Saturday at SQ

Good evening mesdames et messieurs. I recently went out with a group of people for a dinner on Saturday night and I've come to realised that it is in fact very challenging for such a big group of people to go out to a very decent and nice place without alterations to the menu (in total, there was around 20 people).

This review was going to be about Culshaw's Grill at the Majestic Hotel on Frome Road but because of the change to a-la-carte menu, I decided to change the venue of the dinner gathering. I was just browsing around for different places, trying every single site or book I could find, from Google to Entertainment Book to the papers for places to go. At the end however, I managed to find SQ Restaurant (part of Mantra Hotel in Hindmarsh Square in Adelaide's CBD).

The staff were very nice and the service was definitely top notch. It is a nice little hidden place, yet still located right in the heart of the city. From the start, the tapas and the starters menu looked very intriguing, but I was not extremely hungry so I did not order any. My friend LK however, did decide to order bread which came with an olive oil dip and dukkah (the typical) - the only let down was the bread; it would have been a lot nicer if it was warm.

Most of us went straight into the mains. Being such a huge crowd meant that there were a variety of dishes, but I unfortunately could not take a photo of all of them. So here are the ones that I did manage to snap up:

Duo Beef served on Vegetarian Risotto

This dish was part of the specials on for the evening. The combination of beef was cooked beautifully. The Wagyu brisket was absolutely amazing - so tender and literally a "melt-in-the-mouth" moment. The steak was a bit over-done on the edges, but the middle is cooked to perfection (I like them medium-rare). The risotto on mine was cooked very nicely as well - creamy, yet not very gluggy (the way it is supposed to be done!). The platting could be a bit nicer though, but the food was good at least.

Side dishes: House Fries with Lemon Salt and Roast Onion Aioli and Rocket, Pear & Parmesan Salad

The fries weren't crispy which was a bit disappointing (double-frying could crisp them up) and there wasn't enough lemon salt in the chips, but the aioli made up for it - very addictive dip.  The salad was as expected, nothing too grandeur; it was just as it should be, a rocket, pear & parmesan salad. 

Snapper (I think) and seafood cous cous served with wakame

This was another dish which was on the specials menu. I am not too sure in regards to how the fish was done. The wakame addition to the top of the seafood cous cous is interesting - two people ordered it and one definitely did not like it, whilst the other thought the combination as odd. I quite agree that this was an odd combination; instead the wakame should be served on the side, almost as a starter if it was going to be utilised in the dish.

Angus Coorong Sirloin Steak on Shallot and Roast Garlic Rousti and Cabernet Jus
Side dish: Potato Mash with White Truffle Oil

My friend, TN, said that it was done perfectly (I'm pretty sure he wanted it medium-rare as well), and the meat did look extremely tender, beautiful and juicy. I think it is quite safe to say that it was a winner.

From the overall experience, it was quite positive. The let-down for the evening was actually the plating of the dish. The same dishes were plated inconsistently. For example the snapper which was ordered by a couple of people looked extremely different - the cous cous wasn't plated in a round circular manner and the size of the snapper were extremely different. The Duo of Duck, another popular dish for the evening was again plated extremely inconsistently - some plates had more duck pieces, whilst others had a mixture of big and small pieces. For the amount you have to pay for each dish, you would be expecting them to be plated very similarly, if not, exactly the same. However, it was still an enjoyable evening with lovely food and wine (I can't remember the exact one but it had a combination of Shiraz/Grenache/Viognier — highly recommended).