Iron Horse Inn — Restaurant in Newcastle-Maitland

We arrived for Lunch at 12.40pm we Didn’t order lunch specials as my daughter and I thought we would treat ourselves to two nice steaks! One with Veg and one with Salad. So $72.00 and 40 minutes later our Meals came out and I must say Coming from a family of Chefs we aren’t upperty critics as we know how hard a good chef works! But Wow Iron Horse Inn our meals were very Sub Standard to say the least!.. First thing I noticed was My Mash potato was a strange colour not white and fluffy as mash should be.. It was very dry and crumbly and tasted like it was left overs from the night before’s service!.. The Cauliflower and Broccoli weren't much better and the corn had a sourness to it that was enough for me to leave aside! The “packet”creamy Creamy Garlic sauce I had for my steak was a disappoint but at least it softened the tough dry steak! Medium to well and not very Well done does make a difference! Did we say anything? No…We didn’t have the time anyway to wait another 40 minutes for a replacement..And we weren’t looking for a refund either… We just wanted to sit and have a nice lunch together and catch up! We should have known something wasn’t quite right because the place was empty and it was the Middle of what should be a busy Friday lunchtime. I hope the Chef finds His/Her passion for food again as it’s clear they don’t have much pride in their meals! Even if it’s it’s just good old Pub Grub,because this was borderline appalling and I would have been embarrassed to let those meals leave...

First time I've been here for a feed and I was very impressed! The bistro refers to itself as the 'House of Schnitzel', which is a bold claim, so I thought I better put it to the test.

Before I tucked into my schnitty though, myself and my partner shared a garlic damper with cheese and bacon for a starter, and the thing was bloody massive. It was deadset a full on proper damper like the size of a mediumish cob loaf, oozing cheesey goodness, with numerous decent sized chunks of bacon spread all over. Probably better for four people than two! I polished it off anyway, because I'm a guts. Delicious.

Onto the main event - the schnitzel. The Iron Horse offers a variety of toppers, as well as a weekly special topper. I opted for 'The Godfather', which is one of their regular toppers, and what a bloody good choice it turned out to be. The schnitzel arrived and it was a hearty sized piece of chook, cooked to perfection - nice and juicy, and piping hot. The topper was extremely generous, probably one of the most generous toppers I've had at a pub in Newy/Lake Mac. There was salami everywhere! Combined with the chorizo, spinach, cheese and napoli sauce - the ratios were absolutely spot on, and it made for a scrumptious meal. I left full as a goog and completely satisfied.

Absolutely will be back next time I'm fanging for a schnitty, which if I'm honest, is every...

I would absolutely avoid this place. I wish I could score it a zero, Came for lunch on Sunday. As soon as we walked in it smelt strongly of urine. This should have been our que to turn around and walk out. We ordered from the QR menu on the table. It was not busy at all, and we were still waiting an hour later. I finally went to ask where our meals were to be told they only had 2 chefs and one wasn’t from this establishment. I don’t think it would have taken a single chef more than half an hour to make 2 burgers, a salad and a pasta but sure ok. This is when one of the group (of 4) was told they didn’t have the lamb or the dukkah for her salad. This should have been reported when the kitchen got the order, not an hour later. We were offered a round of drinks and a refund on our meals, we absolutely accepted. I will also point out at this stage that upon getting the refund we discovered that we had been charged much more than the menu price when ordering on the QR. We did stay as the meals were almost ready by this stage. My burger came out and the bacon and avocado were missing!! Just as well I already had my money back. The girl serving us was apologetic and had to deal with every else’s complaints too. As I said, the smell of urine should have been our...