Buderim Tavern - Sunshine Coast, QLD

(Degusted 7th Aug, 2011)

Up in the hills, just a 10 or so minute drive inland from Maroochydore, you can reach this lovely little town of Buderim. By day you can get some pretty good views over the southern end of sunshine coast, and cooling breezes make it a pleasant place to be. To capture those views, the Buderim Tavern is perfectly poised (for Victorians, think of The Wheeler’s Hill Hotel). The tavern is predominantly what we'd call a steakhouse or grill. There is no table service as such – orders for drinks and food being made at the bar or the kitchen servery. There is an open plan dining area with windows all along to capture the views– although being night time, we only had the twinkling lights of the urban sprawl below. 

(We came back to Buderim the following day for brunch and took some photos from nearby to the Tavern to see what this view was like during the day. Not bad at all!)

For starters, we went for the Szechuan calamari, which was not really peppery at all – there was a little bit of spice in the crumb on the thin strips of calamari, but nothing like what we expected of a "Szechuan" flavour. Good finger-food nonetheless, but not up to the flavours we expected.

Szechuan Calamari

There were a number of steaks available – rib eyes, rumps, wagyu – ranging from 180 to 600 grams. Several choices of sauce – mushroom, peppercorn, dianne – but we went with the red wine jus, wanting to let the steak shine..

Ordering the wagyu medium-rare, we expected it super-tender and a little red – unfortunately, in our opinion, the meat was taken to a little past medium, which was a shame for such a good piece of meat.. I think most people going to a place like this would be happy with the cooking, but for us it was a bit of a waste of such a good steak -let down by the over-cooking.  The chips that came with the steak looked great, and were good enough, but we've had better (could have been crispier on the outside). The salad that comes with all steaks is a small ceasar salad, which had really nice bacon pieces (mmmm bacon). At our table was our young nephew (a salad-dodger extraordinaire) who demolished his ceasar salad on this occasion – enough said.

Wagyu - sides of ceasar salad, chips and optional mushrooms.
Red Wine Jus (as with other sauces) served on the side.

The other main we degusted was a spiced lamb rump with sweet potato, roast tomato and broccolini. Again, the lamb was a little over-done, though still pink in the centre. In this dish, there was plenty of meat served up, almost too much for one person. Some might say that’s a good thing!  It was an okay dish – nothing incredibly fancy, but certainly good enough to be on the menu in this style of restaurant.

Spiced lamb rump w/sweet potato, tomato and broccolini.

For the price and the style of restaurant, the food was good enough and will probably keep the carnivores happy, as long as they’re not too fussy about the cooking. If you like it “well done” you’d be in heaven here...

Rating:  It'll Do

Meh                      It’ll Do                   Nom(x3)                              Must go back!

Done and Degusted @ Buderim Tavern

Szechuan calamari

Wagyu rump with red wine jus, chips and ceasar salad.

Spiced lamb rump, sweet potatoe, broccolini and tomato

 
(note that the address says Maroochydore, it's definitely in Buderim!)

In the area? You might like to grab some coffee and breakfast at the Chopping Block.

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