in praise of fussy eaters (part 3)

of coastal towns and costly meals...

The great Australian beach holiday is one of those things many of us are brought up to believe are a fundamental part of the Australian psyche. Hell, it's barely possible to get through school without reading Away! Unfortunately the political state of our nation over the past decade and the Cronulla riots a couple of years back has created a notion that it would be un-Australian not to enjoy a beach holiday.

Let me set one thing straight. I love beach holidays. I love little coastal towns -no shoes, wet bottoms in sarongs & shorts, plastic chairs outside the pub, early morning swims and afternoon naps, twilight dinners, and that wonderful feeling of being so so tired after a day of sun, sand, and saltwater.

With all of this in mind, an overnighter in Port Stephens was not to be scoffed at. After leaving the "farm" and bbq and hoping that my olfactory system would recover in time for dinner, we arrived at Nelson Bay, checked into our motel (what is it with that word) that had been recently acquired by a retired couple (a German man and an Italian woman) who had clearly scrubbed the place clean within an inch of its foundations.

After a little afternoon siesta, we mooched around Nelson Bay starting by the marina observing the usual suspects - Hog's Breath Cafe, and asian eatery, some casual cafe thingy with pizza, burgers and nachos on the menu, and of course an ice cream parlour beside the "resort wear boutique". It's about this point in time that I start thinking that I could be at Anywhere's Bay on the Australian coast.

We venture up to the main strip - I'm keen to check out Zest, the only restaurant in the area that gets kudos in both the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide, and the Australian Gourmet Traveller. I don't expect to eat there, but I want to read the menu and see what "deft workings of quality produce" mentioned in the review are on offer. Unfortunately there is no menu to be seen, and the front door is still locked.

Moving on, I identify one place I may be prepared to eat. It says it's Spanish on the overhead sign - Capitan Torres or something of equal distinction, and it says wood fired pizza oven on the window. It turns out that they do both. It's still too early for dinner so we head around to Shoal Bay.

At Shoal Bay things appear more mellow and possibly more refined. We find ourselves a table on the strip and grab a drink - I chose the Firestick semillion blend in the hope that I might win a holiday they are promoting (that and we had a lovely late lunch at the cafe a couple of months ago and I do like the wines coming from Poole Rock estate). We then peruse what's on offer. I flat out refuse to eat at the pizza/salad/burger place based on what I can see, which leaves dear hubby exasperated. Eventually we find a little Italian joint that we agree we can eat at after perusing the tables of existing customers. For some reason or other we can't or don't eat there.

Back to Nelson Bay we head and hubby makes a beeline for Zest; of course they are fully booked and this isn't one of those places where if you ask if they are likely to get a cancellation they magically find a spot. Nope, there is no way this lady is going to consider accommodating we desperate, hungry forlorn travellers. We head around the corner to the aforementioned el capitano. it looks okay - just a seaside pizza joint, but at this stage I'm happy to settle for that.

We order a pizza and two tapas dishes - prawns in spicy salsa and garlic mushrooms, to share; it should all go well with the vino de plonk we've picked up on the way, and we say we don't mind what order it comes in. the tapas arrives first in the traditional teracotta dish. The quartered mushrooms are just off raw and sitting in a snot-like gloop, still cold in the middle. I scrape off the snot and eat a few raw mushrooms; I need some vegies after the day we've had... The prawns are kind of warm, (I don't really think about it until later that night but they're not sizzling) and sitting in tomato based sauce that has no kick whatsoever to it. NB: terracotta dishes do not make the tapas taste better!!!

The pizza then arrives and we say nothing. We're over the day, we've niggled at each other for the past hour, and quite frankly, we just want food in our stomachs. The pizza is piping hot, run straight to our table from the oven and the toppings are of moderate quality (I checked on the way in that they were edible). The base of the pizza is spongey and I don't like it at all, so i dip it in the tomato sauce from the prawns. I'm convinced that pizza base this bad is frozen, although I stand corrected when we leave and see a ball of dough on the work surface - maybe they're using some kind of mix, because pizza dough is not that hard. Being the prawn monster that I am, I absent-mindedly pick at the prawns until they're gone and then whooshka, we're out of there and back to the motel (that word again) for another drink and a well deserved rest.

Until...

Please come back if you are eating whilst reading this.

... I receive an early morning pang in the stomach that lets me know that I must be on the toilet within 30 seconds. And there I remained for about 2 hours. In the morning hubby has a slightly unsettled stomach, but nothing to mention. We blame the prawns.

to be continued....