Last night marked my last Christmas function for the year, and was a simple celebratory dinner with the usual gang at the GPO Hotel. The GPO Hotel is situated in Fortitude Valley and, as the name suggests, is actually the now renovated and currently heritage listed General Post Office building. Styled with warm Italian colours and fitted with modern decor, the building can cater for many different groups having numerous function rooms, a couple of bars, a wine cellar and restaurant.

We spent most of our time in restaurant part of the GPO Hotel called The Telegraph Rib Room, sitting at their biggest table for the night. The actual dining area does not fit that many people but it was good to see that they did not try to overcrowd the area with too many tables. The table service was excellent for most of the night, with little things such as plates being taken away, or water being continually filled without request, all completed without any noticeable distraction to the diners.

The menu is well presented but be warned that the selection of dishes available for both entrees and main are rather limited because it apparently changes from week to week. Our menu tended to be fairly steak-heavy so there were not many options for vegetarians. For starters, we all decided to get some turkish bread that was accompanied with a rather bland hummus dip and a salty goat’s cheese spread that actually went quite well with the bread. It seemed like the two most popular dishes for the evening was the Steak and Bugs, and the Duck. I was told that the steak was cooked quite well, but the bug meat did not appear to be very much and was seemingly cooked from a defrosted state. The duck (which I had) was cooked to a perfect state although we all found the dish was not very balanced. The fruit sauce in addition to the caramelised onions made the dish excessively sweet. The sweetness overpowered the natural flavour of the duck and could have been balanced by something that was relatively salty.

It was still a good night overall and a great time to catch up with everyone.