A weekend @ Bannisters, Mollymook

Last weekend i celebrated my 26th birthday at Bannisters, Mollymook. It was a beautiful weekend, 3 fun filled days spent with my man :)

Mollymook is located about 3 hrs south of Sydney, it was a really nice drive down, it felt really good to drive away from the hustle and bustle of Sydney, into a more calming and relaxing coast area.

We stayed 2 nights at Bannisters, our view from the balcony was just breath taking! Bigbear chose a secondfloor room for the view, rather then a first floor room with a hot tub. I loved being able to look out at the ocean, at anytime of the day, it was just so serene.

Our two nights stay included two breakfasts, which included one dish from the hot menu, and also unlimited food from the breakfast buffets which had toast, cornflakes, muesli, yogurt topped with passionfruit, juices, crossiants, coffee, tea & fruits.

from the hot menu - ricotta pancakes with cream and berries

from the hot menu - big breakfast

scrambled eggs on buttered sourdough toast, bacon, mushrooms & grilled tomatoes

from the buffet

toast with butter & vegemite (yum!)

crossiants

cornflakes with milk

fruit with yogurt

from the hot menu- eggs benedict

from the hot menu

big breakfast

poached eggs on toast, grilled tomatoes, bacon, mushrooms, sausages and blood sausages

me reading the paper :) provided for free in the restaurant!

While we were eating these two birds came to keep us company! One of the staff said that we could hand feed them bread so we did just that- aren't they pretty!

Both mornings we stuffed ourselves silly at breakfast (its the meal of the day where you can eat like a king!). I have to say, that the toast was my favorite. It was sour dough toast, which i love, and i just went crazy on the butter and vegemite! & also, the croissants were the best ive ever had im sure they were made on site, they had an apricot jam glaze on top, we kept going back for more :)

On our second night we had dinner at the Pool Bar, a small and intimate area downstairs by the pool with very romantic mood lighting, and you can enjoy live music by Roddy Reason on the 1st / 3rd / 5th Fridays of the month and alternate Sundays. There's also a snooker room a few metres down, where we went for a game while we finished our cocktails!

top left

french martini

vodka, Chambord, pineapple juice

top right

absolute vodka lemonade

below

toffee apple

butterscotch schnapps, strawberry liqueur, apple juice and a dash of grenadine

We didn't want to stuff ourselves at dinner cos we still had junkfood back in the room to have with our movie so we ordered fries with Truffled Pecarino Cheese, and a chilli prawn pizza – prawns, chilli, ricotta, cherry tomato & pesto.

The fries were really crisp & the addition of the cheese really made them pop with flavour! & the pizza, which was abit on the small side, had a nicely crisped base, and had generous servings of each ingredient which was great :) We were thinking about getting a second pizza after we saw how small it was hehe.

The sticky date pudding with butterscotch sauce and a dollop of cream, really hit the sweet spot for me, again the serving size a bit smaller then expected but we still enjoyed it :) Our bill altogether including drinks was about $95, the cocktails were $15 each and Bigbear had 3 drinks, so the majority of the bill was drinks really!

On our first night there, Friday night, Bigbear booked us in for the specials dinner, 5 courses for $70. This is really cheap! $14 per course, its a nice way to enjoy dinner at Rick Stein's restaurant without hurting our wallets. The restaurant was busy, and most people were having the same as us.

bread, butter and olives

The bread is the same bread they have at breakfast - a really nice moist and dense sourdough, i much prefer it toasted! But with butter and olives, i was still left wanting more. I wanted to ask for a second piece, but thought of all the food we had coming our way and decided against it hehe.

Seared swordfish with Guacamole and Lemongrass Dressing

Steamed Hervey Bay Scallops in the Shell

with Ginger, Soy, Sesame oil and Spring Onions

Fish and Shellfish Soup with Rouille and Parmesan

Fillet of snapper with vanilla butter vinaigrette

(this alone would've been $53 if we were dining from the normal menu)

side of veggies

snow peas, roast potatoes, carrots grated and cooked.

Everything was delicious, all the seafood was cooked perfectly, one negative was that we both found bones in our snapper :o But we kept eating, and just told the waiter when he came to collect our plates. He came back soon after and apologized, saying that the chef does his best to get out all the bones but on this occasion he had missed some.

The potatoes in the side veggie bowl, was SO crunchy! Love it when potatoes are baked to a crazy crisp :) & the piece of parmesan bread crouton in the soup, made the soup even more good, without it id say the soup wasn't spectacular.

Dessert took a little while, and when it came out we realised why! We asked if we could have two different desserts instead of both of us having the same one, and our waiter came back and said it was fine (yay!)

Amaretto creme brulee

pear rhubarb and walnut crumble with double cream

Both desserts were yummy. The creme brulee was so smooth, and the top layer shattered beautifully! And the amaretto cookie, the flavour was totally addictive! The crumble came out quite hot, that dollop of double cream just soothed the heat in our mouth, really delicious :)

Apart from staying in the hotel, we did get outside for other activities which included:

A walk around ulladulla

Lunch and snacks at a few places (they will be covered in another post!)

Coastal and inland nature walks

Beach walks

And also on the road trip there and back we stopped at Kiama & Berry (home of the donut van!)

We absolutely LOVED our long weekend at Mollymook, i can't wait to go back! This place holds a special place n our hearts, thank you honeybear for organising the whole weekend, love you my boo xoxo

Rick Stein at Bannisters

191 Mitchell Parade,

Mollymook NSW 2539

Phone: + 61 2 4455 3044

http://www.bannisters.com.au