thatseriousgirl: Restaurant Launch: Nest

Oh man, normally I blog about places I get invited to as soon as possible but I've been pretty slack lately because I'm on holiday! Anyway, I got invited to the opening of Nest along with heaps of other food bloggers. There was very, very little out there about the restaurant, I found an article saying that it was very expensive rebuilding, that Roma Street was destined to be a new dining precinct in the near future much like Stanley Street is and lastly that the restaurant was Asian fusion!

I had a ridiculous amount of trouble trying to find myself a +1 to this event. I had this sneaking suspicion that there would be a lot of meat at this event so I didn't want to bring along VGirl or Mandy. Then L., H., JGirl., Shishi, didn't answer their phones, Yannikins and Ness., were overseas, two of the guys I'm seeing were both unable to come along and then JGirl answered. Except that she finished work about an hour after the event started, so she volunteered Dr S., her girlfriend to come along!

Parking is relatively easy I guess. There's secure parking AT THE VERY TOP of the building that Nest is in. Like all the way at the top, if you think, oh that wasn't too bad, keep going, that isn't the right car park.

Anyway, we were greeted at the door and were offered some fortune cookies. There were 3 fortune cookies stuffed with a golden bird which meant you were entitled to a dining voucher at Nest. Sadly, despite eating nearly three fortune cookies each, we were unable to find one.

Mmm fortune cookies

The decoration is lovely! Everything fits in very nicely with the "nest" theme, lots of little cosy areas to sit in, a giant feature in the centre that resembles a birds nest and all the cocktails are named after bird themes too!

Lovely little spot

I kept forgetting the tags

My first thought was, "this would be a bitch to clean"

This was one of the cocktails we were given to drink on the night, Birds of Tokyo, Kraken, spiced rum, cinnamon syrup, cloudy apple juice, lime juice and mint. Dr S., drank it on our behalf and said it was delicious!

MASON JARSSSSS

I hustled Dr S., down to the kitchen end of the room to prowl for appetisers as they emerged from the kitchen. The first thing to appear were the tempura battered Mooloolaba prawns. These were freaking hot, had a lovely light batter and creamy prawn insides. I ate about five of these over the entire night, I can attest to their consistency and deliciousness.

Yummy prawns

I wasn't a fan of these honey glazed Asian barbeque chicken wings, the wings used were quite small and the sauce was way too sweet. For those who love sweet wings, these are for you and especially if you want to eat a small wing, but I'm all about jumbo wings and salty sauces!

They were small ):

Here is the cocktail lineup for the night!

DRINKS DRINKS DRINKS

This is the start of my weird requests to my bartender, you'll see a blurry photo of him later on. Since I don't drink and I'm a designated driver, I abstained from drinking but I really wanted something else besides the usual lemon, lime and bitters. I asked for two non alcoholic drinks and we received these mocktails! I'm not sure what was in them, orange juice, pineapple juice, cranberry cordial and some other things? It was delicious, I had two of them. Dr S., had one as well. As we walked through the room, people were very envious of our pretty drinks.

I love me some mocktails!

One of the entrees that stood on the stainless steel table for a while was the Turkish bread, olive oil, dukkah and herb butter. A lot of food bloggers were milling around, taking photos but we weren't sure if we could eat them or if they were just for display purposes. Then one of the staff members said they were up for eating so we dove right in

I love you dukkah

This is the duck salad which had green pear, cherry tomatoes, witlof, rocket and a tart dressing made from ginger, lime and coriander. Its a very crunchy, refreshing salad that I think a lot of people would enjoy as a light meal. I wasn't a massive fan because I thought the duck used could've had better flavour imparted into its flesh. All the duck used that night was stripped from their peking duck.

Duck, duck, duck, no goose?

This was the barbeque Beijing duck rolls which were served cool with vermicilli, blanched asparagus, cucumber and a few other veggies. It came with this mandarin sauce. As a Vietnamese person, I didn't enjoy it but I'm quite traditional when it comes to Vietnamese food.

Give me prawn and pork belly any day

This is the gado gado! Dr S., kept eating multiple servings of this dish, and she is quoted as saying, "that satay sauce is so good!" Satay sauce and chopped up salad, where can you go wrong really! I guess you could always get more sauce?

Gado gado is the brainchild of a parent who wanted their kids to eat veggies

Chicken satay! Tender, charry sticks of chicken and the same delectable satay sauce featured in the gado gado.

Not as blurry in real life thankfully

This was one of the few vegetarian dishes beside the gado gado, it was a vegetarian dumpling on top of onion jam. The jam was sweet, caramel and delicious, the dumpling not so much so. The dumpling had been deep fried, it had a really stodgy, doughy and dense interior which I didn't find appealing. This was a thought echoed by Dr S., and a few other food bloggers I met that night.

Not sure what the veggies were, broccoli, carrot?

These were the peking duck pancakes with a hoisin dipping sauce. There were really good, super thin pancakes, crunchy cucumber and a big chunk of peking duck skin and flesh. I ate probably a plate of these. There was a guy making them like a machine for people sitting in front of him, those seats were hot land.

So many!

This was the duck pizza, it was really average. For some reason, it tasted like what you could make at home with some leftover duck and pizza bases lying around.

Bleh

The nasi goreng was delicious! Fragrant, the rice grains were fluffy and separated, egg clung to the rice, chicken pieces were moist and tender and they were all around amazing. I would highly recommend the nasi goreng if you were to go to Nest.

Delicious!

The laksa was a coconut based one with prawn, chicken, egg and egg noodles. The soup was a little thin but the toppings were salad.

Laksa

Here is the menu!

Here is the peking duck in all its glory.

Duck

These were the wagyu beef sliders! Bacon, wagyu beef patty, tomato, lettuce, cheese and barbecue sauce. Absolutely delicious.

Mmmm

This was the pad thai, I stalked it ridiculously throughout the night and finally scored a bowl. I was disappointed because the noodles were still quite chewy and the sauce was not well balanced.

This was another one of the cocktails for the night, the tequila based one, Leaving the Nest. Dr S., didn't enjoy it but she said she also disliked tequila.