"Life can be full of unfilled potential." With expansive windows looking out onto Circular Quay and across Sydney Harbour to the Sydney Harbour Bridge, I can't help but think that Q Dining at the Pullman Hotel is one such example. It's actually my visit that prompted this deep philosophy. Yes, you may quote me.
Dinner at Q Dining was nice. Meaning, the food was nice enough, and the drinks okay. And I was very thankful for a girls' night out, a Christmas catchup with a friend.
The Q Dining menu is as safe as it gets, with some dishes that read well enough to tempt you. And the food is the better 1/3 of the food-beverage-service offering for sure. I chose seafood, scallops on the half shell, Yamba prawn tortellini (the best dish of the night), then dessert of (a perfectly sound) cremè caramel. Both of the savoury dishes were okay, (as I said) nice enough, the flavours good, the pasta itself just about perfect. But our vibrant city of Sydney has lifted its food game, and I can't help thinking (oh no, not that again)...
So let's start at the very beginning. In the hey day of grand hotels (and this location in Sydney certainly invites the Pullman Hotel to be grand) their dining rooms fostered great eating, and gracious manners, even the ideation of new dishes. And their bars, like their restaurants, created new taste sensations.
Elsewhere in this city even without reaching these heights of new creation, some hotels are doing things well.
Now let me take you back to my arrival at this Sydney hotel restaurant. Coming in via Macquarie Street, my entrance down the magnificent sweeping staircase, passing the hotel Hacienda Bar was certainly grand enough. From above, the Pullman Q Dining room looked enticing.
I arrive first, before my friend, and having just passed the hotel bar, once seated I ask for the cocktail list.
"That's the drink list" I am told.
Inside, past the wine but before the beer etcetera, there are 6 cocktails listed.
"That's a bit disappointing, just 6" I reply. There is a hotel bar up only half a level.
The waiter replies they can make me any of the basics. So I asked for a dirty martini, depending on the available gin.
"What gin would you like?" I am asked.
"What gins have you got?"
"I don't know what gins we have..."
"Do you have a gin list?"
Negative, so I ask for my dirty martini with Never Never. About 10 minutes later the waiter comes back and says they don't have it. So I ask her if she has found out what gins they do have. You guessed it. No. So I ask for Four Pillars. By the time she next comes back the clock has hit 1/2 hour since I ordered. She doesn't have a drink for me. She does have a piece of paper and tells me she has written the gins down. For ease, and to ensure I get a drink before I expire, I make the mistake of ordering the gin cocktail from the 6 on the list.
For wine, later I order - from a very safe and uninspired wine list - the only rosè by the glass, which of course sadly is not Australian.
Now for the food. To be honest, the dishes were of the quality I would expect at an average Sydney cafe. Both my dishes were tasty enough, though the scallop plating was a bit clumsy. Both mine arrived at the table (with the scallops and prawn fillings) just a tad overcooked. My friend's trout rillettes were more creamy sauce than substance but pleasant, despite the radish garnish sliced a little more thickly than the current trend to translucency.
Yet, the very biggest improvements that could be made here at Q Dining are to service. Things I excuse in an average cafe, but don't expect in a restaurant include: leaning across people to place or remove plates; asking who ordered what on a table of 2 when bringing food.
Q Dining you can do better.
