Just Keep Eating: Station Hotel

After an early morning of trekking up and down 1000 Steps, a couple of friends and I agreed we'd reward ourselves that night with some lovely steaks. I've heard quite a few good things about Station Hotel but have never had the chance to actually try it simply because it's just so out of the way for me but luckily K volunteered to drive us that day so I finally got to try it out! When we first arrived, all of us were a little skeptical of it being a fine dining restaurant as from the outside it looked like a pub, but once the waitress led us to the dining area all of us ahh-ed at how nice it actually looked.

We were all pretty ravenous by the time we were seated so when the bread came out, we all attacked it like vultures. While the bread was tasty, the real breadwinner (hoho so punny) was the butter. It was sinfully salty but not overwhelming so and I couldn't help but slather more butter on another piece of bread to have another delicious mouthful of it.

Not wanting to waste time on entrees, all of us flipped to the steak page of the menu and found almost an entire page of just steaks. Unsure of which one to choose, we asked the waiter for his advice and after some very enthusiastic selling of the steaks, he won all of us over with his description of the 300g Kilcoy (QLD) 120 day grain fed Black Angus scotch fillet.

300g Kilcoy (QLD) 120 day grain fed Black Angus scotch fillet served with hand cut chips and salad - $38.00 I opted for the medium rare steak and could barely contain my joy when it finally came out as I was crazy hungry. While it was flavoursome, I found it to be too chewy at times and personally that made eating it very annoying for me. A also had the same problem, but unlike me who only had small portions of chewy fibres, half his steak's interconnective tissues hadn't broken down yet and it wasn't until he got to the final half that he actually got to enjoy his steak.The hand cut chips on the other hand were superb and the salad was refreshing although I definitely think it could've used with some more dressing as I ended up drowning it in sauce.

The steaks also came with a saucepan of peppercorn sauce which was somewhat of a disappointment for all of us. I couldn't taste the black pepper in it at all and the thing that really bugged me was they only gave us one small saucepan to share between the five of us. The waitress assured us when she first placed it down that she'd refill the saucepan when we were done but when we were she said it'd actually cost us an extra $3. Not sure what the deal with that was, but luckily for us we asked another waitress and she quickly gave us another saucepan.

From left to right: Seeded mustard, Dijon mustard and hot English mustard Mustard was also served with our steaks and the waitress serving it was absolutely lovely! There were 3 types of mustard to choose from and being the indecisive person I am I opted for all three which actually turned out to be a good idea. K and A both decided to go for just hot English mustard and what a hilarious decision that turned out to be. The boys underestimated the mustard and so they drowned their chips in it only to find out that it was as strong as wasabi. Their reactions were priceless and I wish I could've captured it on film to show everyone, both of them teared up and were throwing their heads back in agony as the mustard burnt the insides of their mouths.

K struggling with the hot English mustard

Station Hotel, unfortunately, did not live up to the hype for me and I don't think I'll be returning here any time soon. While the steak was decent, it definitely wasn't worth the price tag and travel time for me and I felt really disappointed by the end of the meal. Keep in mind though, even though A and I weren't as pleased with our steaks, the others seemed to enjoy their ones, so perhaps we were just unlucky with our pieces.

Station Hotel

Location:

59 Napier St Footscray VIC 3011

Contact: (03) 9687 2913

Opening Hours:

Mon - Sun 11:00am - 11:00pm

Pricing: $$$