Another year under the COVID regime begins and I found myself setting out on another regional NSW holiday, this time up the coast to the quaint seaside town of Forster. With another outbreak loose in Sydney, we were excited to escape to the countryside and get away from the city. However, conscious of the number of cases impacting businesses in the regional centres, and coming from a hotspot like Sydney, we opted to eat mostly takeaway food either in the car or our Airbnb.

Day 1 started off like all good roadtrips do, stopping off at Maccas for a McMuffin brekkie and a coffee. A bacon and egg muffin, a mighty muffin and two hash browns later, we were embarked on a ~2hr trip to the first pit stop of the day: Nelson Bay.

At Nelson Bay we grabbed a quick lunch at Red Ned’s Gourmet Pies. I’m a huge fan of pies in general but unfortunately we arrived a little past the lunch hour rush (2pm) and they had sold out on all of their famous seafood pies.

We opted for the Pepper Steak and Beef Stroganoff with Sour Cream and Mushroom (both $7.90). Whilst the Pepper Steak was rather average, the Beef Stroganoff had a nice filling, reminiscent of a lasagne. All in all, the pastry lacked butter and at $7.90 was on the pricey end for a standard pie. Their lobster and prawn/scallop pies get rave reviews on Google, so if you’re in the area I would suggest coming early and checking those out.

Having filled our bellies for the trip further north, we headed up Pacific Highway for another ~2hrs to reach Forster where we were excited to try out Si Señorita, a local Mexican restaurant.

We ordered three different types of tacos: the langosta (lobster), the el pez (barramundi) and the cochinita (pulled pork). The langosta was delicious but I thought the lobster flavour was lost amongst the strong flavours of the chilli mango chutney and kewpie mayo. It was delicious to eat but honestly could have been any fried seafood and tasted just as good, rather than being specific to the lobster flavour.

The el pez had fried barramundi with slaw and a chipotle mayo. No delicious chutney here in this dish but overall the flavour pairings were good. Finally the cochinita taco – it came with a healthy serving of pulled pork and a really fresh and zingy pineapple salsa that tied the whole taco together.

Three unique tacos with quality ingredients, highlights for me were the mango chutney and the pineapple salsa.

We also ordered the lamb quesadilla with smoked eggplant, roasted capsicum and feta. It was yummy but the eggplant flavour was drowned out by the lamb and feta combination. The dish tasted very similar to a gozleme to me.

Overall a nice meal with quality food. It was more expensive than anything else we ate in Forster but the prices wouldn’t be out of place in Sydney. Note the prices for the taco are per serving. We opted for takeaway but the restaurant is also along the water in Forster and would make for a nice dinner out for a special occasion.

The next day we decided to go to Plunge Forster for coffee and breakfast. We ordered a strawberry and passionfruit tart, a chicken and asparagus pie and a pork and fennel sausage roll. The food was very disappointing. There were staff shortages due to the pandemic and the cafe was doing takeaway only, which may have have impacted the food quality/standard. The pie was lacking in depth of flavour, the chicken heavily overcooked and the asparagus was not given time to break down and tasted overly raw. There was a lack of cream or sauce that would have tied the filling together and it needed a lot more seasoning. The crust was also dry and lacking in butter.

The sausage roll was properly seasoned but also very lacking. Pastry tasted like it had been frozen and pre-purchased. The passionfruit tart was of similar quality. Safe to say we were quite let down. We didn’t get the individual prices but overall we paid $26.60 for a large coffee, the passionfruit tart, the pie and the sausage roll. It did seem to be popular with the locals, so I would suggest trying their brekkie rolls or something they make on site to see if the quality is any better.

For lunch we headed over to Graham Barclay Oysters to buy some fresh oysters fresh from the farmer. A dozen of their premium oysters cost $23 with an extra $1 for lemon. The oysters were creamy and delicious (we did not order the ‘normal’ oysters so don’t have a point of comparison with the premium variety).

In search of a more heartier meal to fill the remaining space in our stomachs, we went to one of the most frequently reviewed places in Forster, which was Beach Street Seafoods. We ordered the special fish and chips that day for ~$12.50 (I think it was a lower quality fish as the original fish and chips was $14.50) and a separate fish to share.

Overall it was tasty but there was no discernible difference between Beach Street Seafoods and Lobby’s Seafoods across the road, where the fish and chips were larger and selling for $9.50, so we would recommend going there instead.

For our final dinner in Forster, we ordered takeaway pizzas from Pezzella’s Pizzeria and Bar. They had a large selection of wood fired pizzas and a variety of pastas. We ordered the Polpettina pizza which was house made meatballs on a red sauce. This was a yummy pizza, healthy amounts of basil and well proportioned with cheese and meatballs.

The other pizza we ordered was the salsiccia e palate which had oven roasted potatoes, a local organic pork sausage and healthy dose of rosemary on top. This was lacking in salt and flavour when compared to the polepettina, the potatoes needed to be more salted. The organic sausage was very light in flavour and didn’t have enough flavour to carry the pizza, especially given the white base sauce was quite muted. It was still delicious and did remind me of Bella Brutta in Newtown, Sydney. Definitely worth a visit if you are in Forster as they have a wide range of pizzas and pastas that we did not get to try out!

Thoughts and opinions by Melissa (check our the Instagram @feedsforthree for more images).

List of places we visited:

Red Ned’s Gourmet Pies
3/17-19 Stockton St, Nelson Bay NSW 2315

Si Senorita
Shop 1, Reef Apartments, 2-6 Wharf St, Forster NSW 2428
https://www.sisenoritaforster.com.au
https://www.instagram.com/sisenorita_forster/

Plunge Forster
5/21 Boundary St, Forster NSW 2428
https://www.plungeforster.org
https://www.instagram.com/plungeforster/

Graham Barclay Oysters
Little St, Forster NSW 2428
https://www.barclayoysters.com.au

Beach Street Seafoods
1 Wallis St, Forster NSW 2428
https://beachstseafoods.com.au

Lobby’s Fresh Seafood and Takeaway
62 Wharf St, Forster NSW 2428
https://www.lobbys.com.au

Pezzella’s Pizzeria and Bar
24/30 Memorial Dr, Wallis Lake NSW 2428
https://www.pezzellas.com.au
https://www.instagram.com/pezzellas1/