Bangalay Dining — Restaurant in Shoalhaven Heads

We had the pleasure of staying at the stunning Bangalay Luxury Villas, only 2.5 hours from the Sydney CBD, in Shoalhaven Heads, which we found out about through Destination NSW. You can read about the accomodation through our blog here. In this relaxing seaside location, there is also an amazing on site restaurant, Bangalay Dining.

The concept of Bangalay Villas was to present the idea of a nostalgic beach holiday to customers, whilst also showcasing an area, rich plant life including eucalypt, banksia, lily pili and other Australian natives. The restaurant is in fitting with this. The restaurant feels comfortable and relaxed, situated on the beach side of the property. it opens for breakfast daily, as well as lunch and dinner on weekends. The space opens out onto the deck and even serves take away coffees to locals, who you’ll see aplenty, heading for their daily walk to the beach. The outdoor coffee counter means you can walk up and grab your coffee in a pet friendly environment. In terms of the menu, it has been composed with a focus on using sustainable and native ingredients harmonised with the area. A real paddock to plate concept. Chef Brent Strong, created this menu with that in the forefront of his mind. He has had a lot of experience in fine dining, working as a private chef on luxury yachts, but now, back in his home town, he is a local who was keen to represent the area by providing an approachable menu, using suppliers from the local area. You can read more about them here. Bangalay Dining offers an ala Carte and tasting menu. We were dining as part of a group and had the 6 course tasting menu, which costs $85 per person. You can also pair your dinner with wines, which are selected from the local area and Cupitt’s in Milton. We began with a few cocktails, including a lemon Myrtle Pina Colada and a Lily Pili Rose with vodka, gin, rose syrup, lime and sofa. All their cocktails are made with native ingredients like wattleseed, lemon Myrtle and saltbush to name a few. The first course was a lightly cured Spanish Mackerel, an absolutely picture perfect dish, which looked like a little present, with the mackerel wrapped in thinly sliced fermented daikon, and flavoured with mandarin and had a nice smokiness of flavour coming from the prosciutto. Topped with beautiful flowers. This was followed by a dish that at first sight looked like pasta, but was a creamy and delicious Sabago potato dish, made with Macadamia and native thyme. The potato was matched with Cupitt’s The Pointer An absolute highlight was the single Scampi flavoured with Lemon Myrtle, Leek and topped with watercress. Presented sitting on a a dash of aioli and small shards. One of our other favourite dishes was the Wagyu topside, a piece of local pasture raised top sided meat braised over night, served with an absolutely deliciously saucy meat, sitting beside nicely flavoured oyster mushrooms, eggplant and small pieces of crisp shredded potato. After this rich dish and prior to desserts, we had a palate cleanser, a light refreshing dish, which was a quenelle of sheeps yoghurt gelato, served with oat granola and a sorrel granola. I’d also happily eat a bowl of the granola for breakfast too.This was followed up with a beautiful creamy wattleseed Ice cream, hazelnut mousse and caramelised white chocolate. The liquid nitrogen saw a fog coming from the plate. It’s deconstructed presentation looked like a modern work of art. We were lucky enough to get a special extra dessert on the night. An ice cream with granita. Chef Brett tells us that they use the crust of the sourdough for the ice cream and milk off their butter for the granita. .Whilst staying at Bangalay, we also enjoyed brunch. Whilst a number of their options sounded extremely appealing, we opted for the slow poached egg with mixed mushrooms, polenta, truffle pecorino and asparagus. The lovely truffle flavour shone through the ingredients. We also enjoyed a chilled chia pudding with fresh and preserved seasonal fruit, local...

This was the worst lunch I ever had. Zero stars for food and service.

It wasn’t too busy although being during school holidays, so we could pick a nice table outside. The restaurant set up and decoration looked really nice and inviting, lovely ambience. We were waited by a boy, probably 15 years old, who didn’t really know what he was supposed to do, so we had to prompt for everything (could we please see the menu, could we please get some water etc.)

The menu read very fancy, including fancy prices. We were hungry, but there wasn’t much on there for my taste, so I ended up ordering the duck salad and two children’s meals, fish and chips and cheeseburger and chips.

