Watt at the Powerhouse

View from the CityCat approaching North Quay.

When my cousin Rachelle came to stay with us a few days, we took her to dinner at Watt in New Farm, where we've been thinking of having our wedding reception. Figured we may as well give them a trial run, seeing as the first (and only) time we ate there was well over a year ago at our friend Victor's 21st. Even then, it was mainly drinks and snacks rather than a proper sit-down meal, but Gam and I were impressed at the time that they managed to squeeze us all in without a booking on a Saturday night. Also impressive were the cocktails! Expensive, but really good.



This time around, Watt passed their first test with flying colours when Rach showed up a good 4 hours or so later than we'd been expecting her. I phoned Watt to change our 6.30pm booking to a 7pm booking, and when we arrived there at 7.30pm they still had no trouble fitting us in.

The seats were really comfortable- they have a bank of lounge-style seats around the outside of the al fresco dining area, with regular chairs on the other side of the tables. Because there were 3 of us, the seating arrangement was such that two of us would have the comfy lounge and one of us would have a 'nigel chair' on the inside by themselves. I offered to take the nigel chair, but Rach very graciously insisted I sit on the lounge with Gam. When I quizzed her on the comfort of the resin/plastic seat she had, she said it was very comfortable and praised the presence of the armrests, noting that it's fairly unusual for restaurants and cafes to have chairs with armrests.



Even though it had been a really warm day, the evening was pretty chilly, so we were glad of the heaters aimed at our seats from the ceiling of the al fresco dining area. The only thing that could have improved our comfort was heaters under the seats to warm our feet! I know outdoor heaters are dreadfully environmentally unfriendly, but without them eating outdoors in winter really sucks. Even though the al fresco area didn't really feel like 'outdoors'- there were some folding glass windows that were shut at the time, leaving the space about 3/4 enclosed.

When we were seated we were promptly handed menus, but we took our time deciding on mains. In the mean time we ordered starters of ciabatta with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and dukkah and, on a whim, deep fried whitebait with sambucca dipping sauce. Gam ordered a beer (Asahi) and I ordered 'a big bottle of water' for Rach and I.



The bottle that arrived was a glass bottle of 'Acqua Panna' the same size as the one on the table when we got there, i.e. quite small. From Italy. Totally unnecessary. We all know that Brisbane water sucks (floaties, tastes like chlorine...), but all a restaurant needs to do is invest in a filter and a bunch of jugs, not ship crateloads of glass bottles filled with water 'from the hills of Tuscany'.



We've had the bread, olive oil and dukkah combination before at home (I love dukkah), but never with balsamic. To be honest, I can do without the balsamic. The ciabatta was fresh and chewy, just lightly toasted. The deep fried whitebait was allegedly spiced, but didn't taste like it.


The whitebait was a definite impulse buy, triggered by our curiousity about the sambucca dipping sauce. On that count it was a failure: the sauce tasted like a creamy mayonnaise, devoid of sambucca. In an effort to determine whether the sauce contained any sambucca whatsoever, I tried some on its own. There was the faintest hint of sambucca, as if they'd merely waved a bottle of the liquor over a bowl of mayonnaise, but it completely disappeared when eaten with the fish. The whitebait were very competently fried- nice and crispy, not overly oily, but the sauce was disappointing.

There was a bit of a 'service drought' after we received our starters. Admittedly, it probably had a bit to do with our prolonged period of indecisiveness as to our choice of main. By 'our' I mean Rach and I. Gam decided on the eye fillet almost as soon as he was handed the menu!

On my choice of the pan seared pork loin with budgi-werri prunes, celeriac purée and apple-raisin chutney, for which the pork probably wasn't free range, I felt like quite the animal rights/environmental hypocrite. It wasn't even something we'd considered having at the wedding either, being such a wintery-sounding dish and also because Gam's Dad has a cultural taboo against eating pork.

I'm not sure what 'budgi-werri' prunes were, because they looked just the same as the Angus Park prunes my Grandma used to feed my Granddad to keep him 'regular'. With the pork, however, prunes took on a whole new meaning. That dish was simply mouth-wateringly good. The one (terribly minor) weak spot was the apple-raisin 'chutney' that tasted like stewed apple and raisins that could quite easily be found in a dessert. When I think of chutney I think of something with a fairly robust flavour, not something with a kick equivalent to a spoonful of jam.

