Hog's Breath Cafe Nelson Bay — Restaurant in Nelson Bay

FIRSTLY: Our Server, Elise, was absolutely AMAZING!!! She was still on her ‘L Plates’, but was one of the best servers I have had anywhere! Attentive, but not overly so. Very enthusiastic. Knew just about everything about the menu and gave good recommendations.

Went there with my wife and 2 young children. Place was packed, so told 5-10 minute wait. All good, went to the bar and after about 10 minutes, a waitress took us to our seats. Tables were stickier than the stuff which sticks to non-stick frypans. 🤔 We went some cheesy garlic breads for appetiser and then the kids got some schnitzel stuff and tenderloins. Wife got the fried brie, chorizo prime rib. I went the prime rib with pork ribs. Appetisers came out really quick. Kids (and adults) loved it. Cheese and garlic bread — can’t do wrong there. 👍 After a bit over an hour 🕐, mains came out. No complaints about the kids meals. Wife’s steak came out grey :( Still tasted pretty good. The fried brie was an explosion of cheesyness — orgasmic. Ended up with liquid cheese (I think?) all over my hands and mouth 🤤 My steak was pretty amaze balls, came out medium as ordered. Tender AF. Made the wife jealous. Made me happy. The happiness of good food and subsequent coma made me forget about the long wait for the mains. Then ordered desserts. After about 30 minutes we were told our order did not make it to the kitchen. But, they then told us that the kitchen was doing them right now and they would be free. Kids meals came with ice cream, wife ordered the special (some trifle thing), it was exactly like a 2am kebab, it looked horrible, tasted amazing. I ordered the Mississippi mud cake, but my 6 year old daughter ended up eating 75% of it. It was pretty amazing.

Overall, I couldn’t really fault the food! But the wait was pretty ridiculous. It took nearly 3 hours to get through the meals! I’m just lucky that my wife and 2 kids (6 and 3) are...

The good.

“Troppo” burger needs to be the signature burger. Amazing paddy, assortment of ingredients and tasted delicious. The curly fries were amazing, crispy but not feeling saturated. Garlic bread was also good, recommend getting them.

Our waiter was amazing, he knew the specials, and told us about the bar deal - wasn’t interested but took it with a smile, awesome dude, got down to our sitting level so he wasn’t serving above us, extremely approachable and helped another table with questions and felt genuinely like he enjoyed what he was doing. Awesome to see and appreciate it. I gave a decent tip for recognition of his service.

The bad.

The Crispy Chicken Burger was subpar. Lettuce was off, not enough sauce and for less than the troppo the difference felt marginal. No good.

The ugly. We got a table at 6.30 and felt we had to leave at 7.15. That’s entree, drinks, main meal, out the door. This left us feeling rushed. All the work the service guy was doing was unravelled with the speed of the food. We like to talk over drinks and entree and let that settle for 15-20 mins before the mains.. by the time we ordered entrees they had arrived in 5 mins, 15 mins later mains and were done by 7.

If it was packed and people were waiting, I’d understand the rush in rush hour, but it was at maybe 40-50% capacity.

The pricing was a bit rich too, garlic bread, two burgers, soft drink shouldn’t be hitting the $70 mark. But god damn that American cheese dip is amazing.

In summary - 8/10 service, 7/10 food, 7/10 atmosphere. Total: 22/30 - 4/5, knocking a star off for being rushed and the price is a bit premium...

If I could rate this restaurant's waitress - COURTNEYS services minus 5 stars, I definitely would. My partner and I were there to celebrate a birthday lunch, and we experienced some of THE WORST customer service, I've ever encountered.. our initial waitress Holly who seated us and took our orders, she was fantastic, super enthusiastic about her job and - super friendly, took the time out to go the extra mile for our dine in experience, she took our food orders then a few rounds of drinks, had little joke with us when serving our drinks, was absolutely fantastic, then an older waitress took over Holly's duties, HER NAME IS COURTNEY, SHE WAS THE WORST WAITRESS IVE EVER COME ACROSS IN ANY RESTAURANT ANYWHERE , SHE WAS EXTREMELY RUDE THE CUSTOMER SERVICE WAS APPALLING, the service and experience started out great and ended absolutely disappointing, I will never recommend this restaurant to anybody..the food wasn't anything special to start with and COURTNEYS disappointing attitude made our meal and dine In experience which was meant to be a nice birthday celebration left extremely disappointed.. If planning on dining into this restaurant and are unlucky enough to have COURTNEY as a waitress I'd highly recommend requesting a new waitress.. extremely rude and abrupt.. SHOULD NOT BE WORKING FRONT OF HOUSE IN ANY...