CAFE MACAW - THE ENTRANCE NSW

I have seen this cafe many times in The Entrance, it is always full to bursting, so we thought that would indicate that the food and service must be tip top, right?

At first glance it was all that and more, we were greeted by a friendly face and seated at the table, they had a great selection of breakfasts and we proceeded to order.

Mine was pretty simple, BLAT and a juice.

My compadre (Besty) chose to have the Haloumi Stack with vegetables, like most people she had a few items she didn't want on the plate because she doesn't eat them. preparing you for the story ahead, let us just say that the tomato was our downfall here.

Compadre asked for no tomato to be put on the plate. She generally comes across as a bit rude so there was no question that the bloody tomato should be turfed and not brought to the table.

I also need to prepare you for one of my life rules. You do NOT, I repeat, do NOT EVER put lemon juice in avocado to preserve its colour. Surely I am not the only person in the world who detests this practice?

I don't get it, it's dumb, it wrecks the taste of the avocado and it's just DUMB, it's uneccesary too. Here is a piece of advice for you, the turnover of your customers, seems quite good. There is absolutely no reason for you to need to put lemon in your avocado. You should be using it quite rapidly. Just keep the seed in it and you are flipping set. Why are you running a food business when you don't know this? Maybe one day a person will be allergic to lemons and order your 'Avocado' and then what? You don't adulterate food with other foodstuffs, and NOT tell your customers you are doing that.

Oh, if you haven't guessed, my BLAT was actually a BLAT and Lemon juice Turkish bread. Put that on the menu next time jerks, I'm sick of wasting my money buying food, thinking it's going to be one thing then it's something else.

Our next mistake was coming up, Compadre had her food delivered to the table, instantly spying the tomato on the plate that was clearly asked to be removed, she sais to the waitress "I asked for no tomato"

The reply was when we knew that we had entered another "Blacklisted in the future" cafe.

She looked compadre in the eye and said 'What, do you want me to take it back to the kitchen and take it off the plate?"

This was accompanied with a look that clearly said "Just move the tomato you stupid woman!!! Who cares if I got it wrong, Just stop being so fussy, god, seriously, I do not work here to put up with these cows"

It was a very long look, it definitely could of been saying all of that.

Compadre said most sternly "Yes"

I think this is where she wrecked it for us, that's when all the waitresses seemed to collectively become one and treat us like crap.

I'm pretty sure they overheard us talking about the lemony avocado and they did not like it. The compadre dared to question their hearing abilities regarding the tomato, and we were quickly Cafe Macaw enemy number one.

We tried to finish our meals in silence and not irritate the possibly homicidal waitresses anymore.

Unfortunately, compadres eggs seemed to be snotty, an event that had me dry retching and her picking bits of snot out to try and get some eggy goodness into her. She felt the need to tell the waitress, this is about when I decided we should leave soon.

Sadly I had been so wrapped up in my own iritation at the lemony avocado, I had failed to notice the rage bubbling up in compadre and when she said "lets pay" I just blindly followed her.

I should of run out the door.

In what she describs as 'fitting for the circumstances' she pulled out some of those plastic money bags the bank gives you for your twwenty cent peices. Oh, they had money in them too. About $60 worth of small change.

At this stage I hovered in the background because lets face it, my anger was slightly less than hers, and I didn't want to be part of what I knew would happen next.

Compadre proceeded to pay the girl with $44 in loose change, so I'm pretty sure the waitresses lost it by then because they were openly hostile, the gentlemen in line to pay behind us almost had a coronary when the waitress had counted the money and compadre decided she had counted it wrong.

The gentlmen behind us threw money on the counter to make up the difference for us, threw out some swear words under his breath and walked out the door. What a lovely guy!

So we come to the end of our adventure at Cafe Macaw, it had to go on the blacklist I am afraid. I just cannot fathom paying them anymore of my hard earned money if that is the experience I am going to have.

COCO BANANA - THE ENTRANCE NSW

Well this restaurant was so terrible it caused me to start a blog. If that is not bad then I do not know what is. Have you ever walked into a room and gone, "I think I am in the right place, but, but, I can't possibly be can I?" It's a very confusing feeling.

I thought I was going to a restaurant, but apparently I had booked a night out in an empty room, with no companions to dine with and no staff to be seen.

When my dining companion for the evening (hubby) walked in, he accused me of taking us to the wrong place and thought possibly I had booked us in to some kind of wierd survivor style adventure night where you have to hunt, gather and cook your own food. I reassured him this was not true, it was just that.....that.... we were in a white tiled room, which had a lovely looking bar in one corner and some tables laid out here and there, but there was no cutlery or crockery on any of the tables and there was not a person in site.

I poked my head into the kitchen area....nada. I conferred with my husband, I thought it might attract someone if we just sat down. Surely? We sat. We waited. After ten minutes I sent my husband in to see if we could at least get a drink, why I did this I don't know, there were no staff anywhere, I already knew that, I was delirious by this stage and thought maybe I was in the twilight zone. Well I think you know the outcome, a child can do the mathematics of that equation. My husband looked stupid for a while wandering around this sterile empty, erm, room and then he came back out. "What should we do? Should we stay or what?" I looked at my smartphone (no-body has watched anymore ok) and realised this vortex we were in had kept us for almost 20 minutes.

I still refused to belive that you can have a restaurant with an open door, an nobody inside it. I started to think we were meant to bring our own food with us or something? I am not always quick to pick up on worthless causes, but it didnt take me another 5 minutes to say "Lets go somewhere else" It was really odd walking out the door, I kept expeecting someone to come out and say "Hey! Wait! we have just been hiding, SURPRISE!"

Nobody yelled surprise

We left

I now am forced to write this blog because of the outrage it has caused me. I have gone onto Trip Advisor (A great site, but they check your reviews to make sure they are publicly acceptable, so not for me always) to check out what other people thought. I was stunned that although our experience was unique in its stupidness, it was not unlike Coco Banana to give super awful service, rip people off and serve shite food. There is literally nothing they can do to make this better. i am pretty sure that if you open your restaurant doors, you should have the tables made up and staff ready to serve. Otherwise just GTFO of the industry, please.

BAD SERVICE, BAD FOOD, IT'S EVERYWHERE

Well, this is something I have been thinking about for a while. I abhor bad service and I abhor bad food, when the two are combined, I see red. Why do I think I have the right to critique cafes and restaurants? I am a customer, I managed a cafe for 4 years, I enjoy good food, I spend every weekend looking for the "perfect cafe", oh and my husband is a very experienced chef, so I have some expert advice on hand when needed. it seems like every week, myself and my usual dining compadre have to cross someone else off the list as a 'no go zone' Most importantly I think all blogs need to have serious amounts of humour in them or they are as boring as bat shit, so please keep your tongue in cheek at all times or leave the building while you are not offended. I invite any cafe or restaurant owner who finds themselves on my blog, to contact me if they belive that I have erred in my review. Please note that all corresponsdence is NOT private and confidential. If you send it to me, I might publish it, unless you ask nicely. See that's what it's all about, being nice. Oh and great food. I want to introduce my blog with the restaurant that started this desire to tell everyone else what I think of certain food establishments, so think of like trip advisor (which I also go on, but the reviews are all a bit polite for me) but with swearing, brutal honesty, and humour. PS: We are always open to coming back and giving you a second review if you ask nicely and want to take the risk :-) I hope you enjoy my reviews (and occasionally reviews from my dining companions)I admit I look for very high standards, but I am fair and very open to mistakes being made, if they are fixed and done with a smile. A little bit of customer service goes a long way. CHEERS!