From Jellyfish to Junction

On Tuesday I went to Jellyfish for dinner.

I still get a little anxious going into some places without a booking. Even if no one else is there, as it turns out. I am always afraid they will turn me away, but they never do.

Jellyfish was pretty good. The staff were friendly. Their advice on the dishes was good. The place is pretty lovely itself. When I got there I had the place all to myself, and chose to sit near the boardwalk on the river.

I skimmed through the menu and found my benchmark. For those who don’t know, this is duck. I have had duck every restaurant I have been in, when I can. Then I couldn’t decide on the entree. Luckily, the waiter was genuinely helpful on this front and suggested the scallops, as opposed to the prawn ceviche.

The scallops were okay, the sauce was nice but the scallops didn’t melt in my mouth (GOMA has now become my pinnacle of scallopy goodness, did I mention the scallop dish I had just before Christmas? It was incredible…ahem). I did make the mistake of thinking that the duck probably wasn’t going to be amazing either.

This was a mistake.

The smoked duck was incredible. The flavours were amazing. I was so tempted to order a second dish, but I didn’t. There was not much more to say about this, the smoke and the duck flavours danced so well on my tongue I didn’t want them to stop. I briefly forgot about people watching on the boardwalk and just melted into the dish. It was very good.

The people were entertaining to watch, mainly bike riders getting angry at people who were clearly not walking fast enough for them.

Dessert was a “share platter”. The dessert was good, three uniquely flavoured things on a plate that I would have only shared with someone that I was being intimate with. Maybe. There was a hazelnut coffee ice cream type dessert, coconut cream and blueberry dessert and another more tart coconut one.

I went to look at the dessert menu to refresh my mind but the one online is a little different to the one I saw. Oh well.

All three were pretty good, my favourite was one that came in a glass and had blueberries, coconut ice cream, and short bread, as well as berries garnishing it. All of them were good in their own right, but this was my favourite. This was also more than about three or four bites, like the other two were. As this was a share platter I suspect there may have been more to the desserts when had on their own.

I will find out one day as I am planning on heading back. I want to try the fish, which is what they have a reputation for.

Now to the Junction. While technically this is about The Junction hotel in Annerley, this is also a little shout out to all of the hotels out there and their food.

On Saturday night I got a seafood platter from The Junction hotel. This is a pretty good dish. A Morton Bay bug, some fish, calamari and a few other things.

Even though about half of it was deep fried it wasn’t that oily. The whole thing was really nice, garnish included. To top it off, their cheesy garlic bread is really tasty, in that probably no good bits way. Really tasty.

I have been to only a handful of pubs and RSL’s, bu the choice of food has been pretty good. From ribs to one kilo schnitzels. Thank you to everyone who puts in the effort to make these great.

Eat well all.

 

That thank you goes to all the chef’s and waitstaff of everywhere I have eaten at.