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Restaurants for Grand Australia and New Zealand
We have several nights where dinner is on our own, Any suggestions for these days? We enjoyed the Tauck App on trips before Covid. On the last couple of trips the app has been discontinued.
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Your tour director will give you a printed list of popular restaurants for those nights as you go along. Sometimes, they even pick up the tab. This is a fabulous tour, we still have great memories of it.
One of my friend's daughters lives in Melbourne. She recommended Ponyfish Island for a casual lunch (pictured below). It is a under the Southbank Footbridge near the Promenade in Melbourne. It is open-air and very casual - focus is more drinks than food. I would not recommend it for dinner, but it was a fun place for lunch. I agree with BrendaAnderson - your TD will have great restaurant recommendations for dinner.
Yes! We had a wonderful meal at Aria, and enjoyed a window table with an amazing view of the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbor & Bridge. In Melbourne, we had a memorable lunch at Donovan’s by St. Kilda. It’s right on the beach. St. Kilda is also where you may see Fairy Penguins (we didn’t, but they have a colony there). Food was great and the staff was super friendly. Also really enjoyed lunch at Chin Chin, a casual SE Asian inspired eatery, and a lovely dinner at long-standing upscale Chinese restaurant, Flower Drum. Each restaurant had its own unique character. In Wellington, NZ, we had a dinner in town funded by Tauck - they gave us options, and we chose Monsoon Poon. We went with friends we met on tour, so we got a wide variety of food. Loved it! In Queenstown, we had dinner at Madam Woo (Malaysian inspired hawker food) one night, and for a takeout casual lunch, we tried the famous Fergburger. The line for Fergburger was out the door, but it was festive! Lots of great choices in the cities. Have fun!!
The hotel concierge can be another good source of restaurant recommendations. In Melbourne we had an excellent meal of Tasmanian food and wine at Pure South Dining. This was suggested by the Langham Melbourne concierge (Peter?), who guessed we were with Tauck since we were a couple and we were tired (he diplomatically did not include “mature”). He suggested Pure South Dining in part because bands of heavy rain were coming through and you can get there through the “back entrance” to the Langham Hotel which doesn’t require going outside.