Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Noosa Break 1 - Lunch at iS Tapas Bar

iS Tapas Bar at Peregian Beachhttp://www.istapas.com.au/peregian-beach-menu/



As mentioned on my DePascale post, I made the most of a lucky 4 day long weekend by hiring a beach house in Noosa recently. We stayed at Castaway Beach and spent relaxed mornings strolling along the dog-friendly surf and soaking up much needed sun. We were with a group of friends and at night, we drank and ate at the house but during the day, we ventured out to nearby coastal hubs for food.



On the Saturday of our stay, we decided to grab lunch at Peregian Beach. I wouldn't say there were many options within walking distance of our parking spot and one restaurant that Garthritis recognized from Tripadvisor was way beyond budget for us. We ended up stopping at iS Tapas Bar, which I kept thinking was called Hashtag Burger because of its signage and extensive burger menu. That's not what it's called.

Most of us at the group ordered burgers and sides. I also had a glass of house white wine and Jenny, the chocolate milkshake.

Chocolate milkshake

We were all a bit appalled by how small the milkshake was. Barely half the metal canister was filled. Aren't they normally served in glasses with the excess given to you in the canister? I thought milkshakes were all about decadence. She commented that it was very chocolatey, in that she could really taste the chocolate syrup used. It was a bit too sweet too. At $7, for such a small volume, it was far from good value.

Our food took a long, long time to come. It got to the point where I caught myself making bland jokes about how they must have had to bake the bread from scratch out the back.


Steamed dumplings

Garthritis had also ordered some dumplings, and these came first. He demolished them within a couple of minutes and we were back to sitting and twiddling our thumbs, waiting for food.

Wagyu beef (left) and regular beef (right)

Finally, our sides were brought out followed by the burgers themselves. Marc and I had some onion rings and sweet potato fries to share. He ordered the wagyu beef and I chose the lamb kofta.

Hoisin chicken burger

Jenny's pick was the regular beef burger whilst Garthritis went for chicken and Knobles picked wagyu as well. Marc mentioned that Jenny's burger looked better than his, even though it had a more basic menu description.


Onion rings and sweet potato fries

I'll comment about the sides first because there was a distinct lack of dipping sauce. I think that sweet potato fries should never, ever be served without aioli. It completely changes the dynamics of this dish! I glanced around, couldn't spot any and reluctantly ate them plain. The sweet potato fries were on the soggy side and the onion rings were decent but sparse. I prefer a battered coating to this type of crumbed coating.


Lamb kofta burger

My burger itself wasn't bad but I'm afraid it wasn't worth the long wait. The bun was average but the lamb patty had a nice flavour and wasn't dry. The others in our group shrugged similar affirmations that their burgers were good but not amazing.

I think the food at Is Tapas Bar would have been acceptable if it wasn't for our moods being sunk by the extremely long wait we had to endure for our burgers. I'm not generally an impatient person when I'm at group meal outings because part of the fun is in the chatting and catchups. However... there is only so much you can ramble on about before everyone's grumbling stomachs kick in.

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