Do You Love A Fancy Feed? Or Will a Sausage Roll Hit The Spot For You?

Sponsored by Nuffnang. Confession? I’m not a very fancy person. Not at all. My favourite food is porridge and my idea of ‘fine dining’ is any restaurant where my table has it’s own bottle of tomato sauce. I do appreciate good food though and if there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s expensive and pretentious restaurants. I don’t care if the dessert was sprinkled with 24 carat gold leaf, if it doesn’t come with a giant scoop of vanilla ice cream I’m not going to be happy.

So when Nuffnang invited me to write a post about The West End at Crown (read: VERY fancy new area at Crown on Southbank) I was pretty stoked as well as being slightly suspicious that the menu might fall into the too-fancy-pants-for-me category. They suggested that I have a drink at Lumia bar and then have dinner at The Merrywell. I checked The Merrywell menu online before I went and was very relieved to discover that nothing was served with ‘jus’*. Thank goodness. I booked a table for two and hoped that the chefs could rustle up a gluten free something for my coeliac date.

We arrived half an hour late because I was busy working my way through the cocktail list at Lumia – just FYI they have these amazing cocktails made from this ancient fruit preserve syrup recipe called ‘shrub’. The White Peach Martini will change your life, I swear. Despite our tardiness the hostess graciously kept our table.

There’s an upstairs and a downstairs area of the Merrywell, the downstairs is a more casual burger and pint kind of joint and upstairs is more of a red wine and fancy rustic potato chips vibe. I took my man for a belated birthday celebration so we went a bit mental and ordered a giant seafood stack with amazing potato wedges. We did the usual ‘no gluten‘ spiel at the waiter who told us we could have ANYTHING on the menu and the chef would make it gluten free, which we didn’t really believe. However, half way through our massive seafood stack this amazing antipasto plate came out with meats, dips, chargrilled vegetables and bread. We waved it away saying we hadn’t ordered it but the waiter insisted it came compliments of the chef. The bread turned out to be gluten-free and house made. Cue a very delighted coeliac practically inhaling these gorgeous fresh little doughy rolls.

Then the gluten-free food just kept on coming compliments of the chef. Rice paper rolls. Buffalo wings. It was amazing and kind of weird. Now I know what you’re thinking – they were buttering us up because I was writing a sponsored post about them. Not so my friends. I didn’t say that I was reviewing the place when I made the booking. We discussed the onslaught of complimentary food and came up with a few explanations.

1. My compulsive checking in had earned me major browny points. The West End has an app that offers deals when you check in and I got a little obsessed with it. They have offers available on the app like cocktail hour specials and dinner deals. I also checked in on Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter and tagged a few photos in Instagram. My profile picture looks, surprisingly, a lot like me so maybe they thought it was a good idea to pamper to the social media wizard on table 34.

2. They thought we were Helena Bonham Carter and Chris Martin having a steamy affair in a foreign country.

3. The chef was a master of gluten-free cooking and wanted us to be guinea pigs.

We decided it had to be the third option and that the chef wanted to show off his cooking chops to seasoned non-wheat eaters. We were immensely impressed. To the point where I was shouting in to the kitchen that the chef should open a gluten-free bakery because he’d make a fortune selling his french sticks and mini hamburger buns.

We capped off the night with a sneaky red at Lumia and grabbed a takeaway coffee from Cotta for the walk home. Southbank is simply stunning in winter with bare trees swathed in fairy lights and the Yarra twinkling under the stars. It’s breathtaking. The West End at Crown is this bizarre little pocket of awesome with a bar, restaurant, cafe and it’s own corner of the casino. If you want to check it out (and trust me you do) Nuffnang are giving one Smaggle reader the opportunity to win a $100 West End Voucher. Just follow the instructions for your chance to win.

1. Read the Terms and Conditions of Entry

2. Answer this question in the comments on Smaggle –

Do you love a fancy feed, or are you a burger and fries kind of person?

Easy peasy! There will be six winners in total, one for each of the six participating blogs and Nuffnang will choose the winner.

Also,  Nuffnang are giving one lucky Aussie blogger the chance to win a weekend in Melbourne for two complete with flights, accommodation, meals and transport. Just do the following for your chance to win.

1. Read the Terms and Conditions of Entry

2. Look at the Lumia Shrub cocktail list on the competition page and write a short blog post letting us know which is your favourite and why. Then leave the link in comments section of the Nuffnang competition page.

All you need to do is have a look at the Lumia Shrub cocktails below and write a short blog post letting us know which is your favourite and why. Leave a link in the comments section below.

* I’m incredibly uncultured so to me ‘jus’ means ‘liquid’. So a strawberry ‘jus’ is just runny strawberries. Garlic ‘jus’ is just runny garlic.