Rachelle's 'za'atar spiced lamb rump on gorgonzola polenta with wilted spinach and thyme jus' was also fantastic. I didn't try the polenta (which arrived in a neat little triangle), but the lamb was perfectly spiced. She and I passed on trying Gam's rare-cooked eye fillet with fondant potato and berkshire sausage (ordered minus the listed pea purée because Gam doesn't like peas) because we like meat a little more cooked than practically raw rare.

Did I mention that it wasn't until we'd almost finished the mains that we realised we'd forgotten to photograph any of them? I guess the wait must have been longer than we thought!

At the beginning of the meal I had stated my intention to try the desserts. After all that food I had some definite second thoughts! Rachelle and Gam teased me for piking and I came to my senses. Once we'd decided, it was quite a while before a waiter came around to offer us a dessert menu (the service drought strikes again), but at least that gave me some time to digest my rather large dinner. Rach asked me whether I had considered just serving cake as dessert for the wedding, which I had because it's the cheapest way to go, but I'd decided against it because I'm a real dessert person. If I had to choose between dinner and dessert I'd probably choose dessert 7 or 8 times out of 10. So it was definitely a good idea to try the desserts.



After considerable deliberation, Rach and I wound up choosing the 'lime, ginger & golden syrup pudding with coconut tuile and lemon myrtle sorbet', while Gam went for the chocolate option with 'couveture chocolate and walnut fudge with double choc chip icecream and drunken raspberries'. I was glad someone went for the chocolate option, or I might never have made up my mind. The desserts were superlative. The puddings could have done with a little more ginger, but to tell the truth it wasn't until halfway through that I realised it didn't taste of ginger at all- that's how good it was. I could quite happily have made a meal of the lemon myrtle sorbet and coconut tuile biscuits. Gam's fudge dessert was melt-in-your-mouth good: the fudge was smooth and tasted like it was made with good quality chocolate, while the 'drunken raspberries' retained their fresh texture but were sodden with cointreau or some similar orange liqueur. I could so easily have eaten both, in spite of my increasingly rotund stomach. Mmmm.



The only dampner on the evening was the idiots who kept heading just upwind of the al fresco area to suck on a cigarette. The smoke blew into the al fresco area at several points throughout the meal, but it was worst when we were eating dessert. Thankfully we got to eat half the dessert before we were forced to inhale somebody's cigarette smoke along with every spoonful of food- it really detracted from our enjoyment of the meal, and I said as much on the feedback form we were provided with at the end of the meal (a great idea!).

The toilets for Watt are also the toilets for the rest of the Powerhouse, or at least some of the rest of the Powerhouse. I suppose that explains why they might not be the spiffiest toilets in the world, but I don't really like them. Too much of a 'school toilet cubicle' standard, rather than a 'paying customer' standard. I can't recall anything specific that bothered me aside from the horridly etched toilet seat- the surface was pitted and rough rather than smooth, and I couldn't help thinking (despite the relatively sanitary nature of toilet seats) that a pitted seat must hold a lot more germs than a nice smooth one...

Our last, more minor, quibble with Watt once again came down to the service. After dessert our plates were cleared almost straight away, but we waited and waited and waited for someone to offer to bring us our bill and it didn't happen. Meanwhile, other diners were presented with their bills accompanied by little chocolates. Hmph. Eventually Gam got up and went to the reception desk and asked for our bill, which was soon after delivered. I paid by credit card and noted on the receipt I was supposed to sign that below the total for the meal there was a line saying 'tip: ....', and beneath that the 'total'. I found that a little tacky. We live in Australia, with a non-tipping culture, but Gam and I do go out of our way to tip for good service. Effectively being asked outright for a tip is a bit rude. Especially when everyone else's bill is accompanied by little chocolates and we didn't get any *cough*.

Perhaps I should get used to it, given that the Howard government's 'Fair Pay Commission' has just opened the door to the possibility of Australian workers slaving in the manner of their underpaid US counterparts for little more than tips alone.