Based on positive reviews seen here I managed to peel the kids off the computers this morning and load them along with my significant other into the car and head on up to the Grand Hotel in Mount Morgan.
We had a little trouble working out which entrance to use as we were looking for a blackboard or something with specials on or maybe a sign along the lines of, “Hey stupid, there’s food inside this door”.
No biggie though, as we soon located the entrance to the restaurant and went inside and found a table. The table had an upright menu offering pizzas and a few other items but after looking around we spotted a menu on an adjacent table that seemed to be the full faire so we nicked it.
Now, being the caring parent that I am the first thing I noticed was that there was no kids’ meal section on the menu. Not a huge issue I thought, the meals were fairly priced and guess who gets leftovers anyway? đŸ™‚
Once we interrogated the kids and forced a decision out of them we went up to the ordering area and discovered that there was a full menu displayed there, with kids meals. My wife quickly scaled down one of the kids’ meals in size and I felt a brief moment of sadness.
Our lunches arrived in only 10 minutes or so. Possibly 5 minutes either side to be honest as one of my kids was informing me about his latest Minecraft activities which involved blowing up some chickens or thereabouts. Either way my beer hadn’t run out so it was fast enough.
I had the chicken parmie which was served with a good amount of chips and a nice salad. I would say it was a generous serving without being the ridiculous proportions that these things sometimes arrive in.
The other half had the Reef and Beef which looked spectacular and she was extremely happy with. The prawns and calamari were plentiful. The steak was probably a little over the requested medium although the overall was an emphatic thumbs up. For the $20 it must represent the most astounding value of any meal in CQ that I’ve seen.
My daughter had the twice-cooked pork belly and it was served on a nice bed of vegetables – and what I think were cranberries. It was just spectacular in my view. One comment from her was that the crackling was a little burnt although to put this in total perspective this kid thinks that browned toast is burnt. Indeed there were some blackish areas but I can’t imagine any carnivore passing it up nonetheless.
The younger boy orders a plain and vanilla fish and chips and I didn’t try any but it looked pretty good and zero complaints could be heard (and he’s a fussy eater, so hearing nothing is like hearing THS IS THE BEST EVER). A lot of establishments basically treat kids’ meals like crap, although this appeared to be something I would have been very happy with myself so kudos there guys.
Overall we were all happy with the experience and will go back. My wife (who is not a foodie, but does know what she doesn’t like) is not easily impressed is already planning what to have next time. Possibly this was aided by one of the chefs coming out and mentioning his deep fried chocolate which is new to the menu.
I think all meals and a round of drinks were around $60 which is less than a trip to Sizzler or a couple of pizzas.
TL;DR Pretty darn impressed – I suggest you go for a drive up and try it out.
Note: I originally posted this review on the Rockhampton Food Rater Facebook page on August 16, 2014.