Celebration at Quay Restaurant for my dad!

We were very excited today when my dad received his OAM at Government House. Go Dad!!

Afterwards we had a celebratory lunch at Quay Restaurant. In case you have been living under a rock, it is now the best restaurant in Australia and number 27 in the world!! Fancy...and a great view! I have to say, the hype is all completely justified. We had such an amazing lunch and it's definitely a perfect place for a celebration.

When we arrived we were given a little taster dish of some salmon sashimi and horseradish cream, with micro greens on top.

mmm delicious. We then moved on to the entrees. To tell you a bit about Quay, they are really into heirloom and rare plants and animals with the idea that you can protect them by growing and eating them. There are lots of organic food and the flavours are amazing.

Sarah and I had the heirloom tomato and goats curd salad. Looks too good to eat really. They are really into micro veg/salad and edible flowers, also this had some roasted quinoa. Amazing.

Everyone else had the sea pearls, and really this is just artistry on the plate! It's all different types of sashimi, one of them is a jelly and you just have to wonder how they do it! Apparently it was delicious but no-one offered me a taste so I can't confirm...

For the mains Chris and I had the mulloway roasted with baby leeks, currants, flowers and a whole bunch of other stuff. It was beautiful. I haven't eaten many flowers before, they add such a great flavour to the meal. Although I don't think I am going to be out in the garden picking flowers for my evening meal, I think you have to make sure they are eating ones :)

Cathy, Mum and Sarah had the lamb, which they were all raving about. It has little baby onions and quinoa, sunflowers and hazelnuts.

Dad had the angus beef with spinach and wasabi butter. Apparently the meat was like butter. Looks amazing!

I left all the bits I didn't like!

For dessert Sarah and I had the 8-texture chocolate cake. The 8th texture was ganache which was poured on at the table for a bit of theatrics. This cake was seriously amazing. It had some sponge cake, some other cake with nuts in it, some different types of mousse, and I'm sure a whole bunch of other stuff. I am ashamed to say I couldn't finish it but Chris nobly stepped in to finish it off for me!! I can't say enough how good this cake was.

Chris had the snow egg. It's a meringe that's filled with ice cream, on top of some ice stuff with custard apple and something. Apparently the chef's signature dessert. Chris seemed happy!

Everyone else had the Fraises des bois, berries with strawberry & cream jelly, Edible silver, and maybe some berry ice cream? I don't know they didn't offer me a bite :(

We had some nice wines with the meal as well.

Verdict: Yep it was pretty good. I'm happy with the rating as best restaurant in Australia! I thought it was also excellent value, of course it was expensive but not as much as you might think for lunch and really you wouldn't be coming here for a bargain meal.

Congratulations again Dad!! I wish we had reasons to celebrate at Quay Restaurant more often!