Garnish Bistro

Garnish Bistro
http://www.garnishbistro.com/



I have a special short list of restaurants that NEED to be attended to before I leave for Toowoomba. We decided on Garnish for today and drove out to Kangaroo Point in the rain to see what they were all about.



The Garnish Bistro website is put together with some cheesy graphics and a retirement village color scheme (sorry web design team!) so I expected it to be, well, amateurish... but when I saw the actual restaurant, I was pleasantly surprised.


There's a nice outdoor dining area that would be beautiful on a sunny day. The inside of the restaurant is very classy without the snooty fine-dining atmosphere. I even spotted a little isolated wine room that would be great for a function.


Our waiter brought us the menu and introduced the special of the day, which was sword fish. We ordered drinks first. As for food, I knew from looking at the menu online that I wanted the pork belly roll. Hien went with the special.

Chai latte

I had chosen a chai latte because of the cold, rainy weather. It was spicy, sweet and aromatic, with a great foam. I thought it was a bit too sweet towards the end though.

Peppermint tea

Hien ordered a peppermint tea, which is boring for me because I have nothing to write about it.

Pork Belly Roll “The Bavarian” - sticky roasted pork belly served on a ciabatta roll with pommery mustard, rocket and pickles, kipfler potato wedges

The food arrived fairly quickly. I got really excited about the pork roll because the idea of a sandwich at a nice restaurant just sounds GOOD to me. They also had a $15 ham and cheese sandwich and I was tempted to order that just to see how good a ham and cheese sandwich can get. My roll was everything I wanted... it was large with a soft, floury bun, beautifully roast pork, crunchy crackling skin, peppery rocket, pickles and wholegrain mustard.

Close-up of pork roll

The crackling was what made it extra special. I was so preoccupied with the pork roll I nearly forgot about the wedges. They were great too, very much just home-style chips made of cut potato without any frills. Simple as that sounds, I've tried it at home and mine were nowhere near this nice. The wedges went great with the salsa.

Pan-fried sword fish - with pickled cucumber and prawn salad

Hien's sword fish was in my opinion, VERY BIG. The fish itself tasted 'nice' but didn't stand out to me. The prawn salad was small but the prawns were very fresh and I liked the light fennel salad. This was a great, healthy, Summery dish.

I really liked Garnish Bistro. We had a nice waiter and the restaurant itself just feels relaxed and refined at the same time. The pork roll was fabulous and I can imagine ordering that regularly and not getting sick of it.