raD fooD: Wayside Inn

Dan and I love a good steak, in fact being a vegetarian is a bit of a deal breaker for us. (I'm also slightly unimpressed by Dan's lack of enthusiasm for seafood, but we'll leave that for another time.) So after a mad couple of weeks, which severely lacked quality 'us' time, we thought we should bond over some well deserved steak - and we hadn't been to Wayside Inn yet.

Roughly between the Bay St shops in Port Melbourne and the bustling areas of Crown/South Melbourne, Wayside Inn looks slightly out of place in such a retail/light industrial area. But I'd enjoyed my experience at The Station Hotel (created by the same people) and we had heard good things, so it was worth checking out.

Despite not having booked, we managed to get a table for two... though it was early on a week night. At first the place was pretty empty (one other table of two) but as the night progressed we could see that this was a pretty popular spot and that we were in fact lucky to have nabbed a table without booking.

I was immediately drawn to a mirror detailing two seafood platters. I love steak and I love seafood. Alas our mission was to eat steak - so that is what I did.

The steaks looked fantastic (sorry about the weird filter on the photos), though the accompanying salad looked a little lacklustre. Luckily we'd ordered two side dishes - hand cut chips and beetroot & farro salad with Persian feta. The chips were good but it was the beetroot salad that really stole the show.

Another show stopper was my glass of wine - Red Claw Heathcote Shiraz. I'm not sure whether I just really needed a drink or whether it was genuinely good wine, but at the time, I couldn't stop raving about it.

Dan demolished his sirloin while I satisfied my steak craving with a scotch fillet. My steak was nice but not particularly outstanding. As expected, it had a more subtle flavour than Dan's steak. I think I'd order the sirloin next time. It was thicker, a bit crispier on the outside but still red-pink on the inside and as already mention, full of flavour.

Overall, the Wayside Inn provided a lovely atmosphere and some delicious, but not outstanding, food. The staff were pleasant though slightly awkward at times. There appeared to be a nice courtyard/beer garden, so I would definitely be interested in checking that out in the warmer months. Ultimately though, Dan and I will always crave a good steak - so I'm pretty sure we'll be back.