alone when the lift started serenading me with a rendition of "All by myself." Luckily I met up with my friends upon exit to alay that creeping feeling of utter uselessness... you know this one:

After a short tour of the facilities we entered the Gowings Bar and Grill. We started our lunch with some exquisite bubbles and a selection of entrees. Actually, we had all the starters! My favourite by faaar was the House Made Ocean Trout Gravlax Tartare. It was delightfully fresh with the surprising pops of Trout Roe in every mouthful! The Steak Tartare Pasture Fed Ox/Beef was a close second - it was just soooo morish! Although not a starter per se you are offered bread and butter, which I know is a rookie's trap but I love bread so I fall for it every time... anyway side track the butter was actually amazeballs. I mean really it was like cheesy or something, moral of the story it deserves an honorable mention and a picture!

For my main I chose to have something off the grill, partly to be healthy and partly because the waitress recommended it. The meat was lovely and tender and cooked perfectly. As with all more, how shall we say, fine dining(?) restaurants they tend to cook meat a lot pinker than we do at home so I asked for medium which came out to be what I would consider medium-rare, which was exactly what I wanted. The steak itself is served quite bare with cheesy onions (amazing! just don't bank on picking up later on) and condiments such as mustard etc. I paired it with a hand full of shoe string fries, wilted spinach, and the Iceberg, Red Peppers, Ortiz Anchovy, Seeded Mustard Dressing side salad.

I could eat that salad forever! It was fantasticly sour and generally delicious BUT if you don't like anchovies, don't even go there as they provide a fair chunk of the flavour.

Steak with the sides - yummay yummay

Finally we shared a number of desserts. As I'm not a huge sweet eater I settled to taste just one. The German Doughnuts. To be frank you could give me a piping hot cinnamon Dunkin' Donut on a plate and I will cry tears of joy so I was pretty chuffed with this dessert. It looked rustic, home made and most importantly had a the crispy edges. The only thing I missed was a glass of milk for dunking!

Gowings Bar and Grill is lovely but it is not a cheap place you are looking at spending upwards of $51 per person for two courses plus drinks. They also have an extremely limited number of vegetarian options, especially for those of you that don't eat creatures of the sea (although, I'm sure if you called in advance you could get something sorted). 
 
Overall it was a lovely experience. I enjoyed the atmosphere, the decor, and the food. If I could go again I would, but I would order something I couldn't make with ease... The Beef Bouginion! My dinning neighbour gave me a mouthful of hers and tell you me I will be packing away those pennies to try the whole dish! Yummy!

Oh and as you may expect the whole excitement of the Melbourne Cup led to some photos being less than amazing quality but I hope you can still see all the deliciousness!

Happy Eating xx

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