Peter Doyle @ The Quay, @ Overseas Passenger Terminal

First things first, Peter Doyle @ The Quay is not to be confused with Quay. Peter Doyle @ The Quay (The Quay for short) is a restaurant by Peter Doyle, as Quay is by Peter Gilmore. The reason why a lot of people may get confused is due to the fact they are both at the Overseas Passenger Terminal. Moving on..

The dining experience took place on a beautiful Autumns day, where the skies were clear. The reason why the weather is such a big deal, is due to the view from The Quay. If you are dining inside, you have a great view of the Sydney Opera House, and if you are dining outside, you can enjoy the view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge as well. It is in prime location for some of Sydney's best views of the harbour with delightful food. The lunch menu was pre-set, from a travelzoo voucher.

On arrival we received a glass of Marquis de la Tour (French sparkling wine) and marinated olives. On a side note, I find it weird when you are given forks to eat olives, especially when they still contain the seed. You can't pick up the olive without causing some to fly out of the bowl, or just not being able to grab it all.

Confit of ocean trout, wasabi cream and salmon pearls, served with spiced soba 

noodle salad and shitake mushroom & radish

What a dish! A great combination of flavours. The trout was nice and fresh, and didn't have a fishy smell or taste to it. The wasabi cream was even better, especially with the trout, I wish there was more of it on the dish. The down side of the dish was the noodles, I was expecting spicy, but I found it more on the sweet side of things. But, the mushrooms and the sauce made up for it. The mushrooms were perfectly cooked and the brown sauce complemented them very well.

Half lobster thermidor in a brandy cream sauce, with mushroom and parmesan gratin,

served with potatoes and roasted vegetable timbale

Scotch fillet or lobster were the 2 possible mains, but my friend and I both chose the lobster, because no one says no to lobster right? The texture lobster was rather rubbery and the parmesan was overpowering, to the point when there was minimal of the lobster. It was still edible though, just a bit too cheesy The  timbale on the other hand was delectable. Encased within the eggplant were perfectly diced and cooked potatoes, tomatoes, onions and eggplant. The tomatoes created a burst of flavour within, it was a great side.

Chocolate mousse cake with passion fruit foam

The other choice of dessert was a cheese platter type dish, but we both have a sweet tooth so we chose the same dessert. We were both expecting a dish with a little slice of cake a pile of passion fruit foam. To our surprise, 2 slices of cake were displayed on each dish. The cake itself had something crunchy on top that was combined with the chocolate topping. The base was a normal chocolate cake. The passion fruit foam was addicting, I could eat a bowl of it with anything. All went well together, the passion fruit helped the sweetness of the chocolate.

The overall dining experience was wonderful. The service was a bit weird, where we constantly had different waiter/waitresses throughout the whole time. The view has got to be one of the best things at The Quay.

Good food, good times!