The Civic Pub — Restaurant in District of Canberra Central

If you're not paying attention, you might miss it.

I'll get stuck right in. Walking past a few times on the opposite side of the road, the large Carlton Draught sign gave me an impression of yet another generic pub. But that's certainly not the case.

Facilities, cleanliness and maintenance: inside you'll find something more akin to a whisky bar than a pub. Beautiful walnut stained furniture, leather seats, book cases all dotted with pot plants. All bathed in a warm yellow glow from soft lighting. This is a lovely, calming place to sit.

Outside, in the afternoon you'll have the sunlight filtered through the canopy of a large tree (perhaps a maple). Again with lots of pot plants and even cute wheelbarrows containing colourful flowers. Outside is very pleasant, and I was drawn there given the nice weather.

Product and accuracy: At the bar you'll find a good variety of beers (sure, I didn't get on the grape juice tonight). I set myself up with a 4 Pines, or a few actually. It was poured well, presented well and was deliciously cold. I ordered the 300g Sirloin steak and the high praise comes in the form of me muttering to myself "this steak is wonderful". Cooked exactly as ordered to MR with a delicious grid char on the surface for that seared flavour, the cut was wonderful with good, even marbling. The mash was light and creamy and even the veg had great crunch to it. No one wants soggy brocolli.

Staff, speed of service and hospitality: the staff were very polite, approachable and were keeping the venue well tended and clean. The steak took an appropriate amout of time, which I assume they rested it (thank you).

Overall, I honestly don't have any flaws to strike on this review. Everything was at a high standard. I'd highly recommend this place to anyone who asked me...

The food here has been highly disappointing. We ate here 2 weeks ago and I had the scotch fillet, which was cooked really well. However the croquettes were still frozen in the middle and the chicken ballotine was luke warm. Still we came back. We had the pork belly bao buns as a starter. The flavour was good but having warm bao buns with cold pork belly in the middle wasn't. Eating cold pork fat just made me gag - it was disgusting. Then our meals came out. The ribs were fine, cooked okay and tasty. It's not hard with ribs and chips. The chicken ballotine (round 2) wasn't. The sous vide chicken had clearly been reheated in a microwave. It was warm on the outside and lukewarm in the middle. The mushroom sauce it sat on was stone cold, just come out of the refrigerator cold. I sent it back. To their credit, they did go out of their way to fix it. They gave us a free drink, offered a free chips while I waited and then brought out a new meal that clearly had been properly reheated. However, 2 for 2 trips with poorly heated food is it for me. If there are friends that want to meet here then fine, but I wouldn't voluntarily come here when there are better places to go. (For this review...

The food was nice but it should be mentioned when booking that you need to be gone within 90 minutes due to the table being booked again. Still unaware of this fact we were then allowed to order dessert 5 minutes before the dead line. The waiter then tries to eject us before the dessert arrived which took forever because they were so busy and under staffed. They did manage to find the 7.30pm booking another table though....strange!? We booked again for the night after. This time they remember to mention that we had to be gone within 90 minutes, so we promptly order three meals for three people....but only two arrive! They stuffed up our order. Then the 'grumpy over worked' waiter tells me to 'supervise my child' who is clearly visible to me and is happily playing outside on the footpath, disturbing no one, near the entrance where I can access quickly, on council property. I told him to mind his own business. Outside is not the pub's...