Restaurant Review – The Boat Shed – Cotton Tree

One of the outstanding assets of this restaurant is its position on the banks of the Maroochy River on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Another is the fabulous food and excellent wine list.

On a fine day it is stunning and you can round off your meal under the cotton tree sipping a coffee or post-dinner drink. On a rainy day it loses a lot of its appeal but at least the diners know they are in for a culinary treat.

Today was cloudy but there wasn’t a hint of rain. Six of us made selections including coconut prawns, seared scallops and oysters (from Coffin Bay in South Australia) for entrees, then Goldband Snapper, Seafood in Thai Yellow Curry and Battered Fish and Chips. All were of excellent quality. If I had to make a negative comment at all it would be about the yellow curry. I could cook it better at home but the seafood it contained was very good.

There are many good wines by the glass and we all enjoyed trying the various labels. The service was passable; there was a large group and one could tell the waiters were under pressure. Whenever we flagged our waitress down she was quick to attend to our needs.

This isn’t a value-for-money restaurant, but the cost seems worth the experience.

There was a bit of a kerfuffle about the bill. I (the host) and another guest decided to split the cost and gave them two cards. The credit card slips came back for signature and we both just signed as we’d already check the bill for accuracy. I left the table for a minute and on my return found another guest handing over cash. Apparently they had done their sums wrong and charged the cards an incorrect amount. I was most annoyed that they didn’t talk to me as host (when I clearly had been the whole time) but had approached another guest – not even the one who I had split the bill with. Not good manners.