Over 1000 bookings in 24 hours – but is this restaurant worth the hype?

When it opened for reservations, this highly anticipated new eatery from a Queensland restaurant guru was inundated. But does its cool Asian menu meet expectations?

The coconut beef short ribs are in such hot demand at a new Sunshine Coast restaurant that the chef is cooking 40kg of them each day. And after sampling them, I can see the attraction. The meat, slow cooked into tenderness over 10 hours and richly accented with coconut milk, peanuts, chilli and makrut lime ($40) is served with a large bowl of rice and a scrunched up, straight from the deep fryer roti for wiping up every last bit of sauce.

10hr coconut beef short rib curry at RB Dining.

We’re at RB Dining, the upscale sibling of the no-booking, pan-Asian Rice Boi, which has drawn queues since it opened at The Wharf Mooloolaba in 2017. Owner Tony Kelly (whose Sunshine Coast hospitality group also operates venues including Bocca Italian, Market Bistro and Giddy Geisha) decided it was time to placate those who can’t stand the idea of waiting in line and are prepared to pay more for a more up-market experience.

The newcomer, which drew a frenzy of more than 1000 bookings in 24 hours when reservations first opened, is upstairs on the other side of The Wharf complex from Rice Boi, the architectural equivalent of a little black dress, with floors and walls and table tops all very noir, popped with white paper lantern light shades and a large flower arrangement on the bar.

RB Dining at Mooloolaba.

The hefty menu (10 snacks, four raw dishes, seven small plates and eight large dishes to share plus gluten-free and vegan menus) is not a copy of Rice Boi, rather takes it up a notch with inventive dishes such tofu hummus ($10), which sounds crackers but knocks it out of the park. The tofu is blended with chick peas to form a creamy base for a hillock of spicy mapo pork belly, served with freshly baked bing bread (Chinese flatbread dusted with spices) ready to undertake scooping duties.

A mini charcoal black burger at RB Dining.

Another snack, the these days rather ubiquitous bao ($12), here has a different take with a charcoal bun encasing a battered chunk of soft lobster meat enhanced by slivers of pickled papaya and a slather of mayo accented with crab fat – from the body cavity of lobsters – which has an appealing, mild flavour.

From the “small to share” section, pork wontons are soft parcels of fragrant flavour resting in a pond of spicy grandma sauce ($18 for five) while the prawn toast ($18), prawn mousse squished into white bread, before being pressed into black sesame seeds and then brushed with a mandarin dashi caramel ($18) is also an interesting version of the perennial favourite.

Pork wontons with spicy grandma sauce.

Beyond the beef rib curry, the large “to share” section includes lamb shoulder rendang, barbecue Mooloolaba prawns; red duck curry; or perhaps local line-caught fish (Spanish mackerel on our visit) which gets the jungle curry treatment.

On the drinks front, a range of beers including several from the coast, sake and inventive cocktails such an excellent lychee pisco sour ($22), along with a Long Island green tea and sushi negroni, join a by-the-glass wine selection that is budget friendly, with several at $12 and $13, before seguing into a comprehensive list of bottles.

Relaxed but vigilant staff are well-versed in the menu, keen to discuss dishes and somehow on hand just when you need them.

RB Dining at Mooloolaba serves up this red duck curry.

We think dessert – tropical sorbet with ginger, lime, coconut pannacotta and lychee; mango yuzu tiramisu; chocolate marquise with chilli, dragonfruit and peanut or deep-fried coconut ice cream with saikyo miso caramel – might be beyond us. But when asking one of the staff what’s the smallest option, she says, “I can tell you the biggest is the ice cream.” “How big?” we ask. “As big as a small baby’s head.” Naturally we had to see this. A hefty ball of quite hard ice cream is covered in a coconut shred-flecked batter, the lot resting in a pond of caramel. It would be enough for four people really but could do with a bit more of the sauce to cope with the quantity of ice cream.

It’s a fun finale, part of a package revealing RB Dining is not just Rice Boi with bookings, it delivers on the elevated experience it promises, and is well worth a visit.