The Rock — Restaurant in Toowoomba City

My wife and I hadn't dined here before, but an electrical outage resulted in us selecting a venue we've never visited instead of cooking at home. Walking in on a weeknight with no booking was met nonchalantly - with a very professional young bloke looking after us.

I'm just going to throw this out - service levels in Australian restaurants are generally not fantastic. Not so here - a slight eye contact with our server resulted in him quietly making his way to our table - this is USA grade service minus the intrusiveness and tipping aspect - an absolute credit to this waiter and the venue. A young lady at the bar was also wonderfully attentive and pleasant.

The dining area was dimly lit and quiet.

We did feel a little underdressed in our work uniforms but were assured this wasn't an issue. Drinks were served quickly (and there's Malbec on the wine list!). We deliberated on mains. My wife doesn't normally order the steak, but settled on the medium rare rump - with salad and greens (a novel twist) with a sticky jus. I chose the medium rare eye fillet with salad and chips, and my eyes lit up when I saw Béarnaise sauce on the menu as an option.

Béarnaise is a warm, emulsified daughter sauce of hollandaise and one of the best steak pairings alongside asparagus in my opinion. It makes a good steak great when executed well. Both our steaks were cooked perfectly medium rare - this is unusual in Toowoomba where consistency of doneness is generally poor in most venues. The steak quality was great - even the rump was tender and consistent in texture.

Sauces were sadly lacking. A good jus has a gelatinous, concentrated quality that clings to meat - this one was watery, overly sweet and tasted artificial. Did I mention Béarnaise is meant to be served warm? It was served in a small ramekin, straight out of the refrigerator and lacking shallot and tarragon in both taste and appearance - it appeared to be a food service grade hollandaise.

We did have room for dessert, and the Crème Brûlée here was delightful - the shallow ramekin made for a perfect balance between the custard and crunch...

Came in to wish off someone as they headed to North Australia. At first sight the place was stunning as we walked through the bottom seating area and bar I was shocked to see how great it all looks... but as we went up stairs we were welcomed to a table that had solid black bird feaces practically glued to the table and was gobsmacked to not be moved to a different table, instead we sat there and Covered it with a napkin till someone came to the table and we discreetly told them about it and they cleaned it.... Not a drama I guess but furthermore the starter platter took an hour for which shouldn't have I know because of my history cheffing in fine dining on the gold coast and secondly there were few and far between smiles from staff? Customer service huh gotta love it... but to continue on the food matter we ordered clearly but if the busker who was playing great music but way to loud wasn't that loud maybe your staff could have heard the order correctly but instead no we got some salad push onto us which no one even considered to order yes looked like a master piece but was far from what we ordered and eventually after 1.30 hours we finally got that mains which was upsetting even more as the greens for the bleu steak had no seasoning it was just booked slop and the steak came out perfectly medium rare but still had blood showing so I wasn't to phased ...... But the bickering and the looks our table received from FOH is appalling

If I may remind people that work FOH & BOH It's our money to spend and we get what we pay for

Just as if you were to go to a themepark and pay for entry and not get to ride the rides just walk around and look at them

Hopefully Mise en place is in place for service for now on in both departments (BoH and...

An early screw up from the servers left us expecting a bad time. Thank God for little miracles though, all food was good. Other than the pork crackling being undeniably pre-bought with the pork belly main, no complaints at all. Bread and butter pudding was okay. I've had eggier. My steak was certainly not the advertised 300g but all our steaks were cooked perfectly, exactly as we ordered, which for a pub - very impressed, usually over. Other mains were applauded and better than your average pub meal. It's no fine dining but it's pretty good. A strong would recommend/10. An extensive bar and good range of beers on tap. Small complaint - very noisy, chairs have low arms too. Okay once you relax and sit back into them though. There's an upstairs section which always seems to be taped off. Intriguing. Haven't figured out the password yet. The guy on security loves to bop. Not sure how good he is at dealing with real security issues, but he does a little groove which I enjoyed. The singer on Friday night (14/08/2020) was exceptional. Nice one. Cocktails were not the best. Not bad but not that good. You could make as good at home with a little practice. We ordered sides but they didn't get put through. Luckily the mains were sufficiently filling so this turned out to be a non-issue. Some of the tables are placed inconveniently. Too close to the major thoroughfare. I don't want that many butts brushing my elbow thanks. There's a few negatives in here but they're all pretty minor so absolutely still...