Food Bloggers' Dinner - The Gunshop

About once every month, a group of people with little in common aside from a shared love of food and an interest in blogging/tweeting about it meet up for dinner.  You might remember I posted about my first such dinner at Tognini’s a few months ago.  Tuesday night was the first time I’ve been able to get back to one of these dinners.   As always, the food was delicious and the company entertaining.

The Gunshop at West End kindly put on a Queensland Tasting Menu – six courses, some of which feature regularly on the menu, and some of which are new items.  As there was a large group of us, we each only had to pay $40 for a fantastic array of food.  What I really loved about it was the focus on Queensland, seasonal ingredients.  In fact, they were careful to advise us that the oysters were actually slightly before their peak, which will be in about 2 weeks time.  The Gunshop was recently named Delicious Magazine’s “Australian Cafe of the Year” – and if dinner is anything to go by, that is a deserving title.

Several other bloggers have already posted about this meal – in particular I agree with Gastronomy Gal’s assessment.  I should mention that I was particularly impressed by the wild boar – especially as I’m not usually a big pork fan (except for bacon of course!).  Another highlight was the new season peach souffle which was delicate and perfectly risen.

Without further ado, here is a run-down of what we ate:

• Stradbroke island rock oysters, tomato and 50 year old sherry vinegar
• Seared Hervey Bay scallops, salmon pearls, persimmon (foam) and squid ink dressing
• West Queensland wild boar, Moreton bay bug, ham (jammon foam) and pineapple
• Goondiwindi lamb rack, salsify puree, Toowoomba olives and fresh peas
• Selection of Queensland cheese and accompaniments
  • Witches Chase cloth wrapped 18 month aged cheddar
  • Kingaroy Bunya Black brie
  • Atherton Tablelands Gallo Washed Rind
  • Gympie Farm ash rolled cherve
• New season peach souffle, raspberry ice cream and QLD vanilla creme anglaise

The Gunshop
53 Mollison St
West End
Ph: 07 3844-2241
Web:  http://www.thegunshopcafe.com/