Embassy XO Restaurant and Bar — Restaurant in Sunshine Beach

Had very uncomfortable and unpleasant experience in this place. We went for lunch with my partner and our friends, and although food was tasty it didn’t made our experience any better. First of all, restaurant’s policy about food orders is very inflexible, all table has to either order banquet meals, or all table has to order a separate meal from the menu. If someone at your table don’t want to have a banquet and waste a lot of food, but want to order a separate meal - then all table has to order a separate meal. If you want to share one banquet meal between two people- you can’t do that either. None of that can be supported by any reasoning cause banquet meals are coming for each separate person, each and one of them in separate plates. So I don’t understand what can cause this hatred for sharing. Then, the staff. The person who was serving us was very unfriendly, and got really annoyed at us for asking what we can and can’t do, and why can’t we share. He ended up grabbing a menu from me and saying’ well one of you won’t eat then’, and walked away. Then we had our food served, I ordered vegetarian banquet- it was much smaller in size than regular meal( even though regular meal wasn’t very big either, 4 ppl had one tiny bowl of rice on the side to share), my meal was served later than others too. But that wasn’t the end of it. On the check out we were told that we can’t split the bill, but we can pay separately the amount we want, but refused to tell prices for meals, even though she had it all on in the bill. It all ended up in a huge waiting, a line and checking and rechecking who had what and THEN she had to recheck it all again. All together it was very uncomfortable, frustrating and just weird. And all of this for tiny meals of an okay tasting food which we had to pay too much money for. If we didn’t have friends there we would have walked away right after we were frowned upon before we even...

It was our fifth time at XO Embassy. We loved the food, the service and the atmosphere every single time. While most of it was still the same this time, the price had significantly increased in one year. 35% increase for a 5-course degustation menu. $68 a year ago (still advertised at that at the XO Embassy stall at the Noosaville Sunday market. We enquired about the difference and they said it was wrong and their website was correct). $92 this year. This is probably because one of the 5 degustation menu courses is the most expensive item on the normal menu: $82 vs $40 odd for the others. Funnily enough this was the one dish that I did not like. The Wagyu beef was stringy and chewy. I gave it all to my husband, maybe less fussy. One would assume it would melt in the mouth as you are only given a chop stick to eat it. The flavours of the dish and the mash were very nice, but the hero of the dish should have been the beef. My suggestion: swap this dish in the 5-course degustation menu with another cheaper one from the menu and reduce the price. Had I paid for this dish as a full version from the normal menu, I would have definitely returned it. I am not sure if it was the price increase, but the restaurant was very quiet whereas last year at the same time,...

We had the tasting menu for lunch. 1st dish - tempura prawn bao. Tempura prawn batter was pale and looked like it needed more time in the fryer 2nd dish - tofu stuffed zucchini flower. It was drenched in soy sauce and so salty 3rd dish - duck bao. Duck was dry within the bun. Nothing else but shredded duck. 4th dish - Calamari sitting on a bed of leaves. The only dish that was decent. Calamari was tender and not chewy. 5th dish - pork ribs. Pork ribs had good flavour but was sitting on some shredded fresh green mango and carrots which could have been pickled to offset the sweet flavour of the pork ribs 6th dish - Beef bean curd dumpling. The bean curd skin has not been prepared properly, had a rancid oil flavour to it. Drenched in soy sauce making it too salty 7th dish - Singapore noodles. Nothing special. Literally curry vermicelli noodles with some carrots and cabbage 8th dish - melon sorbet. The worst sorbet ever eaten. Just sugared water. So sweet and could not taste any melon.

The chef needs to taste his own dishes. Either too sweet or too salty. At $55 person + 15% public holiday surcharge, I...