Once seated we were given the drink menu and had the ordering process explained to us. We weren't given much time to check through the menu to decide what we wanted to eat; our waitress rushed us inside to where she explained that all meals were on display. We made our choice, paid for our meal at the counter and proceeded back to our seats where we took in the pleasant atmosphere. Eighteen minutes later our meals arrived. That was the first sign that something was amiss.
We were astounded to find that our garlic bread ($4.50) was made from hot dog rolls.
The Beef and Reef, 300g ($27.90) came with pepper sauce, chips and salad. I'm sure my friend enjoyed the salad, I can't vouch for anything else on the plate though. I tasted a little bit of the steak and was appalled at its chewiness and lack of flavour. Her prawns ended up on my plate too. Once again they just didn't taste right.
The Australian Seafood Platter for One ($35.50) looked good. Upon ordering we were able to negotiate a slightly different meal as the squid rings were not wanted, hence this meal came with an extra piece of fish. It's unfortunate that many of our restaurants use farmed barramundi; it just doesn't taste as good. We were bemused by the added fruit plate. Is this one way to cut costs on seafood? The salad plate was ordered as an extra ($4.50) and as it turned out, it was a waste of money. Too much dressing spoiled it. The bugs were tasteless.
I was the unfortunate person who ordered the Western Australian Lobster Mornay (Half) $29.90. I enjoyed the salad and chips. The lobster was tough and chewy. I even had difficulty cutting it. I ate it only because I was hungry.
When our table was cleared away we alluded to the waitress that we were not happy. Later another staff member came and asked us if everything had been okay. We explained what we had not liked about our meals. She informed us that the lobster was "bought in cooked" and that the chef had not had any other complaints that evening.
We started to then wonder about the other seafood. Were the prawns also bought in already cooked? Is this why they were rubbery and an unusual colour?
We decided to end the evening with coffee, tea and dessert. We chose the dessert special, Marshmallow and Strawberry Fondue.
Now look at the photo - does this look like a fondue? No! The marshmallows were small and overly sweet with raspberry and strawberry swirls in them, the chocolate sauce was made from compounded chocolate and we got three hulled strawberries. We paid $14.50 for this. We weren't impressed.
Excellent location, pleasant background music, but we won't be going back for the food.
