| Address: | 3435 Channel Hwy, Woodbridge |
| Phone No: | 03 6267 4088 |
| Web Site: | |
| Description: | Modern Australian |
| Comment: | Great food, great premises, great country drive. Go there! |
| Rita Rating: | **** |
Peppermint Bay Website(added 1-1-2007)
Menulog Restaurant Guide for Peppermint Bay Restaurant(added 2-1-2007)
Eating Tassie Website Forum - Pepperming Bay(added 4-1-2007)
Peppermint Bay (Rita Blog)(added 23-3-2007)
Snippets (Rita Blog)(added 9-12-2007)
Lunch at PB (Rita Blog)(added 16-6-2008)
PB has a new bar menu (Rita Blog)(added 23-10-2008)
Peppermint Bay 2011(added 18-10-2011)
Posts
17 comments:
We enjoyed a casual lunch here a couple of weeks ago. A glorious day,outdoor dining, a light lunch of dips, pickled vegies, flat bread, chips and a great salad was just what we were looking for. Washed down with a pint for Hubby and a glass of red for me. Perfection.
This item extracted from The Gobbler’s blog sound-bites
Expect a new menu in early May from the newly appointed chef, Dave Martin at Peppermint Bay. By all accounts word is out that he intends to re-forge a new connection to the many suppliers in the area to invest his menus with a regional focus. It would be good if they updated their website now & again.
On service staff, the human light-bulb, who lights up every room, Atty Heale from Peppermint Bay, deserves one of Rita’s service gongs. She’s unique, one of a kind & exceptional. She would be amongst my best & brightest if we ever had a 20/20 food summit here!
Peppermint Bay has appointed David Martin, ex-Voyager at Dunk Island, as the new executive chef, with a new local bar menu up and running and weekend breakfasts starting this Saturday.
Yesterday I thought (day off) it would be a nice thing to take my Mummy to Fleurty’s (just past the lovely sheeps cheese tasting place Grandvewe)… it was (as your blog I think alerted us to), closed till August….. so swung around and headed back to “lovely sheep place” to see if they served lunch… bip bir….No. finally made the decision to hit Peppermint Bay.
Ambience = Lovely… sat down, both ordered the vegetable soup….. tic tic tic…. Finally arrived…… cold……. Had to kindly ask them to re-heat it….. returned piping hot and……. well…. I’m not a complainer but we both disliked it enormously, hence didn’t even get half way through it, I felt too embarrassed to tell them and considering they didn’t ask why we had not eaten it, didn’t bother with explainations. Then, Mumsee ordered us a coffee….. Being lactose intolerant she ordered me a Soy latte (and stated the reasons why they should make sure its soy)….. Coffee arrives…… took two mouthfuls of the fluff and said I think this is real milk…… again, motioned the waiter and asked…. He returned saying he’s very sorry but indeed it was skim milk…….. THEN he returned with my SOY latte and (nice gesture and all) with a CHOCOLATE (lactose laden) FUDGE bar to apologise…… How funny is that!!!! Very kind gesture, but WOW…. !!
Finally got a table at PBay after two unsuccessful attempts (mother’s day was probably not the smartest idea). Took the cruise option with interstate guests and just loved it from the cruise to the food. The set menu is a bit of a tease, will have to go again and select from the A’la Carte menu. This would be a good place on a nice summers day, on an outside table with terific views of the water.
Hi Rita
Based on your reviews, my wife, 9 year old son and I visited Peppermint Bay for Lunch on Saturday. One word “awesome”. Agree with you about the location and views “wow”
Saw and experienced the new bar menu. Hand written??, haven’t seen this before (looked really contemporary and earthy), loved it. As you mentioned it read really well and I found myself pondering over the choice. Noticed there was some kind of function going on in the lower area and the bar was packed with diners so was a little nervous about ordering expecting a wait. (Didn’t need to worry)
My curiosity got the best of me from your before mentioned comments and I ended up ordering the seared tuna salad. I must respectfully disagree with your review however, it was exactly as written. Great fresh lightly seared tuna. I asked my waiter and it was blue fin sushi grade, uncomplicated simple flavours, crisp and delightful. My wife ordered the vegetable kebabs being a vegetarian and “WOW” sensational. I counted five beans in the salad mix using fresh broad and green beans, big char grilled chunks of fresh vegetables on steel skewers finished with an almond skordallia and fresh herbs. Lovely. They also had a sperate gluten free menu.
Much to my delight when my son was ordering I was informed that “all kids 12 and under dine free of the kids menu” no catch? Haven’t seen this before in Hobart , especially with no real conditions to speak of, cant really remember what they were but didn’t pay for his meal of fresh fish and chips (Blue Eye I think).
Pricing was good I thought, a good mix, yes there was a $40 rib eye as mentioned but also a $22 porterhouse and two other steaks both cheaper then the rib eye to choose from. If you wanted to splash out on an aged quality cut of meat you could or if on a budget the porterhouse looked good.
