A 'real' chef

At the top of the main drag in Port Douglas, just as you come into town is Zinc - where we had dinner last night. So here goes for another boring restaurant review.

I have no idea why it is called Zinc. Their website does tell you about the owners and the chef, but it doesn't explain the name. The current owners - a young couple - he's almost ten years younger than my older son - met at this very restaurant according to the website blurb. He and the chef are New Zealanders with broad experience in the restaurant game. The owner's wife is a chef herself, but I do not know whether she cooks in the kitchen at all. She wasn't there last night, though her husband was certainly doing the meet and greet thing.

I had booked and we had a lovely table outside on the terrace, and we were served by a very friendly French waitress called Anaïs, which, of course pleased David enormously.

My lovely husband was so encouraged that he bought me a glass of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc, which, alas you cannot see in this photograph.

And there were things other than fish and shellfish to choose from, and so he had a ragù of beef cheek and pappardelle, and I had pulled slow-cooked shoulder of lamb with rosemary gnocchi. We shared them because they were both really, really nice. Food from 'un vrai chef', not just a cook. Both dishes were rich and I suppose, in some ways similar, but not really. The taste was quite different. The servings were generous but not humungous. Just the right amount really.

So we decided to share a dessert - we still had room - and this is what we had. It was simply called banana cannoli - with the description:

"textures of banana, ice cream, chocolate cashews, praline". Yum.

Medium priced I suppose, very, very tasty, lovely environment. If I have any complaint at all it's that the service is so efficient that we were out of there within an hour or so. Not that we felt we were being rushed, but sometimes it's nice to wait a bit for your meal. So it was back to the hotel to watch an old old episode of Foyle's War. How daggy is that?!

Possibly the best meal we have had here - though I remember my fish and chips at the Yacht Club rather fondly. In all honesty though the fish and chips were not as classy as what we ate at Zinc.

We have been really, really, lazy this week. I have done a daily walk around the beautiful grounds, but otherwise we have just sat around the pool, reading books and doing other time-wasting things. Lazy, lazy, lazy. Perhaps we needed this. It certainly is very relaxing but next time I think I really should work hard to find some kind of luxurious and lazy tour to somewhere interesting.