Labrador is back in style

One of the first suburbs of Queensland’s Gold Coast to be developed (back in the 1950s), Labrador sits with Broadwater beachfront to the east and the hills to the west: a pleasant mix of wide tree-lined streets, original retro-style housing, sparkling new townhouses and impressive up-market high-rise developments.

The whole area has jumped up a class from it's heyday as a sleepy little Gold Coast suburb and the recent developments have seen dozens of new restaurants spring up.

One of the more established restaurants is the Aqua on Broadwater Steak and Seafood Restaurant and Bar located on Marine Parade -- offering a pocket-friendly all-day dining menu and a more serious cafe-style menu for dinner.

Aqua on Broadwater has most of its seating on a long terrace, which offers great panoramas of this tranquil part of the coast. From spacious open windows, you look out over the Broadwater to Seaworld and the exclusive Versace Hotel.

I had dinner at Aqua recently, accompanied by a friend who is the scourge of restaurant owners with her views on value for money, and I have seen head waiters and sommeliers coming close to a breakdown when she feels that what she is eating or drinking is not worth the price on the menu.

I mention this because Aqua came out of it fairly well – much to the relief of manager Cristian Costantini, who came to our table a couple of times during the evening to ensure we were enjoying our meal.

My guest started with Balmain bugs, served with a garlicky white wine sauce and a touch of tomato and parsley, while I went for salt and pepper squid -- both of which proved to be excellent choices.

Located on Queensland’s Gold Coast, I would have expected Aqua to be serving Moreton bugs rather than the Balmain variety, which are usually found further south in Australia.

You can tell the difference as the Moreton Bay bug is a little thinner in the body than the Balmain bug: obviously my guest was getting more bug for the buck, so this satisfied the value-for-money criterium.

For a main course, I went for a grilled barramundi fillet with a liberal serving of chunky chips and a rainforest-sized salad (there was a bit of a discussion as to whether the barramundi was farmed or wild – I believe it was farmed).

My guest wanted a change from fish and decided on veal limone, an Italian favourite, but served with steamed vegetables rather than the normal pasta. Both dishes passed the quality/price demand.

We chose an unprecocious Hunter Valley chardonnay as our wine (alas, I have mislaid my wine notes for the evening) and finished the evening with an Australian cheese plate, coffee and a grappa.

The total bill that came to just under AUD 125 – for which we got a taste of the lifestyle of the Gold Coast’s rich and (in)famous for a fraction of the cost in many of the region's other seafront restaurants.

Hunter after the storms

Following the recent storm damage that ravaged parts of New South Wales, there was a fair amount of disruption in the Hunter region, close to Sydney.

So it was good to hear from our friends in the Hunter Valley Wine Country that the vineyard area is fully operational and remains easily accessible by road and air for visitors.

The flooding actually occurred about 10-20 kilometres north of the wine region and we hear from local wine-makers that many have been spared from the worst of the winds and that the moisture in the subsoil has come at a good time for next year’s crop.

With this in mind, Lisa and Andrew Margan invite visitors to discover their premium Hunter Valley wines at the new cellar door and restaurant located at the home of Margan in the beautiful Broke Valley. The grapes are estate grown and the wines which are handcrafted on site in a state-of-the-art winery are to be found throughout Australia and in no less than twelve countries around the world.

Meanwhile, Sydney-based tour operators running wine tours to the Hunter Valley, such as Australian Eco Adventures, reiterate the message that it's business as usual -- and we will drink to that

A wet night out in Sydney

It was one of the wettest nights I have known in Sydney, the rain teeming down with a wind that made it almost impossible to use an umbrella. It was the sort of weather that suggested dining in at my hotel, but I had made plans to meet an old friend at the Ice Cube Seafood Grill on Darling Harbour, so I risked a soaking, grabbed a cab (how lucky was that!!) and arrived just a few minutes late.

I mention all this because on such a dismal evening, you would not have expected a restaurant on rain-and-wind-swept Darling Harbour to be particularly busy, especially one that prides itself on an outdoor dining area overlooking the harbour -- but how wrong you can be.

The restaurant is indoor/outdoor and it would have been fantastic to have been outdoors on a more pleasant evening. But on that night the inside restaurant was doing well.

An 180-seat restaurant with a great location on the ground floor of the Imax Theatre Complex, the Ice Cube Seafood Grill has buzz about it, and the waiting staff (an international roll-call) hovered discreetly in a manner you have almost forgotten to expect in restaurants.

The menu was as expected -- mostly seafood but with a good selection of meat dishes, including pan fried kangaroo rump.

We were almost tempted to share a seafood platter for two at AUD 135, having watched one being served to a couple at a nearby table: I wondered if the person who plated it in the kitchen had some sort of design degree, as it looked like a work of art.

Instead, for starters we both went for half-a-dozen Coffin Bay oysters, fresh that day from South Australia, and while my guest chose the New Zealand flounder for a main course, I decided on the fish pie, which was excellent and served with a rather large portion of garlic mashed potatoes.

For wine, we chose a Tasmanian Pinot Gris (or pinot grigio, as it is known in Italy) which did not disappoint, and to end the evening we worked our way through an Australian cheese plate with a ‘sticky’ – as dessert wines are known among Australians.

The Ice Cube Seafood Grill is reasonably priced – having to compete with Jordon’s and Nicks, two other popular nearby seafood restaurants. The restaurant is open for lunch and dinner (noon to midnight with last orders at 22.00, or 23.00 on Fridays and Saturdays).