Anyway, I will be back to PB.
Love your work Rita.
Phil and I dined in the Terrace Bar on Saturday for lunch and it was pretty wonderful.
Phil enjoyed immensely his Beef Burger with pretty much everything and the most wonderful tomato chutney. So good we went to the providore and took some home with us.
I adored my Duck Ragout with pasta and aged pecorino. Absolutely fantastic.
Service was excellent.
Purchased a voucher for Mothers Day while we were there. Hope Mum enjoys as much as we did.
Had lunch in the "Bar Bistro" yesterday and have to say I think the place has gone off a bit. Salt and Pepper Squid Entre worked out at $2 per 4cm piece of squid and it wasn't patch on the same dish served at the Oyster Cove Inn just up the road. Pizza was a bit of a soggy affair and the whole place is starting to look jaded.
Sorry - but we were VERY disappointed with the food here - the entrees were fine, but the mains - in a word 'awful'.
- the chicken was the driest I have ever tasted, and the steak was cooked in a similar way - so much for 'rare'!
- we complained and were given a voucher for a free meal, which was nice, but we never bothered using it.
You've dug yourself a hole there... A few people on here think PB is one of the best restaurants in the country. Your not gonna be a popular boy/girl now...
I'm with you btw.
+1 on the above! this wil be interesting. lol!
p.b.= epic fail
Hi last 3 Anons. It's totally fine to have a different opinion and point of view to others, and particularly me. There is no way all of us will ever be in total agreement over food of any kind, let alone a restaurant.
I'm sorry you have had bad experiences at PB. I have had some wonderful meals there, and some really ordinary ones, over the years.
Paul Foreman (Head Chef at PB) has a track record and name for fine food. You would expect no less from him than to want to produce the kind of food he is comfortable with, and that he has made his name producing.
He appears to be having an uphill battle (if you're to believe comments on this blog) with that at the moment, but he is trying.
Anon 9.35's experience sounds like it was a time ago, not recently.
No one doubts he is trying. I think a lot of people think the hype and reputation that he has received as well his past performances are now outweighing what food he is actually doing.
For myself, I feel that some of his food is rehashed and that it is a bit complacent. I know he can do great things, having experienced them myself, but I feel that some items are just a bit - pretentious for want of a better word? I've had a look at his menu and I've got some examples
* foaming anchovy butter - if it's what I think it is, it's just putting butter in a pan like you normally would and getting it to the foam stage. Why say that it's foaming? Is it actually foaming and bubbling away when it comes out? Or is it still. Maybe it's a chemically enhanced butter. Which is concerning if so.
* Medium roasted - I've seen the pictures - if you can't cook a steak medium every single time, don't say how it will be cooked. This may actually be a technique/quality of staff issue.
* The legendary brick. I'm also in the 'it's just a piece of pork belly' book. But it's not really a problem
* The carpaccio. I've eaten this and it was pretentious and totally unbalanced. Seemed to me the chef lost his creativity and needs to change a classic in carpaccio to massage the ego or appease the fans/critics/management/kitchen staff.
I'm just upset that it seems a good chef has lost it a bit. I'm not sure that he is comfortable in a new setting and want's to prove a point or to live up to all the hype. It was big news when he left MIV and joined PB and A LOT of people are/were expecting big things.
That sounds about right. The last paragraph especially.
I'm on record on this blog as not being a raving fan of Paul Foreman's - always got on well with him, just never really been amazed by his food.
Anyway - I went down for dinner with my family (locals so the first to complain about 'change' and this 'fancy new chef'!) on a Saturday night a month ago.
We ate:
*Pumpkin sage, cashews & cream risotto - fantastic, best risotto I've had in a while.
*Panzanella Salad - beautiful fresh crispy yummy pancetta, iceberg lettuce (bring it back I say!), and a fantastically sharp vinaigrette, and a massive serving
*The burgers burger - didn't try this, but my dad and brother were both impressed
*laksa - OMG awesome, heaps of clearly fresh local seafood, and a complex layer of flavours and heady aromatic smells...mmmmmmmm
Great meal, great price! Service...bit lacking, the new manager was wandering around, and after they quickly set up our table (we were in the local bar area and there were 8 of us) and had sat us down, she came over and condescendingly told us "Now I'll just need to get you all to shift along slightly because we'll need access to the tables behind you and your table is currently blocking it ok? *fake smile*" Fine. No worries. Don't talk to us like we're 12 years old though. And apologise for your staff not having set the table up properly in the first place.
So - good food, I enjoyed it, I'll go back as Mum and Dad live in Woodbridge, but I don't think that the whole package is there to tempt me to drive down of my own accord.
Thought you might appreciate a post that is a little more than anonymous ambiguous vitriol :)
So who's replacing the Foreman already?
Pleasant lunch today in the bar. Excellent Spring Bay mussels with white wine and fennel plus your basic fish and chips. Worth a visit.
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