Steel Tree @ Settlers — Restaurant in Baldivis

The restaurant itself looks good inside, but where the decking is (along the outside edge) the ceiling is covered in black mould? Not really sure but it looks just wrong in a place that serves food. In a lot of places it is above the tables, and no doubt some of the mould/dust would fall at times. There is some other "shabiness" issues if you look around while waiting for your food. Anyway...

The service initially was ok, although it was a very quiet Sunday night for them, so you would expect it to be fast. One thing that was annoying is the waiter asked us 3 times in less than 5 minutes after we were served our food if the food was ok. Was he paranoid? Have they had recent issues? It was a little annoying too, trying to eat and being interupted so often.

On another service note... When we were leaving to pay there were 2 girls behind the front counter that seemed more interested in chitty-chatting than service. There was some guy drinking at the front counter that seemed to be trying to chat them up, and rather than them being professional, they entertained his ego trip by flirting back. From what we could work out they already knew eachother. Even more unprofessional!

The food itself...My wife ate garlic prawns which seemed ok, but they are the smallest tiger prawns we have ever seen, and there were very few of them for the cost. I had the chicken parma with salad and chips. The chips were great! The chicken was extremely thin (not what you would expect from parma) and was really overcooked & dry. It also had very little sauce on top & the cheese wasn't very nice. The salad was ok until I started eating lettuce. They had not even washed it as there was sand/grit in every mouthfull of it. I couldn't eat the salad in the end.

Very dissapointed all up.

BELOW AVERAGE food....

Past triumphs don't last forever.

Steel Tree Baldivis is a small café nestled within the heart of the old Settlers Hill estate where the cricket oval with its white picketed fence and Maple trees paint a quaint picture. While the picture remains mostly the same the same can't be said for Steel Tree.

Steel Tree was the only option when the suburb was small, Was a pleasant café to grab a coffee or dine in for a warm meal on a cold winters night but this is all in the past. Stuck in the past the café is now showing signs of fatigue where the competition has surpassed them.

Firstly the building and décor was had no improvements in some time and it shows. Tried doesn't always stays true and it's evidence in the stained or mouldy white shade that provides cover is unsightly while the dishware and cutlery is quite outdated.

Staff are unfortunately either under trained or under managed sporting gym wear isn't professional. Seemingly more interested in their social lives than the customer.

Food and beverages doesn't get much better. A quantity over quality mantra which might have passed before with no competition but is lacking now. Coffee is bland with no depth and food is standard with no imagination. Only positive is that they do offer specials for food and drink which does bring in customers willing to save some coin.

With such a prime location it's truly a shame this café hasn't leant into progressing with the times as they may have had a winner on their hands but are stuck being the standard during same time Italy stole the world cup chances off of Australia, time to forget and move on from those...

We had fish and chips, grilled fish, green beans and calamari. The food was well made, fish was flakey and not overcooked, the calamari was not dry and rubbery and the green beans were bright and steamed enough and not overcooked. We sat outside at a square four person seating table under the tree next to the covered patio where there was the pizza overn and various burners in the corner. The downside and the negative of the visit was the sound, it was too loud at that table (70 dB). Understandably sound is subjective and we have variable tolerances. Maybe a way to describe how loud was that we had to lean over the table and raise our voices above the music; normal conversation is between 58-65dB. Also, it's hard for those that have a hearing impairment and it makes them feel more excluded from conversation with the extra obstacle of another sound source. The reason we didn't go to a table that was further away or inside was becaue we brought a dog and we we avoiding another table that had a dog on the outer edges of the patio, so our choices were limited. Obviously, there's a spectrum and balance for music and I'm not advocating for super quite noise levels that are too quiet to make things awkward for guests as they can hear everything you say ... and you can hear everything they say. Does the resatuant meet the acoustic index (CRAI) established by the Australian Acoustical...