When a friend and I attended the Hervey Bay Food and Wine Festival back in October my friend (KangaRue – who occasionally blogs here) had a lengthy chat with peeps at the Wild Lotus Restaurant and Bar tent.

I’d commented that I was impressed at how many of their dishes are gluten-free and LOVE that they clearly mark things on their menu as gluten-free and dairy free etc. KangaRue’s son is dairy allergic so that was a bonus for her as well and she returned with her steak sandwich making me promise we’d head there as soon as possible.

Sadly it took us a couple of months but we finally had dinner there recently with another friend. We’d booked – which I think is generally recommended on a Friday or Saturday evening – and the place was quite busy (which is great given at how fickle the restaurant / cafe market seems at times).

I’m actually on a weight loss program (Weight Watchers) and counting points so I’d sussed out the menu online earlier in the day in order to decide what I would eat and calculate my points.

Naturally, in this online world, both of my fellow diners had done the same thing (well, looked at the menu online… not counted points of course! 😉 )

Plus the restaurant (showing increasing social-media savvyness of late, had shared a pic of their creme brulee (left) on Facebook during the day… cementing my decision that dessert was most definitely on the agenda.

Entrees are usually one of my biggest problems when dining out (as I don’t eat seafood and gluten-free options are often minimal), but there were easily two or things I’d love on the menu at Wild Lotus. The Scotch Fillet Carpaccio sounded TO DIE FOR and the Asian chicken skewers would have made me very happy.

However, we three had our minds set on the creme brulee so decided to forgo entrees for dessert.

There’s a good variety of wines available but as I was designated driver for a change I stuck to the soft stuff.

My buddies were a tad undecided about their mains – too many things that sounded delicious, but one ended up going for the seafood risotto and the other for the Moreton Bay bugs.

I’d already decided on the rib fillet (medium rare of course) and LOVED that all of the sauces were gluten-free (a rarity when dining out). While normally I would have chosen something creamy, I ended up with the Mountain Pepper sauce though diet-wise could probably have gone for the Red Wine Gravy as well.

My steak came on a root vegetable mash with some parsnip chips (or similar) on top. There was some cauliflower but that was easy to push aside :-).

I could have had my steak with chips and probably normally would have but… well…. It was only week 1 of Weight Watchers, so I decided to forgo my personal faves for a change.

My fellow diners all agreed the creme brulee was perfect but weren’t sure it needed the berry compote and chocolate melted sauce on the side with the ice cream. I’d skipped the berry compote (cos, well… fruit!) so actually quite liked the drizzle of sweet chocolate.

Meals were priced reasonably for a restaurant of that calibre, ranging from approx. $20-35 and entrees from $7; the service was great and our waiter very knowledgable. We’ll most certainly be going back.

Wild Lotus Restaurant and Bar is open from Monday – Saturday for lunch and dinner. Check out their website or Facebook page because they also offer a range of specials. Bookings can be made by contacting 07 4125 3278.