24 William Street

Port Macquarie

Once again I seem to be starting a story in reverse, but imagine my joy when I saw this cutely named dessert, “The Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” I instantly knew to reserve some dessert space for this little gem.

The Stunned Mullet is located opposite town beach at Port Macquarie and was established by owner Lou Perry 6 years ago. The atmosphere is relaxed and the restaurant is obviously quite popular with the locals.

NQN and I peruse the menu, I could help noticing some delicious sounding cocktails but I reminded myself that I was here to do a job.  The menu described so many luscious sounding dishes but I immediately had eyes for the Pork Belly entree.

We ordered our dishes and to our surprise the chef sent out an early entree of Crispy King Prawn wrapped in wonton shiso & shitaki served with a yuzu miso and fragrant oat flakes.  This entree was in addition to those which we had ordered, and I was secretly very pleased. I had been looking at the description of this dish and the fragrant oat flakes had tweaked my curiosity. The wonton wrapped prawn was deliciously crisp and the prawn inside moist and tender.  The prawns were sitting on a bed of smoky oat flakes for added flavour.

Next up was the Pork Belly which was served with Seared Scallop, a nuoc cham dressing and Asain salad. This dish was an easy choice for me, as I think the pork and scallop combination is a match made in heaven.  The pork was succulent and salty, with a decadent layer of flavoursome fat. The scallop, sweet and delicate.

All this gorgeous food and we still had another entree to go! The salt and peppered baby squid tossed with garlic chips, fresh chilli and fresh coriander on a bed of baby rocket was another winning dish. The well seasoned squid was tender and full of flavour. It was great to have a fresh herby salad after the richness of the pork belly.

NQN and I had a chance to chat about the meal while we were awaiting our mains.  Despite being very tired from a huge day of meeting producers and operators we needed a little time between courses.  The next dish to the table was the Duck leg with truffle desire mash, sour cherry reduction, rocket, pear and hazelnut salad with verjuice vinaigrette.  This was a really tasty dish and it really hit the mark for me. The duck was crispy skinned and gamey melt in the mouth flesh, I love creamy well seasoned mashed potato with truffles and I was pleased to see the sour cherry reduction which pulled the whole dish together nicely.

Readers may know that I spent ten plus years as a vegetarian, basically throughout my late teens and all my twenties.  As a result I am always tempted by delicious sounding vegetarian dishes. When I saw the Buffalo Ricotta, spinach and roasted pumpkin Rotoli, crispy sage and tomato veloute with a meyer lemon aioli I knew this was another dish I wanted to try.  I thoroughly enjoyed the flavour of the pumpkin, cheese and spinach but the best part for me was the crispy sage, I could have eaten a plate full of that with just the meyer lemon aioli.

For dessert we had ordered the Sesame Snap Mille Feuille with layers of Tahitian Lime and Coconut Curd with a chilli inspired caramel. Traditionally a Mille Feuille is three layers of pastry used to sandwich two layers of patisserie crème, such as a vanilla slice. The dish which arrived at our table was an exciting reinvention of this old favourite.  The sesame snap was delicately thin and lacey and had a clear sesame and honey flavour. I loved the fresh tart flavour of the lime curd and was content to scoop at the curd with the sesame snap.  All three flavours sesame, lime, and coconut complimented each other perfectly. The caramel was a very light sugar syrup, which was infused with red chilli although it didn’t provided any heat to the dish.

Finally the dish I had been anticipating all meal, the “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch”.  When it arrived at our table I was immediately in love. This velvety brown sugar pie with crisp base was so sweet and creamy, and the delicious burnt orange syrup provided a gorgeous contrast in flavour.  Dark chocolate lined the plate and crunchy candied walnut were scattered generously over the dish. Oh dear, be still my beating heart! Will I ever love another... hmm, I do like my desserts, so the answer is probably yes, but I strongly recommend you try this honey bunch.

Sadly the meal had come to a close.  It was time to amble with full bellies, down to the Observatory Hotel to sleep off our meal, and prepare for another day of food discovery in Port Macquarie.

The restaurant is open for lunch and dinner for bookings pleased call 0404 409 809, or visit the website

Thank you to Destination NSW and Mid North Coast Tourism for hosting our meal at “The Stunned Mullet.”