I’ve just returned from our annual Noosa weekend for the Runaway Bay Marathon Festival. We’ve been running at this event since 2015 (apart from 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic). We flew up Thursday morning, but our early afternoon arrival was pushed back by a flight detour. We had just passed Brisbane when the plane turned around, and the pilot let us know that we would be landing in Brisbane to swap out a sick crew member. I guess they wouldn’t have easily been able to replace them at the Sunshine Coast airport. We were on the tarmac for about thirty minutes while they did the medical evac and refuelled, and then we were back in the air for the thirty-minute hop to the Sunshine Coast.
This year, I was confined to the sidelines because of the stress fracture in my foot. This also cut out a lot of the usual things I would do when we holiday in Noosa, like a walk in the Noosa National Park or a swim in the ocean—my weekend looked like walking a couple of hundred metres, eating, looking at the water, walking a couple hundred metres back to the apartment and repeating. I did manage to do some deep water running in the resort pool and my exercises from the physio, but that was the extent of my exercise.
Where We ATE
Breakfasts:
Piccolino: (x2) Choc Banana Smoothie and Brekkie Roll, Green Smoothie and Potato Hash with two poached eggs, broccolini and mushrooms. This is a good breakfast place with a nice variety of food, juices and smoothies. Pleasant alfresco eating at the quieter end of Hastings St.
Boardwalk Bistro: Not quite the range of Piccolino, but usually good, and the setting can’t be beaten. I think it might be the only beachside cafe in Hastings St serving breakfast now. I had the Brekkie Burger. Good food.
Little Sparrow: Food was OK. I had granola with berry compote and oatmilk.
Lunches:
Raw and Rice: These are build your own grain bowls. Since we’d had a big breakfast and were going out for dinner I chose a small. I really enjoyed this. A great choice for a light, healthy lunch.
Blended Health Bar: Since we had a late breakfast on Saturday after the race, we just got a smoothie to tide us over until dinner time.
Bang Bang: I would normally choose this for a dinner but our travel buddies were not huge fans of spicy food so G and I squeezed this in for Sunday lunch. They were booked out, but we were able to perch at the bar. Added bonus—a close-up view of the entertaining bartenders. We chose four “Little Bangs” to share paired with a cocktail for me and a Heaps Normal for Geoff. I loved this, especially the Kingfish Sashimi. This needs to be our must-do whenever we go to Noosa.
Dinners:
Boardwalk Bistro: We went here for Thursday night dinner. It was good, not great. I had the pork belly roulade. Afterwards we went to …
Amo Gelato: for gelato. This is in Noosaville so we had to go before we dropped the rental car off on Friday morning. Excellent as always. I had Caramel Honeycomb and Pistachio in a small cone, but the small is pretty big. I only ever try Pistachio at good gelato shops. This was a good one.
Piccolino: This was our Friday night venue for the guys to carb load ready for Saturday’s race. I had pizza which was pretty good. G wasn’t that impressed with his pasta dish. We’ll probably be heading back to Zachary’s for carb loading next year.
Season: It’s been a few years since we’ve been here. I really enjoyed my meal here. I had spanner crab pasta, and coconut and pandan pannacotta (no dairy)
Bistro C: We always go here when we stay at Noosa. Normally, we book it for the post-race dinner, but it was booked out this year (we think it had a wedding), so we went Sunday night. I had barramundi and a peach and lime pudding. We shared a serve of the calamari for entree (also a tradition).
Overall it was a good weekend of eating and lazing around but I was craving some veggies when I got home.
Do you tend to eat out or self-cater when you travel? When we travel food experiences usually play a big part in the overall plans, what about you?
Comments
10 responses to “Noosa Weekend—A Post Mainly About Food”
We do a mix of both eating out and eating in while travelling. I do like a nice meal out but sometimes it’s just good to have something easy and quick on the go too.
Melissa, I love the new look of your blog! Looks fresh!
It really depends… We usually get an Airbnb so we have that kitchen and washing machine, because, you know, with two kids… But in Paris and Spain we went out a few times and it was nice! The kids kept asking to go to a restaurant after we returned to the US. They got used to a nice life 😉
Going out can get quite pricey with kids. We often used to do a mix of going out and eating in on our holidays away as a family. So funny that your kids are wanting to go out now they’re home.
[…] week, I had a laze around and eat weekend at Noosa, with lots of good food and good views. G had a solid run in the Noosa half-marathon in preparation for the Gold Coast Marathon in July. […]
Oh, the food looks amazing. And that sunset! I am sorry you couldn’t run this year but it sounds like you made the best of it. I agree that food experiences are always pretty high on our priority list when we travel, although I have done vacations where we would cook at the vacation rental.
We used to do more of a mix, often most brekkies and lunches at home, then maybe half dinners out. I can’t eat three big meals a day all the time and with the kids it gets too expensive.
Yum! All of this food looks delicious and that beach photo is stunning!
We can get burned out on eating out pretty quickly so we usually rent an Airbnb or Vrbo and eating 1-2 meals in and then 1 meal out. But we are also traveling with small children… so that really impacts the experience. The boys did really well on our trip to Florida in April, though, so I think the worst is behind us but we still don’t want to take them to really nice places and risk ruining someone else’s experience! My husband is also just not really a foodie. So I tend to eat out at nicer places with my girlfriends, especially at our monthly book club meetings, and then Phil and I more so focus on places that are less upscale, with the exception being the place we went for our anniversary a few weeks ago. That is the one upscale place that he feels is well worth the money spent.
It’s lucky you have some friends that like eating out with you. We used to eat in more when we were with our kids. Dinners out with kids are often more of a pain than cooking your own food.
What amazing food you had. It all looks so good and fresh and tasty.
We usually eat out unless we are in the cabin by the sea for our anniversary trips. Here I cook a few times. Unfortunately the husband is not very adventurous when it comes to food and all the fun things I would love to try he is out. So we often go to restaurants that I am not really excited about and rarely have local food. Sigh… so I love through your food stories.
Oh, that’s unfortunate that you are limited with your restaurant choices. G has learnt to be adventurous, he had a pretty bland food upbringing.