Grill'd Wintergarden

So I got an interesting message over Urbanspoon one day:

Oh em gee

Lots of this message got censored because I got overly excited and had to post it on Facebook. Then I paranoid about leaking details of the launch because I was unsure if this was open to the public at all. So I kept deleting parts of the message out. This is what it eventually ended up looking like, I'm surprised its still so coherent out of context.

This is the first food event I've gone to as a food blogger and guest. So this was a little bit exciting, way more exciting than the first time I got highlighted on Urbanspoon's front page. Is it too early to dream that I'll one day retire from nursing and blog full time? Yeah maybe, calm your tits ThatSeriousGirl.

I was very torn about attending this at all because I had night shifts straight afterwards. If you've ever worked a night shift, anything short of sleeping, before your shift, is not advised. Even for people like me who actually sleep during the day. My friends, work colleagues and patients were all very supportive of me and actively encouraged me to go or call in sick and go. In the end, I went to the event AND went to my night shift.

PUBLIC DISCLOSURE TIME. I WAS INVITED AS A GUEST. THE FOLLOWING OPINION IS PURELY MY OWN. EVEN IF I WAS A GUEST AND THEY PAID FOR MY DINNER. I'M CALLING IT LIKE IT IS.

These guys

What was the event you ask? Grill'd at Wintergarden is having Ping Pong After Hours! Apparently its pretty cool to have ping pong at casual dining places overseas, so we're bringing it to Australia. At the moment, its only available on Thursday nights after 5pm, just rock up and see what its like!

Ooooh~

The Grill'd at Wintergarden is a little bit hard to find, but just look for their giant logo and follow it.

Oh yeah

Up here and to the left

They have an interesting chandelier of spatulas. This was difficult to photograph with my new camera because it has a tendency to overexposure when there are bright reflections. I found that swapping between my camera phone and my camera covered any issues like that. I use my camera for food photos and my camera phone for shiny things like menus.

Just in front of the bar, behind that bookshelf are little booths

They had a lot of random stuff for decoration. I liked all the pictures promoting Melbourne Cup drinks, although its a little late at this stage to be promoting Melbourne Cup events haha, maybe next year?

Too late now

All the wallpaper looks like graffiti and a bit scratchy in some places. It has that look of posters that have been placed on top of one another for band gigs? Or a very active street pole.

You the feel right?

Their bar is very plain. I have nothing to say about it.

Bar

Here is their Queensland menu. I ordered the Hot Mama, grilled grass fed lean beef, tzatziki, roasted capsicums, dill pickles, tasty cheese, lettuce, tomato and harissa paste on a traditional panini bread. The beef pattie was roughly ground and chunky but held its shape well. The tzatziki was not noticeable, when I was eating this, I was firmly convinced it was just sour cream and was eating my Lacteeze by the handful to counteract its effects. Tzatziki should be a much thicker yoghurt, cucumber and herby thing rather than the thin sauce I had. The grilled peppers weren't bad, they did end up sliding out of my burger though. Their dill pickles are good, sharp and crunchy. The harissa paste is super spicy, I liked it but maybe a shade less.

My burger!

I only ate half before I asked for a box to take my burger in.  The many reasons being that I ate more than my fair share of chips, the burger was too hot from the harissa paste, harissa being a very spicy, super red hot chilli paste, I was a little nauseated/anxious from being on nights as my lactose intolerance kicking in and wondering what time I'd leave. I had the rest of it, a little after midnight for my lunch and it was really tasty then, although still a bit hot.

The two sauces at the end were the sweet chilli mayonnaise and the herbed mayonnaise. I had actually only asked for the herbed mayonnaised but hey, free is free. Although technically, all my meal was free, sooooo yeah. The sweet chilli mayonnaise is wonderful, VGirl and I often go to Grill'd and get their chips with this sauce, its sweet, tangy with a milder honeyed sweet chilli sauce with the creaminess of mayonnaise. You could totally get the same flavour by mixing the two sauces at home yourself though. The herbed mayonnaise is also quite good, it gives it a Dutch feel since you're putting mayonnaise on your chips. The sauce is quite green but the flavour is not so strong that you can tell what herbs are in it, probs rosemary and oregano to my taste.

Here is a close up of my burger.

Nice blurry shot there

Here is what it looks like straight down the middle.  I like its mostly even distribution, so you get a fair bit of everything when you bite into it.

Little bit squished too

My Boyfriend got the Big Queenslander as well as the chips put on his side. His burger was the better burger, it had chunky lean beef pattie, fried egg, purple onion, beetroot, tomato, lettuce, crispy bacon, relish and herbed mayo all on a traditional panini roll. It was a much more balanced burger, flavour wise than mine was. The fried egg was cooked all the way through, which I'm not a fan of but he enjoyed it. The beetroot was good and very classic Aussie flavour, egg and beetroot on something is instant Aussie after all.

He also got our bucket of regular rosemary and salt seasoned chips. They were, as always, really crunchy on the outside and fluffy in the centre.

+_+ jealous

Here is a close up of his burger.

Add caption

As well as an interior shot.

He didn't want my knife to cut the burger

We then went to play ping pong, once the slightly tipsy group beside us had finished. They had cleared out a large space to put two tables in as well as their DJ. I completely forgot to take photos of this bit because I was so busy playing ping pong. I went back a few days later during the day to take photos.

Pretend this is a DJ

I'm not great at ping pong because I've played a lot of badminton and my first reaction is always to hit the paddle downwards rather than upwards, so I do a lot of down smashing into the floor. It was pretty even though just because it had been a while since either of us had played. The DJ had fun between songs by throwing additional ping pong balls onto our table from the massive plastic bags they had everywhere.

This is the space that the tables were set up

We had a handful of ping pong balls with us at all times and kept having to hunt around for more, despite the massive bags. I ended up trying to stack them on the bench beside the window. I didn't realise there was a gap between the wall and the window, so a few of the balls escaped and landed a bit too close to some people passing below. The DJ and I were in hysterics and we hid underneath the Grill'd sign, while we giggled over the confused faces of the business people below.

Big gap between the wall and the glass

I think we played about an hour before we decided to head home. It was fun but one of my criticisims of the location is that due to our terrible playing, there were a lot of loose shots ending up in the restaurant area. On more than one occasion, I hit someone with a stray shot and I almost knocked out the son of the waiter looking after us that night. His toddler came up to the table as my Boyfriend hit the ball towards me, and he started trying to pick up the ball, AS I WAS SWINGING MY PADDLE. Remember how I use massive downstrikes? Yeah, that could've been bad. Luckily, I stopped and his mum hurriedly pulled him away.

It does look like you can pull those glass doors together?

I can imagine it would get really annoying to have random ping pong balls hitting you. I wonder if they could install a partition to stop random ping pong balls from hitting other patrons?

Oh and on the second time I went here, I got myself the strawberry and lime Rekorderlig slushie. It was very sweet and tasty, the alcoholic tang was barely noticeable and was very refreshing on the hot day I went!

Yay alcoholic slushies!

Grill'd Wintergarden

Atmosphere: 7, bright and cheerful, a good place for a quick catch up for a friend.
Service: 8, super friendly and very quick to help. All the staff members had a smile on their face and if I asked something, they knew the answer and ran to find out. Even the DJ helped, although I guess throwing ping pong balls is pretty fun without having to be part of your job.
Food: 7, I've been to Grill'd many times before, and I don't doubt I'll go again.