Wynne Ma

A Monday night catchup with friends. Destination - Station Hotel.

Address: 59 Napier Street, Footscray, VIC 3011
Website: http://www.thestationhotel.com.au/

Opening Hours

Monday - Sunday: 11.00am till late (kitchen opens at 12pm)

What we ordered:

• House made falafel w Middle Eastern relishes
• 250g Sher Wagyu (VIC) 450 day grain fed Wagyu X Holstein rostbiff
• Mash
• Creme brulee
• Bread and butter pudding
• Creme caramel with poached strawberries and almond dentelle

The experience

Station Hotel; one of the most dependable places I know of when it comes to great steak. Located just a few steps away from Footscray station, this place is easily accessible by those living on the west side.

It didn’t take long for my friends to order a steak each - a great choice for those wishing to play it safe, as the steaks at Station Hotel are renowned for their quality. What about those curious about the rest of the menu? I decided to take the plunge outside of the steak box and ordered the house made falafel.

Boy was I glad that I ordered the falafel. There’s no exaggeration in saying it was the best falafel I’ve ever had in my life. The falafel were aromatic and flavoursome, not dry at all - crunchy on the outside, and at the same time they were also super soft and fluffy with chunky pieces of nut inside. The accompanying ‘middle eastern relishes were also lovely. The only thing that was a little disappointing was that I found the pita bread to be a bit tough, but then again - I was too busy devouring my delicious falafel to really care.

What about the steaks? As expected, the steak was cooked perfectly - a gorgeous shade of pink on the inside. I gave JT’s medium rare steak a generous number of pokes to test the meat and it didn’t bleed at all. Steak was delicious; a quality piece of wagyu that was tender and juicy with a light smoky taste from the the grill. With the steaks, came a choice of béarnaise sauce or pepper sauce. While it’s worth trying both sauces, the béarnaise sauce was the favourite amongst my friends.

Time for dessert! We weren’t strangers to the dessert offerings so we ordered quickly. We weren’t particularly impressed with the bread and butter pudding, but the fact that we were all already completely stuffed probably impaired our fair sense of judgement a little. On the other hand, the creme brulee and creme caramel were both really nice. Perhaps a little too close to each other in the dessert family tree though - it felt like we ordered the same dessert twice. I don’t think we’ll ever make the mistake of ordering the two together any time soon.

Everyone one left Station Hotel quite satisfied; great food, company and friendly staff - we really had an enjoyable time. A place that I wouldn’t hesitate to come back to - again and again. In fact, I’ve already got my eyes set on what I’ll be ordering next time: Station Hotel claim to be crazy about their seafood…

Side note(s):

• If you’re after dinner, booking is definitely advised. During our meal we saw a few diners asked to come back later.
• Station Hotel and Wayside Inn have a blog! Some of their recipes can be found online at http://kitchenbarbeyond.tumblr.com/