Its an outrage. You don't have to be a masterchef to know there are some elementary things about cooking steak so it turns out delicate and tender. Start with a decent bit of meat ... make sure the plate is really hot and its heavy enough to retain the heat, only turn it once, always let it rest ... etc.
At Saphire Beach we enjoyed some excellent scotch fillet, with more mouths to feed here we found some well priced Porterhouse and decided to have it with a simple salad of our own design ... tomato, fresh basil and fried haloumi cheese. Gorgeous.
All is in readiness ... everyone is set to relocate to the river bank picnic table, we've got all the ingredients ready to chop for the salad, drinks ... we're all good. So I go down early to get the plate hot. I suspect it will take a good 10 minutes for the plate to heat up ... $1 for the heating and another couple to complete the cooking.
I insert the coin and wait. The usual public bbq sounds are emitted, some creaking as the plate warms. I wait for the warm to become hot. I wait some more. And some more. Surely it will get hotter than this. In hindsight, the telltale sign was that the plates were pristine silver, not a blackened burn stain anywhere. I wait some more. I hold my hand over the plate ... within a centimetre - it's not going to get any hotter, its probably as hot as its going to get.
Then I make a mistake. I think it will be OK. I drop the first porterhouse on the spot that I reckon is the hottest ... it barely sizzles and within a second there is silence and within another 10 seconds that most terrible of sights ... the juices are oozing out and bubbling along the base, announcing that if I continue with plan A I will end up with broiled steak. There is no choice but to abort. Plan B was sub-optimal; our yurting fry pan is not a heavy base although last night I let it get really hot and didn't overload it and our meal was great. Memo to self; put heavy base grill plate into yurt for next time incase of emergency (public plates that only get hot enough to fry an egg).
Why bother offering public bbq plates that don't get hot. Someone should start a political party: People for Public Bbqs that get Properly Hot, the PPBPH party. There have been more ridiculous ones.
Meanwhile, today was sunny but with an onshore breeze, so the beach was pretty messy and rough. We had some fun getting buffetted by the choppy waves then retreated to the more sheltered river bank for lunch. The girls had a ball jumping off a board walk into a deep spot in the river that was part of a netted off 'swimming pool'.
"Johanna doing a twist"
"Jess taking the plunge"
"Rachel hold her nose for the decent"
