Your humble food reviewer is not the least bit embarrassed to admit that the very first time I had the eye fillet at the Spanish Garden restaurant at the famous Breakfast Creek Hotel, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to eat it or fuck it.

I sincerely apologise if I’m coming across just a tad vulgar here for that’s not my aim. And in my defence you really had to be there.

Yes, I was quite young but no, this was not some sort of Portnoy’s complaint being played out here with any cheap offal cut of meat. We’re talking the primest, the choicest of cuts. Almost used the wrong word there.

That very day, I had been convinced by others to forego my usual “medium, please” request and started a technique that has held me in good stead at every steak meal since.

As soon as that medium-rare first eye fillet was delivered, I cut it right down the middle to see if the chef had got my order right.

Using the tip of my blade – my knife – I slowly parted those two halves, revealing this pulchritrudinous, light-pink temptress in all her seductive glory. Is my mission here one of carnal or carnivore intent, I remember thinking.

As I said, you had to be there and thankfully for me, so were many other lunchtime diners so I ended up eating it, which was probably for the best. I also wasn’t sure how long she had been rested.

Over the years that followed, I was tempted by these fillet fillies on countless occasions. I was proud back in the years I ran down the journalists’ publishing house Liberty Press to package newspapers and magazines for many Queensland trade unions across the industrial political spectrum. Several in particular liked to celebrate each production with a meal at the Spanish Garden. Call them brisk working lunches or editorial committee meetings, but they only lasted until the work was done, the restaurant ran out of bottles of Wolf Blass yellow label or staff asked us to leave.

Throughout all those lunches, the temptation to give my eye fillet one remained strong if unfulfilled.

And so we come forward 50 years and I’m returning to the Spanish Garden for the first time in maybe two decades. Will my eye-fillet filly still tease me with its juicy, come-on fecundity?

As it turns out, I’m sharing lunch with one of those aforementioned union officials, his beautiful wife and my own gorgeous partner of more than three decades. Staff have put us in a rather secluded alcove so I’m wondering would they mind terribly if I finally fulfilled a young man’s sexual passions and gave my main course one for old time’s sake?

While I wait for this encounter, it’s good to see some things have never changed. The revolting, revolving horn wall feature is still there. The staff are lovely as remembered. Some things are different. It’s all table service now and you don’t get to walk along the bain marie and point out your lunch conquest. It’s still pretty blokey but there are more women around now.

But wait! Here she comes! If I could control my much younger self a half-century ago, then surely I could resist this luscious lass’s licentious advance now? My steak knife slowly and seductively splits her down the middle and she presents as she always has: a seemingly irresistible, sensual delight. Oh, my! Marbelling to die for.

But before I reveal exactly how I dealt with this sweet young thing, may I mention an enormous disappointment during foreplay?

For the many years I dined regularly at the Spanish Garden, the great encore was the white, fluffy, crusty bread roll that young maidens delivered from a bakery basket.

You know the way white bread rolls used to taste anywhere in the world except the United States? Taken with lashing of butter, they made your toes curl.

What did we get the other day? A bun in a cellophane wrapper with the words “Enjoy the flavour of history” written on it. And that “flavour” was of something that’s been around for a while, and quite likely recently been brought to life from a freezer or a fridge by being zapped in a microwave.

Maybe it’s something left over from Covid-19 but my plea to those who run the Spanish Garden and the other food outlets at the Creek: get rid of it! If the coleslaw that came with the eye fillet can be safely placed on a plate by some gloved kitchen hand holding a pair of thongs, then a fresh, crusty bun from a local bakery can be brought to our table.

Okay, where was I? Ah yes, that 300-gram medium-rare eye fillet? A dinner date or a dinner conquest? More worrying, at 72, am I still up to it, so to speak.

A gentleman never tells but can I just say she gave her all. She was unbelievable! She was everything a bloke of 72 could have hoped she would be! What can I say? She fulfilled me.

Don Gordon-Brown