The boy serving our table didn’t pay attention when we were ready to order and tried to call him over, so I just ordered at the counter. Good on him for taking up some work during the holidays, I think this is absolutely fine for a fish and chips shop, but sure not for a “fine dining experience restaurant”.

The food came quick. My 26$ duck salad was very small and had only five small pieces of duck in there, the rest was mainly rocket, some chicory and some tiny bits of orange. The duck tasted disappointing, very fatty and not even the hint of a crisp. There was very little dressing, so the bitter taste of the chicory dominated the dish. It would have helped if the dressing at least had a sweet note to balance the bitterness out, and give the taste more depth, but it didn’t.

The children’s meals were of average size for a child’s meal. Both children were hungry, my son ate all the fries, which were good (I tried one, too), but only one of the three fish strips on his plate, saying he didn’t like them. I tried one and the fish taste was very strong, not sure if it was the kind of fish that just tastes like that or if it was a bit old. Either way, not a good choice to put that on a child’s plate.

My daughter loves cheeseburgers, orders this every single time we eat out and is not a fuzzy eater, yet refused to eat her burger after she tried it. I had a bite and it tasted odd, I sliced it up and turns out the meat was undercooked, red and raw inside.

I returned both partly eaten kids meals back to the counter and complained to the lady in charge. She was very friendly and apologized, saying they just had started using different meat today, which might cook different and offered me to replace the meals, which we didn't want to wait for.

The ice cream which came as a part of the kids meal tasted good and was served in whiskey tumbler, looking fancy. The boy who waited us came and put 16$ on the table saying this was the refund for the kids meal. I hadn’t even paid yet. I went to the counter and gave the money back asking for the bill. The lady behind the counter seemed a bit overwhelmed, there was a staff member talking to her while she was attending to me. Allthough she was very friendly to me and told me that the money is a refund for the burger and turns out we were mistakenly ticked off as paid in the system. I explained to her that I hadn’t even paid yet. She apologized again and excused the mishaps citing they were so busy due to the holidays (which wasn’t obvious to me, they seemed to have a good staff to guest ratio). I didn’t have to pay for either of the kids meals. I’m local and sure...

(4.5 stars)

Bangalay Dining in Shoalhaven Heads is a NSW South Coast standout, delivering solid contemporary Australian cooking with flashes of brilliance. Following the fine-diner model set down by restaurants like the (now defunct) Silvereye and Biota, their tasting menu ($120) begins with a flurry of snacks. Wafer thin crocodile smoked in paperbark is presented under green ants on house-made wattleseed lavosh, and Murray cod is stuffed into a nasturtium flower with bright tarama. They both set the scene for a truly Australian experience.

The local area is celebrated with Lake Illawarra bully mullet being lightly torched and served on an oyster emulsion with foraged turkey rhubarb and smoked Maldon sea salt. My dining companion was chuffed to sit in a fancy restaurant eating something he used to catch in a trap to use as a bait fish, from a fairly flat and uninspiring lake I’ve never seen listed on a restaurant menu. We washed it down with the 2019 Stargazer Chardonnay ($105) that has good concentration, an elegant nose, and a maritime salty oyster shell lick that suited the fish.

Emu tartar, dressed with saltbush and an over-cooked egg, wanted for a lick of sweetness to balance all the salt. Balmain bug had a beautiful translucent centre against a silky custard made from shell stock, fingerlime and a delicate sheet of compressed rockmelon. Despite being very charred on the exterior, the lamb rump had too much unrendered fat in the interior for my liking, making it a bit bland and chewy against smoked yoghurt and onion soubise. Vegetables were universally excellent, from blackened zucchini with preserved lemon peel, to wonderful fresh pea shoots and leaves.

Chef Simon Evans forages for the elderflowers he uses in his harmonious palate cleanser, where Geraldton wax flowers bead over a pear broth garnished with elderflower cream. It’s followed by a peach poached in agave syrup and white balsamic with thick creme fraiche that eats like being kissed on the head before you toddle back to your attached eco-villa to sleep like a baby. Well...