Table Forty Three — Restaurant in Northern Territory

I had a work lunch here yesterday on a whim, my first time visiting this place.

I'm a bit conflicted about giving this such a low score, but I had such a bizarre experience I'm not sure how I could recommend this place to others.

Table 43 opens for lunch at 11:30, me and a friend from work arrived there maybe around 11:50, and weren't sure if it was open, as all we could see was a single staff member inside mopping the floor.

Tentatively opening the door, we asked if it was open, and once affirmed, we walked inside, sat at a table while the waitress went to get the menu.

It's a clean, modern well designed and trendy-looking restaurant, with extremely comfortable chairs (pro tip, go with the red chairs if ignore my review and come here, they're possibly the most comfortable chairs I've sat on at a restaurant).

The lunch menu consisted of a number of $15 specials, with options of $2 soft drinks or $5 house wine/beer. I went with the T43 burger, while my colleague went with the fish and chips. I guess this was the first interesting moment, with the waitress advising she would have to check with someone whether the fish and chips were part of the $15 menu...not sure why else it would be on the $15 special menu if it wasn't at that price? The second interesting moment was being brought a bottle of water for the table, but no glasses for us to drink the water with. We got a soft drink (Pepsi Max) and house beer (when I asked for options under house beer, she listed Heineken, which I went for).

Maybe five minutes later, as a slow trickle of diners began arriving, the waitress called out from the front counter advising we would have to pay first. So we made our way to the counter and paid. Not sure why we weren't told that in the beginning?

Back at our table, with no glasses incoming, we went and looked for glasses to drink our water with.

Another five minutes, while wondering about our drinks, she advised that I couldn't get the Heineken, but I could get the Heineken light, which I assume she referred to the Heineken 3 (low calorie Heineken). I said that's okay, and that was that. Another five minutes in, I noticed what was presumably our drinks at the counter, a tantalising two metres away, but just out of reach, with an opened beer bottle (not a Heineken, but Hahns), and a glass with ice and a cola of some kind in it. We sat there watching it unattended, the fizz slowly dissipating. A few minutes in the waitress went to get the drinks, and came to our table...finally! Wait no, she only brought the soft drink. I enquired about my beer, she said she was looking for a glass to pour it. No need I said, I'm happy to drink from the bottle, which she seemed happy about. A few minutes after that, my beer finally arrived...in a glass.

Yes, I'm boring you with all this information about our drinks, but it's just to paint the picture of the bizarre experience. Aside from having the wrong beer, my friend said his drink was not Pepsi Max, though we did not enquire any further.

The food surprisingly arrived a minute or two after the drinks. It looked good, both the fish and chips and burger, with a generous side of chips.

My burger was satisfactory, and if you ignore the weird service before this, I'd say it was good value for money. The chips were well cooked, albeit underseasoned, though a strong sprinkling of salt fixed that. The fish and chips were apparently well cooked and tasty, though with the same underseasoned chips. My friend had a surprise in his salad though, as you can see from the attached photo. Not sure how a bread clip ended up in the salad, but it just finished off this weird experience of a lunch at Table 43.

I'm giving it a one star for the bizarre service (as if it's a soft-opening instead of being open for at least 2 years now) and the bread clip in the salad.

Out of masochistic curiosity, I'm probably going to check it out one more time in the not too distant future to see if this is a replicable experience, or if we were...

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