Christmas Dinner -- Aussie Style

Christmas Day was bright and sunny and warm.  No coats, sweaters, or jackets came out of the suitcase.  The sky was clear, the temperatures were warm.

We took the train to the City Centre Station and walked to...

this hotel, the Citigate Central.  It was very, very nice.  This hotel also has a very, very nice restaurant, the Field House Restaurant and Bar.

We were impressed, absolutely stunned, taken by surprise, overwhelmed, and utterly delighted.  Our reservation was for noon.  We arrived on time, even a tad early.  We were seated by a lovely young lady.

Check out the dining here.

Our table was set very formally with the knife and spoon on the right side, two forks on the left side, a fancily folded napkin in the middle, and a traditional "popper" or "cracker" at each place.  Each table had a centerpiece, actually it was quite simple, a 20 or 24 inch long by six or eight wide strip of a very fine weight gold tulle that was scrunched up a bit and placed diagonally across the table.  In one of the folds they had placed a large glass Christmas ornament.  All the tables were the same except for having a different ornament on each table.

The meal was a buffet style so we could get our meal not long after we were seated.  There was a lot of great food to choose from.  This was like no other Christmas dinner I have ever eaten.  There were four salads.  The only one I can remember is CousCous which was ever so good.  One of the other salads had sweet potatoes in it.  I tried all four and loved them all.

Then came the main courses.  There was turkey, dressing, ham, fish, octopus, and prawns.  The vegetable was green beans with almonds along with potatoes (I think these were similar to our gold potatoes).  There were rolls, both brown bread and white.  There was a pretty little design pressed into the top of the butter.

The turkey was wonderful, so full of flavor.  It looked like it had been shaped into a roll with dressing in the center and then cooked in the oven.  Then they had another dressing that had been made separately.  The ham was very good ham, made to perfection.  I am not sure what type of fish was served.  I do know that barramundi is a popular and very tasty fish in Australia.  Now, the octopus was breaded and fried.  I was not brave enough to try it.  The prawns were boiled in their shells/skins so that you had to break the shells/skin to get to the meat.  They are also very good, a lot like shrimp.

We returned to our table to eat.  A young lady brought a finger tip bowl for one to use to clean their hands after peeling the prawns.  I had never seen this before.  Then a nice young man brought each person pink champagne that was ever so good.  You could also get tea, coffee, water, or soda. 

Then came dessert all made by very good, most excellent pastry chef.  Chocolate extraordinaire came in the form of a small candy with three very small holly leaves and one tiny red holly berry.  The filling was also chocolate.  Very rich and very much chocolate heaven.  Another dessert was a lovely light spice cake with a thin layer of raspberry filling through the middle.  Very good.  A very rich but tasty tiny fruit pie was another dessert.  It was no bigger than a 50 cent piece with a little pie pastry star on top.  It was also very rich.

This meal was so good that calories should have been no object.

This is the lobby of the hotel with the restaurant.

This lovely Christmas tree was in the lobby.  The ornaments were purple and silver.

This was a super great meal and a super great place.

Enjoy and have a super great day.  Stay safe.

I should have taken more pictures.