Claypots Seafood Bar — Restaurant in Melbourne

This evening, I was very happy to play first performance of piano music at Claypot's since some years ago, it was unexpected and actually I got the idea to ask to play this morning, and the staff were very quick to allow me to come back during the dinner time to play - they have always been kind to me, and I respect them for their Acceptance and Kindness. I was nervous for my first solo performance session in a while, but I got through it okay, but because I was a bit nervous having not been performing much lately, I made a few mistakes in the music, for which I am sorry. The management treat the musicians very well here (I was even allowed to have a free Turkish coffee today - yay!), but sadly the audience was a bit rude to me, because during playing some of my better compositions I overheard them talking about me and making some fun of me, and after I finished they didn't react toward me with any acknowledgement at all, so I thanked the staff and quietly left.

Culture of the People in these regions seemed to be more admiring of physical sport (bringing to mind colosseum, and harsh physical touch and brutality, which I tend to dislike) rather than peaceful music by sensitive People - music intended to heal and strengthen.

Often I wished to leave St Kilda. A few months ago, a man screamed from a car on Fitzroy Street, toward me (I think?) "Leave St Kilda!!". It hurt me because except for maybe 7 or so months, I have lived here all my life with my Mum. Although I wish to leave St Kilda, I cannot - I am very poor. Sometimes I tried to apply to work, but I was rejected every time - everywhere I applied in recent years, I intended to work for no earning, and all of the music I wrote so far (hundreds of pages) - I didn't get paid anything for it at all. It takes many years of difficult labour, suffering, to mature the to this point - and unexpectedly people seemed generally unappreciative.

I know that I am worth more than to be made fun of during a performance that I insisted to do for free, from a nearby dinner table. The reason I do not ask for money, is because after a False Accusation in 2012 that led to me being tortured unnecessarily in the Psychiatric ward by means of debilitating drugs and hospital staff with a bad attitude who treat patients like experiments - the medical people forbade me from employment during visiting my home (and they were paid, it is not very fair), so I worked often overtime as unpaid Composer.

People nearby don't seem to realise how much some people suffered, and to think all because of a False Accusation (it seemed that the doctors / psychiatrists were defending their own access to being employed and their Name, so they kept trying to justify the False Accusation, but after recently reading over a thousand pages of hospital records, eventually I concluded, that I was absolutely lied to for a long time, and tortured by them unfairly - they seemed to care more about their reputation than the health of the patients who they actually did torture - so they kept pretending the False Accusation to be Truth).

A big thank you to staff at Claypots, for being Kind to me. Most venues tended to reject very quickly, without much discussion or even any playing of music (it is a mystery to me). I consider myself a reject in this society - and don't wish to impose myself to those places and people, so I stopped to go to them.

The management here have been good to me, in contrast. Generally, one wishes to never need to say the sad, and only to say kind things, but it would be counter-productive to silence all suffering - and self-defeating to the existence of the review system.

Blessing to the management at Claypots, I wish you all the very best.

(Attached are scans of a new work premiered there today, Psalm 130 set to music without words - recently I was writing my stories on the back of my compositions, because although this music was intended to portray the Sacred Scriptures to be understood without words, they were unavoidably influenced by my life experiences, and I felt a...

Unfortunately the Claypots I've known for many year is no longer. Made a booking for 6 Saturday night just gone. 3 ordered the claypots, the rest of us ordered snapper. Order was placed at 5.50pm. At this time I also ordered a glass of wine. Glass of wine arrived around approx 20 min later. At time of ordering, restaurant was at 1/3 max capacity in terms of patrons. By 8.15pm our meals still had not arrived, nor had my second glass of wine (ordered at approx 7.15pm). By this stage, our table was becoming understandably very upset that no food had arrived. Most other tables around us had already been served, even though they had arrived and ordered well after us. By this stage, restaurant was around half capacity full. I went up to staff to enquire about our orders. Whilst waiting to speak to the staff member who had taken the order, another staff member approached me, asking "Yes?". I replied "I was just wanting to speak to the waitress please (pointing to the staff member who had taken the order)". "Whats the problem?" was the response. I said "...I was just wondering where our meals are please? We ordered a long time ago and we are still waiting?". The response was "... we're really busy. You have to understand we're really busy", pointing to the half empty space. I stated that it was not reasonable that we had waited so long, explaining that others had already received their meals, even though they'd ordered after us. The response received "You have to understand we're really busy, our kitchen is really busy!". I again stated that this was not acceptable, and returned to my table. Once the 3 claypots arrived, it was approx 8.30pm. The fish did not arrive until 8.50pm. The entire meal was not served until 3 hours after ordering, and no apology was received. In fact, I was met with an argumentative rebuttal when I questioned why our meal had taken so long to arrive. Additionally, the quality of the meal received for the price was average at best. I remember going to Claypots many years ago when it was one of the best restaurants in Melbourne. Music was playing, people were dancing, it was cheek to jowel with patrons and the food was outstanding. Unfortunately, no longer. I won't...

There are not many restaurants where you can say there is nothing to recommend it, but this one certainly fits the bill ! The food was ordinary, and the service was also underwhelming. The recommended entree was prawns (to share), followed by our choice of main - a claypot meal (Moroccan) - also to share ($28). Our shared entrée arrived - a single king prawn ($15 thanks very much !). After an excruciatingly long wait (at least half an hour), our claypot arrived which, unfortunately, was not the one we ordered; our extremely apologetic waitress returned after another 10 mins with our correct order, which consisted of 4 mussels sitting in sloppy mess of couscous in a Moroccan-seasoned sauce which contained a few small pieces of a non-descript fish, of unknown variety. Although the mussell shells were of an expected size, the actual mussels were obviously the runts of the litter - small, dry and tasteless. We thought we would order dessert (apple & rhubarb crumble with ice cream - $14), and decided to order it as soon as our main finally arrived (just in case it took as long to arrive as did the main). We were pleasantly surprised when our dessert arrived soon after finishing our main. It became fairly obvious, however, why this arrived with little delay; it was cold, and had probably just been taken out of the fridge. All in all, a very disapponting meal out, which promised so much, and delivered little, topped off by a very rude cashier who had disappeared briefly before reappearing and telling us "I was looking for you !" as if we had tried to abscond without paying. We had gone straight from our table to the cashier ! Her totally-unwarranted remark left a bitter aftertaste to what was already a restaurant outing which we are never likely to repeat. Give this...