{"id":4851,"date":"2011-04-30T10:13:57","date_gmt":"2011-04-30T00:13:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=4851"},"modified":"2014-05-10T12:19:22","modified_gmt":"2014-05-10T02:19:22","slug":"restaurant-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=4851","title":{"rendered":"Restaurant II"},"content":{"rendered":"

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As a special treat to ourselves while we’ve been holidaying over Easter Break, Jen and I decided to hit up Restaurant II in the city for their degustation.\u00a0 They recently refurbished their building and the restaurant came highly recommended in the Queensland Food and Wine Guide, earning two stars.<\/p>\n

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Sour dough loaf, Prosciutto, Beetroot<\/p><\/div>\n

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Asparagus Soup, Roasted Veal Sweetbreads, Confit Chicken Wings, Hazelnut Cream<\/p><\/div>\n

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Tempura Soft Shell Crab, Lime and Sesame Mayonnaise, Crushed Avocado, Heritage Tomatoes<\/p><\/div>\n

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Pan Fried Potato Gnocchi, King Prawns, Cominya Olive and Red Pepper Salsa, Garlic Butter<\/p><\/div>\n

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Moussaka of Eggplant and Seared Scallops, Taramasalata, Soft Herb Salad, Crisp Onion, Smoked Tomato Butter<\/p><\/div>\n

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Grilled Rannoch Farm Quail, Moroccan Spices, Organic Carrot Puree, Mougrabieh, Labna, Burnt Orange Butter<\/p><\/div>\n

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Pan Roasted Corn Fed Duck Breast, Sweet Potato, Braised Green Lentils, Spicy Date Puree Citrus Jus<\/p><\/div>\n

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Roast Best End of Milly Hill Lamb and Four Hour Braised Shank with Eggplant Confit, Celeriac, Parsnip and Garlic Crumble, Garlic Jus<\/p><\/div>\n

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Pecorino De Vino (It) Bouche d\u2019affinois (Fr)<\/p><\/div>\n

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Fnq Banana Cheesecake, Banana Cream, Rye Bread Ice Cream<\/p><\/div>\n

Our verdict?\u00a0 It was a bit of a mixed bag to be honest.\u00a0 I felt that the portion sizes were way, way too big.\u00a0 You’re supposed to be enjoying this food, not struggling to fit it in and the size of the roast lamb course was ridiculous for a nine course meal.\u00a0 Also, the duck wasn’t really up to scratch and was a tad chewy for my liking.\u00a0 Lastly, most of the courses didn’t really have much finesse behind their presentation.<\/p>\n

On the plus side, I like the creativity with the courses.\u00a0 I’ve never had a banana cheesecake or tempura in a degustation before and both courses were excellent.\u00a0 The asparagus soup starter was also delicious.\u00a0 Best of all, the sommelier for the night was excellent.\u00a0 He was knowledgable, conversational and very friendly.\u00a0 His selection of wines really complimented the meals nicely and he was happy to take my questions.<\/p>\n

I think Jen and I agreed that there was plenty of good stuff on offer here but it doesn’t hold a candle to Tetsuyas<\/a>, Maze<\/a> or Buffalo Club<\/a> as far as Australian degustation dinners go.\u00a0 Probably more on par with Aria<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a special treat to ourselves while we’ve been holidaying over Easter Break, Jen and I decided to hit up Restaurant II in the city for their degustation.\u00a0 They recently refurbished their building and the restaurant came highly recommended in the Queensland Food and Wine Guide, earning two stars. Our verdict?\u00a0 It was a bit …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":4857,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[106,15,415],"tags":[375,881],"class_list":["post-4851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-blog","category-food-and-drink","tag-degustation","tag-restaurant-ii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4851"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14570,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4851\/revisions\/14570"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}