Vista Restaurant in Toowoomba

Vista Restaurant
39 Margaret Street, Toowoomba



This post is long overdue because I didn't write it up straight away and Melbourne interfered. I went to Vista a couple of weeks back with my work mates. To avoid the confusion of saying 'one work mate ordered blah and another ordered bleh', I'm taking the initiative to get creative with some aliases.


One I've named Pizza because she makes good pizza. One is Pony because she likes horsies and her boyfriend came up with a rad name for himself, which we've all forgotten so I'm calling him Starfish... for no good reason.

Pizza and I chose the restaurant. We're from Brisbane so we don't need an explanation for how we pick places to eat in Toowoomba... we'll try anything.

Vista is located at what I like to think of as the far end of Margaret Street (of course it depends on where you're coming from). It's part of Comfort Inn and when we parked outside, I was amused to see a tour bus. A tour bus in Toowoomba? Harharhar.

Upon entering the restaurant, we noticed half the tour group tucking into dinner. Honestly, that made up about 90% of the client base. We were definitely in the minority as walk-in diners.


The menu wasn't too bad. I spotted a few things that I wanted and settled with the fish. I pictured Byron's disapproval (apparently every time I order fish, it's a disaster) but disregarded it, as you do.

Lemon lime bitters

We waited quite a long time for the food and a good 40min or so into it, Starfish voiced our concerns and we were told they were busy doing room service meals. No breads were offered and we got real hungry.

Baked barramundi - with king prawns, caper white wine butter sauce and beer-battered chips and garden salad

Finally, the food came. Well the fish was really poor. It was a bit like... shagpile carpet in texture. Dry dry dry. Prawns were boring. Chips on the other hand were SUPER. They had a great crunch and were nicely seasoned.

Mushroom bacon fettuccini carbonara

Pizza picked out the carbonara. It was a large serve with decent amounts of chicken. She said it was good and creamy.

Fillet mignon - premium eye fillet wrapped in bacon, with potato and fresh seasonal vegetables

Pony inquired about the harrisa lamb but the waitstaff warned it might be spicy so she went for the mignon. It was a nice piece of meat with some veggies (boring veggies?) and potato bits.

Pork chop - with potatoes and vegetables

The pork (Starfish's order) looked very similar to the mignon, plating-wise. Similar boring vegetables and similar shape of meat. Starfish said the pork was very tender.

Sticky date pudding

What I really wanted throughout the whole meal was sticky date pudding. I spied some of the oldies from the tour group eating sticky date. Then, I couldn't find it in the dessert menu. Panic ensued until the waitstaff reassured me that there was still some left. Phew.

Chocolate mudcake

Pony and Starfish ordered the chocolate mudcake.

The desserts were actually pretty good. Nice for the kind of weather we were having at the time. Gooey, warm with sticky sweet sauces and ice-cream.

I won't pretend Vista was a glamorous restaurant. The atmosphere was casual and 'safe' to be polite, but what it really felt like was a quiet RSL cross nursing home. The food was homely and my horrible fish was made up for by a sticky date that really hit the spot.