Birthday celebrations at Scarborough Hotel

Now that I am officially out of holiday mode I would like to wish all my readers a Happy New Year. I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed your New Year celebrations. The holiday for me involved a lot of eating but also a lot of exercise considering I am in training for a 250km bike ride (over two days) in Bright, Victoria in a couple of weeks time.However, my holiday did involve a few rest days, one of which was my Mum’s birthday. We decided to go to the Scarborough Hotel in Scarborough for lunch with family and a couple of friends followed by pre dinner drinks and nibbles with a few more friends back at our holiday house.Scarborough HotelThe Scarborough Hotel looks like any old pub from the outside, however it is always packed with people and Mum had told me that it has an amazing outdoor area. I had seen the lunch menu prior to going and it looked rather fancy (with fancy prices to match!).Unfortunately after days of beautiful hot and sunny weather, the day we went to the Scarborough Hotel it was overcast, however we were not going to let the weather spoil our celebrations! We chose a table outside sheltered from the wind with a great view of the ocean (it would have been much better if it wasn’t overcast!).I was very impressed to find out that the restaurant has a separate gluten free menu. I choose the Roasted Spanish Summer Salad which consists of cumin roasted vegetables and wild rocket dressed with sherry vinegar dressing and topped with Spanish cheddar. The food took awhile to come out however we had anticipated this and were enjoying sipping on our bottle of btw nv sparkling. btw nv sparkling While we were waiting for our food what we originally thought was motorbikes (the bikies always stop at the pub) turned out to be thunder and we started to get a little concerned we would be washed out.Though, our food turned up before the rain began and we all dug in. My salad was a little disappointing, while the cumin and cheddar gave it a great flavour I would have liked to see a few more vegetables (and less rocket) for example eggplant and zucchini (as it only included capsicum, tomato and red onion). There were mixed opinions about the dishes chosen, some loving theirs and some a little disappointed.Roasted Spanish Summer Salad Unfortunately about half way through our meals after some serious thunder and lightning the rain started to fall. Luckily one of the Balinese style thatched roof huts had become free and we moved there where the thatched roof sheltered us from the rain (although not from the wind!).The table we moved to once the rain started The view from the Balinese thatched hut We finished off our meals and decided that it was time to move indoors where it was a bit warmer. I would highly recommend the outdoor area of the Scarborough Hotel for a couple of drinks on a nice day and would be interested to try some of the other dishes. The view from our first table Did you eat a little too much over the holidays?