Seafood buffet @ Four Points by Sheraton

My friends and I were lucky to grab a deal for the seafood buffet at the Corn Exchange Restaurant located inside the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel on Sussex St, Sydney.

The deal allowed us to have unlimited seafood (and lots of other yummy foods) for $35 each! Yum! We were so excited.

The Four Points by Sheraton is located at 161 Sussex Street, Sydney.  It's located at the part of Sussex St which is between King St and Market St so you can easily get there from Wynyard Station or Town Hall Station.

The Corn Exchange Restaurant is located right at the entrance of the hotel so you can see it as soon as you walk in.



The restaurant was decent in size, with an outdoor patio area as well. The place had a mixed crowd - small and big families, couples, friends!





There was a large selection of bread to start with - unfortunately the one I tried was slightly stale.....:(



The antipasto selection was great! I didn't really expect to see such a wide range at a buffet! As a sucker for salami and sun dried tomatoes, I stacked my plate with them hehe



The soup of the day was Pumpkin! It was quite nice and creamy.



They also had a selection of hot food which I didn't actually try because I told myself I would try to fill my tummy up with mostly seafood!



I did try the mashed potatoes though....it looked / smelt  soooooo good when I opened the lid...but then it was super salty ><!!! So salty that I had difficulty eating it...



The salad bar was decent as well.  They had sales like squid salad, baby potatoes, caesar, pasta salad and mixed greens.





And now for the HIGHLIGHT!  The cold seafood selection!!!! The reason we came to the buffet!





There are prawns, crabs, mussels, oysters, crayfish and smoked salmon.  The smoked salmon didn't look too fresh so I didn't eat any of it.

I also don't like oysters very much so I didn't have any either! But my friends thought they were quite nice.

I went nuts on the crab and the prawns!  They were quite delicious.  The crayfish was nice too but  it was slightly dry....The mussels were yummy too because they had been marinated in a sweet chilli type sauce.

Here is a selection of the things we ate:





And finally!

DESSERT!!!!! To be honest I was absolutely stuffed full of crabs and prawns (and maybe salami & sun dried tomatoes) so I didn't have any dessert......I kinda regret it now looking at the photos!! ><!

Apparently the creme brûlée is yum as....!



They also have MOVENPICK ice-cream! My friends tried it and they thought it was slightly hard when they tried to scoop it out.  There was also a selection of toppings for the ice cream like white chocolate, coconut flakes and sprinkles.





So at the end of it we were SOOOOO FULL that we went to Westfield Shopping Centre to shop but ended up sitting down because we were so full hehe

Will I go back? Hmmmm probably not at full price (which I think is $50pp). We expected the buffet to have sashimi and sushi but they didn't which was slightly disappointing for us! But I guess we can't complain for $35.

D xx

Dimmi online bookings

Online bookings are so convenient.

I don't really like talking on the phone in general and also because I've had heaps of issues with restaurants when trying to book via the phone, I much prefer booking online (although I despise the Momofuku booking system where they release a day's worth of tables at 10am every morning...some people don't have time to sit around the computer at 10am every morning to book a table! Anyways, just venting some frustration :P)

Dimmi provides an online booking system where you can easily select a date and a time for your booking, select the number of people and hey presto! you're done.



It's also great because it tells you automatically whether the restaurant has been booked out or not for that particular date and time :) And whether any Special deals are available for that particular date and time!

Dimmi also provides real restaurant reviews from customers which you can use in making your choice.



And the best thing? You can sign up and collect Dimmi points by reviewing the restaurant that you went to. You can 1,000 points per restaurant. Once you've reached 8,000 points, you can redeem your points for a $50 voucher to be used at selected restaurants that support and use Dimmi.





I have to say that I am yet to use the vouchers, but I will let you guys know when I do!

Although I love Dimmi, I have to admit that there has been ONE time (only once ever out of the many many times I've used Dimmi) when the booking did not go through properly and when I called them to double check they told me that they didn't get my booking! So if you want to be on the safe side, you can call up the restaurant directly to ensure the booking came through.

So if you haven't not booked using Dimmi yet, or have used it before but never collected points, go and earn yourself that $50 voucher :)

Visit the Dimmi website here.

D xx

Outback Steakhouse, North Strathfield

Did you know that Outback Steakhouse is not Australian?

Yeah - high five if you didn't know that either :) lol

I only kinda realised when I saw that they had Outback Steakhouse restaurants in Korea and thought, surely that can't be an Aussie export? So a little bit of googling and found out it was American.

Anyways, so when I was a uni student, me and my friends would feel like steak but not be bothered to go all the way to the city so we used to go to Outback Steakhouse in North Strathfield.

And in my memory it was pretty easy to get a table there - we would sometimes rock up without a booking and be fine.

But this time when we rocked up....there was a 45min to 1 hour WAIT!!!! I was so surprised at how packed the restaurant was....ummm since when was Outback Steakhouse so popular? It was only like 6:30pm or something.



Thank goodness we had called a few days earlier and were informed about this "priority seating" system where if you call in you get put on top of the waiting list for seating (they don't take bookings for less than 8 people).

So we ended up getting a table in 15-20mins, rather than 45 mins.  They do have a bar section where people can have a drink while they wait for their seats as well.



The menu is pretty extensive but I was so set on getting a steak - so I chose the 225g Victoria's Fillet (although it wasn't as thick as it looked in the picture..!). I ordered medium rare, and it was cooked pretty decently so I was happy with the steak.





When you order a steak you have the option to choose between a soup (depends on what they have that day) or a salad and then one side.





I chose the Pumpkin Soup and the jacket potato as my side (as you can see above).  The pumpkin soup was super yummy (cos I don't usually like pumpkin soup but this one was really creamy and good) but the jacket potato was a little bit bland....should've got the sweet potato....

My friends chose the salad and garlic mash.  The salad wasn't particularly great because you could tell it had been pre-made and in the fridge from the condensation on the side of the dish.

We also ordered Bushies to share - they're like KFC but mushrooms! It was quite yummy at the beginning but then they started getting soggy....



You can also get refills of soft drinks for free and they give you complimentary bread (freshly baked) for the table with this delicious whipped butter...MMMMM

From observation it seemed like the cheesy fries were quite popular that day because everyone was having one! I remember I had then before and they were quite yummy, along with the "Blooming Onion" which is like onion fried in the shape of a blooming flower.

Would I come back again? Most likely I'll end up coming back because it's convenient and not too pricey - although I really didn't like the music and the atmosphere that day...the music was too fast which made me feel like I had to eat faster? and it was so loud we had trouble hearing each other across the table. The service was pretty decent though - the waitress was pretty attentive so no dramas there! If you do end up going there I definitely suggest calling beforehand to get the priority seating and TRY THE CHEESY FRIES!

D xx