The Fax Bar

Stayed at the Radisson Blu and ate at the bar once and breakfast twice. The night bar menu is the same as room service and the food was good. I had a chicken salad and it was cooked nicely and tasted great. Bar staff were attentive and helpful. Breakfast was a standard hotel continental and buffet style. Eggs and omelettes made to order via the chef on counter. $25 a head if you stay at the hotel for buffet

Bistro Fax Restaurant & Bar has a fantastic lunch deal. Lunch Box Revolution - wine, dine, connect, relax...for only $29.95. I like to take clients here for lunch and its less than $30! And they get to feel fancy pants being wined and dined in a hotel. The lunch includes an entree, a main and a beverage. I always gravitate towards the rocket salad with parmesan for entree, medallions of angus with chips for the main and a glass of red.

The staff are very polite and do recognise you if you have been before. They are happy to create a dish for you should you have any allergies etc. I have always found the food to be consistent. Always take friends and friends take clients. A good place to be able to chat freely without anyone listening in.

I love dining at fancy hotels. The white table cloth, the air of pomposity and the fact that you can arrange to meet your dinner date in the hotel lobby all add up to an experience above and beyond your normal outing. So when I heard that Bistro Fax inside Sydney’s Radisson Blu Plaza Hotel had a lunch time special, I gathered some colleagues and tried it out for size. Head chef Oswin Ribeiro’s philosophy for Bistro Fax is “simple, fresh, elegant and value for money" and this shines through with the lunch time menu (see dodgy photo below), which has recently been updated. The chilled tomato and beetroot consommé with sour cream sorbet hidden at the bottom of your bowl was refreshing and perfect for a hot summer day. For main, I had the roasted barramundi with corn puree which was delicate and flaky, the skin crisp and the flesh moist. The quality of the ingredients shone through as did the mastery of the chef but this is to be expected from such an establishment. The open and friendly wait staff added to the experience although I would have liked them to be a bit more arrogant to fit in with the stereotype. You can’t win them all. For a Friday lunch with your white-collared colleagues, this new menu ticks all the right boxes and with peach summer pudding on the January 2012 menu, I’ll be sure to drop in again, especially while the lunch time queue for Cafe Sopra on Bridge Street is rivalled only by the one outside Jamie’s Italian.