This past weekend I was at my friend Tiffany's Hen's Party in Sorrento and we had pre arranged a ferry trip to Queenscliff to go to lunch at Athelstane House. The day was coming along perfectly, nice weather, great company and a fantastic waitress when we arrived at the restaurant.
We had pre arranged to do the set menu lunch which is $25 for two courses or $35 for the three courses with a glass of wine and a tea or coffee. This was perfect for us as it meant we could eat at the "only restaurant with one hat on the Bellarine Peninsula" instead of going to a pub for a counter meal.
Most of us ordered the prawns for entree and the Grainge sirloin steak with wombok and cherry tomatoes on cauliflower puree for mains. Sounds pretty good doesn't it? Well it wasn't!
The prawns came out butterflied, two per serve and luke warm but tasted reasonable and were of a good size so I wasn't worried yet as I had heard good things about this restaurant. Then came the supposed main course which I was shocked to see was a sliver of fatty steak about the size the palm of my hand and as thin as a minute steak (maybe thinner) served upon a smudge of puree with a sprinkle of raw wombok and one cherry tomato cut into quarters . I was mortified by the tiny size of the dish alone and the worst was yet to come. The dish was awful in both presentation and flavour and seven of us had ordered it. You could literally finish the dish in four bites, three if you didn't fancy the fifty cent piece sized ball of fat in the centre which left you about two centimetres of steak remaining. This was the second worst dish I had ever been served in my life only coming after the bizarre dish of pumpkin ragu on tagliatelle I was served in Austria a few years ago which turned out to be chunks of nearly cooked pumpkin served on hokkien noodles with a squirt of whipped sweetened cream from the can on top.
I am not a complainer and I understand that it was a set menu and was supposedly well priced but I would never serve this in my home let alone a restaurant. The thing is no matter how little you are paying for a meal in a restaurant you expect it to be of a decent quality and enough to satisfy your hunger. This responsibility should be even greater if you have been privileged enough to win awards for your restaurant. It is an insult to other restaurants, bars and cafe's in the area that you should be able to serve such awful food and coffee and advertise your coveted awards whilst they all scratch their heads wondering how the hell you did it.
I mentioned our disgust at what we had been served to the owner on the day and he said that other people had ordered it and thought it was fine. This I sincerely doubt when seven of us rendered it disgraceful.
Next time I will head to the pub and order a steak and chips....
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Ha! Go Liz! As another hen around this table I wholeheartedly second this with a huge thumbs down (I have an even more impressive thumb than normal too after lopping the top off it on the weekend with a very sharp vegie peeler!)...
ReplyDeleteI have never seen such a disappointing steak at a restaurant, it was more like a cheap bbq chop that had been cooked so badly, it was as if a fast food eating bogan threw it on the grill and gave it a squirt with lighter fluid to crisp it up. Terrible!
What I was more unimpressed about was the way the manager took the complaint, arguing about "what you should expect" for $35 and not being gracious enough to even offer us compensation for the disappointing experience.
And to make it worst, Liz, the price was $35 for 2 courses and $45 for three.
Poo to you Athlestane - at least we were enjoying ourselves so much it wasn't too much of a downer.
x Chloe
I've been privvy to Athelstane's mini meals and maxi prices also. Despite the size however, my roast duck with water chestnuts and lychees was pretty tasty. I'm a sucker for exotic asian fruits though and without the lychees it would have been a bland excuse for a meal, of which it can't seriously claim to be. I prefer 'tease' as it just left me frustrated and wanting much more for my $37 or so.
ReplyDeleteDessert had the opposite effect as it was more generous a portion, but left me regretting the decision not to head home for ice cream via Maccas (a real consideration. We were still starving!). Still desperate to understand why this place was so highly commended, and because it sounded unlike anything i'd eaten before, I ordered the strawberry and aloe vera terrine. I'd never seen the partnership of flavours on a menu before. After my first bite, I realised why. Yuck!
Still desperate to understand why this place was so highly commended, I tried Mum's dessert. My memory of this is poor, which really says it all. Some crazy saffron, and orange-blossom concoction!