Shamrock Hotel Echuca — Restaurant in Echuca

Look, despite the ongoing legal ramifications of the Echuca v Michael ‘03 case I decided to give the Shamrock Hotel another go. Mostly because everything else was closed, and I’d worked a solid eight hours that day in the mines, no less and no more than 5 hours on a hot Australian Friday arvo.

I ordered the cheesy bacon parma one off the 101 parma menu. But I was severely dissatisfied with not the quality or quantity per say of the food, but rather that the Shamrock Hotel has not revoked its parma menu after the intense case of Echuca v Michael in '03 and I urge that the plain parma be revoked as it is a clear effort by the Shamrock to stretch the numbers of parmas above 100. What's wrong with 100 after all "Perfection is the enemy of the good" (Voltaire). Given Echuca’s proud tradition of confusing quantity for quality, I wasn’t expecting culinary transcendence, just something vaguely edible that I could angrily shovel into my face.

Unfortunately, the parma arrived somewhere between lukewarm and legally concerning. The bacon was definitely there in a “proof of concept” kind of way, and the cheese tasted like it had once heard of dairy. The whole thing had the texture of a dish that had been sitting frozen in the backstore for a week. I sure hope the 100 parmas are not frozen and are made fresh to order.

Service was quintessential Echuca: laconic to the point of performance art yet functionally adequate. The bartender contributed approximately seven syllables; nevertheless, my drink manifested with commendable punctuality by local metrics, an unequivocal triumph. We achieved a fleeting interval of ocular acknowledgment sufficient to confirm mutual sentience, and the receipt displayed rare pecuniary exactitude. The bar is low; it was, however, decisively cleared.

For completeness: the beer was verifiably cold (thermodynamically satisfying), the chair exhibited unimpeachable structural integrity, and no adjacent table attempted to exhume the Plain Parma Incident of ’03. Sometimes adequacy, delivered without incident, constitutes luxury.

Four and a half stars (If I can give half stars???). I will, ineluctably, return not because of the quality but because it's Ecuka. Where else are...

The pub itself was lovely and clean and had a great atmosphere. The drinks were nice. That’s about it. First red flag was when we arrived they asked about our booking and being double vaxxed. We both were, however they mentioned if we weren’t there would be a fee? Bit weird but we ignored it. We ordered 2 schnitzels from the 101 schnitzel menu which cost us 60$. It was probably the worst schnitzel I’ve ever had. The only good thing about it was the chips and the gravy I ordered on the side. The schnitzel was cooked with no oil so there was massive charcoal black spots all underneath that they tried to hide. I had maybe 3 bites of it. I had the carbonara topper and the sauce wasnt even carbonara and the mushrooms were not cooked as to what was stated on the menu. The salad had legit 3 drops fo dressing on a quarter of the salad ? I don’t usually write reviews like this but it was such a massive disappointment .we are visiting from Sydney, so we didn’t know how the venue works. Nobody told us where to order or menus or anything. When I asked a waitress I was rudely asked if we had a booking even though we were told to walk through already and had already been told to take a seat. When the food came, we were asked if we would like knives and forks ? Which I thought was weird considering every table should already have knives and forks to use . All In all, great place to go drink, I’m sure the live music would be great as they had a great stage . But don’t bother going for the schnitzel lol you do not get what you pay for. Maybe...

What can we say about spending New Year’s Eve at the Shamrock hotel in Echuca

We have been going there for the last 8 years and this year was the worst due to all the reasons below

Bar service - waiting in line for 30 minutes to get a drink

Closing off the inside bar in the venue and reducing it down to the sports bar and a small bar near the stage

Toilets - here’s a good idea let’s just keep letting new patrons in and close the inside toilets and let’s get 500 guest plus use the small toilets outside - there were ques of people just waiting and some getting impatient and just going anywhere

Security- Standing out the front and only patrolling inside here and there . I thought there needed to be a guard to numbers ratio and obviously that wasn’t happening. Also when asking a question to a security guard on why toilets were closed inside the venue all you get is “I don’t know”.

Bar service - very slow and no manners what so ever

We have noticed other Bars in Echuca go above and beyond to provide an excellent experience and customer service that you would expect

If you decide to go along to the Shamrock on a busy night expect all of the above and more

Get your act together Shamrock as you have...