South Bank’s Emporium Hotel delivers room service meals to your home

From classic Caesar salads to Korean fried chicken, a Brisbane hotel is now offering a room service-style menu for pick-up and delivery. Here’s how the meals stack up.

LAST time I ate at Emporium Hotel it was at their fine dining restaurant, Signature – the lavishly appointed room flanked by an impressively stocked wine cellar and dominated by obsequious waitstaff fussing over every diner.

This time I’m picking up takeaway in a brown paper bag from the lobby.

While restaurants and cafes may be allowed to open to 10 diners, unfortunately, that’s simply not enough customers to be profitable for many venues. So instead they’re choosing to stay closed until restrictions are eased further but continue selling their newly launched pick-up and delivery options.

The Emporium hotel is now offering a room service-style menu for takeaway and delivery. Picture: Attila Csaszar

That’s the case at Emporium, and having only recently released a takeaway menu so expansive it’s taken on pamphlet form, it certainly makes sense.

The offering runs from 7am-10pm daily encompassing breakfasts such as organic acai bowls, croque monsieur and eggs benedict to lunch, dinner and snacks such as pizza, steak sandwiches, salads, pastries and dessert.

It’s essentially a hotel room service menu – comforting and accessible – ticking off those familiar foods you order to make yourself feel at home while away, plus a few special items if you want to treat yourself. Think sausage rolls, soup of the day and caesar salad influenced by the hotel’s French bistro Belle Epoque, or perhaps Korean fried chicken and grilled haloumi courtesy of their formerly bustling rooftop bar The Terrace.

The beef ragu from Emporium Hotel’s takeaway menu: Picture: Russell Shakespeare

Classic, Italian-style pizza, in varieties such as margherita and capriccioso, also make the cut, but diners will have to order those early or risk going without as only limited quantities are available.

I am slightly nervous about the fish cakes ($12) which come with an asparagus salad and poached eggs. Nervous for how well the fried breadcrumb crust on the cakes will maintain its crispness on the way home in the car, and nervous as to whether the poached eggs will boast a liquid centre to act as the perfect sauce for the cakes, or overheat in the container setting the yolks harder than an algebra exam.

It’s a pass and a fail.

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The coating on the fish cakes has survived the trip, with a crunchy exterior giving way to a white fish and fluffy potato centre, aromatic with dill; but the egg yolks have firmed so I instead must use the dressing on the salad below as lubrication – not that that’s a bad thing though.

Built for travelling and surviving the journey unscathed, however, is the lamb tajine ($18). Fatty cubes of lamb shoulder almost melt under the pressure of a fork, hiding a montage of couscous, zucchini, sweet potato, chickpeas and apricot humming with Moroccan spices.

Also untroubled by the laws of thermodynamics affecting takeaway is the beef ragu ($18). The spaghetti remains al dente, while the rustic-style ragu is chunky with roasted capsicum and red onion hidden under a doona of half-melted cheese.

For dessert the choices are vast, with the hotel’s patisserie providing everything from rocky road and bliss balls to whole cakes and burnt honey brulee.

(Clockwise from centre) Pear and ginger cake, coffee and hazelnut Paris-brest and plum and shiso mousse cake. Picture: Russell Shakespeare

My chocolate-loving friend gushes over the jaw-welding coffee and hazelnut Paris-brest ($8) with salted caramel and hazelnut crumble, while I prefer the tartness and freshness of the plum and shiso mousse cake ($8) with an almond clafoutis centre.

With eating out still restricted, Emporium Hotel South Bank is bringing the simple pleasure of in-room dining to you at home. And if you live within 2km of the hotel, they’ll even deliver it to your door.

EMPORIUM HOTEL SOUTH BANK

267 Grey St, South Bank

Ph 3556 3343 (orders taken over the phone)

emporiumhotels.com.au

Open Seven days 7am-10pm

VERDICT

Food 3.5/5

Ease-of-ordering 4/5

Value 4/5

Overall 3.5/5

Must try

Plum and shiso mousse cake