Regatta Hotel St Cafe –Loca­tion is everything!

The newly ren­o­vated St Café, ground level of the Regatta Hotel, is in a prime loca­tion right on the cor­ner of Coro­na­tion Drive and Syl­van Road.  It’s also directly across the street from the bike path on the Bris­bane River.  After being dam­aged in the Jan­u­ary 2011 flood, it has now been recently opened again and ready for business.

The Bris­bane Bites team met on a Sat­ur­day morn­ing (May 26).  The décor was quaint and suit­ably styled for the look and age of the hotel.  With its check­ered black and white floors and white wrought iron patio fence, it cer­tainly had the charm of a time long ago. The indoor sec­tion had dark, hard­wood floors and a mod­ern mix of tables and chairs along­side low tables with comfy chairs.

Acces­si­bil­ity wise, there is an awk­ward slight ramp step used to get to the patio, from the side­walk, and the inside from the patio. Be care­ful, it is a poten­tial trip­ping haz­ard as we observed a few other patrons hav­ing the same problem.

As it was a beau­ti­ful day, we chose to sit out­side.  While try­ing to fig­ure out if it was bar ser­vice, a wait­ress appeared with menus.  Look­ing over the selec­tion and prices, we found the items were a bit lim­it­ing with­out a lot of options to accom­mo­date those with dietary restric­tions.  The prices seemed to be a bit higher than I was hop­ing to pay, but still within rea­son to other trendy establishments.

What we had

Skinny Latte ($3.50) & Long Black ($3.50)

The cof­fees arrived first and we noted that the cof­fee was Gian­carlo by Grinders.  My long black had a nice smooth taste with no after bite or bit­ter­ness.  The latte also had a nice flavour but had too much foam on the top.

Mush­room, Tomato and Shal­lot Omelette with sour­dough toast ($15.50).

The fill­ings had been folded into the omelette so you could see their thin layer.  With­out any cheese or herbs, this omelette was taste­less.  Also, the rocket on the side seemed wilted. Addi­tion­ally, since sour­dough was per­son­ally unde­sired, and the wait­ress had no alter­na­tive for me, I asked for the dish with­out the bread.  (The smart thing for the restau­rant to do at this point was to offer me a cou­ple of dol­lars off my meal.  Not sur­pris­ingly, this didn’t hap­pen). For $15.50 this was dis­ap­point­ing and unfor­tu­nately I was still hungry.

Tas­man­ian Smoked Trout with hol­landaise sauce ($17.50)

The smoked trout was fresh and had a nice flavour but had been masked by the strong Hol­landaise sauce it was topped with. Turns out that the chef had put (an extreme amount of) lemon in it, which we all thought was a strange idea, result­ing in very sour hol­landaise sauce. The wait­ress asked my friend if he’d like them to make him another but he declined.  It’s an awk­ward sit­u­a­tion when you’re the only one at the table with­out food.  Scrap­ing as much of the Hol­landaise sauce off as he could, he man­aged to eat the trout which came with soft poached eggs on an Eng­lish muf­fin.  “Tasty but not spec­tac­u­lar” were his thoughts.

Two eggs with bacon, toma­toes and sour­dough bread ($11.50).

The two eggs had been asked to be poached, which were alright but bland.  The bacon was still quite fatty so our friend ended up cut­ting a lot of that off.  Also served with toma­toes and sour­dough bread, this meal was again noted to be “just standard”.

What we thought

When our meals arrived, we were all a bit dis­ap­pointed by how small they looked, espe­cially for the amount we paid.  The next dis­ap­point­ing thing for me was how bland my omelette was.

We also thought of the level of ser­vice to be aver­age or stan­dard, but not spec­tac­u­lar.  We left St Café dis­ap­pointed over the food, but we all agreed that the loca­tion was fan­tas­tic and in a per­fect location.

I would rec­om­mend that the restau­rant tweak their menu and try to make things a bit more excit­ing.  In that this is unlikely to hap­pen, I would sug­gest eat­ing at home first then relax­ing on their patio with a coffee!

Author: S. Boul­ton
Pho­tog­ra­phy: Ken­neth Au

View Larger Map

The details

The Street Cafe — Regatta Hotel
543 Coro­na­tion rd, Toowong, Bris­bane
PH: 3871 9520
W: www.regattahotel.com.au