Whitney’s Restaurant & Bar — Restaurant in Orange

Service: wait staff were friendly but unfortunately we weren't given napkins, spoons or a drinks menu without prompting. Ambience: lighting was low and relaxed. The floor tiles were hectic and reminded me I'm in a restaurant attached to a hotel next to a hospital. Bathrooms were clean and well presented with hand wash and hand cream. Food: Disappointing. None of the flavours were very authentic. The scallops were cooked well. The Peking duck was ok but had no cucumber (and no spoon). It was served with a pile of mixed greens. The sauce didn't really taste any different to the duck.

I ate the crispy skinned barramundi. It was served in a prawn tom yum broth with kipfler potatoes and fried dumplings. The dumplings were heavy and tasted a bit like Chico rolls. I gave them away to my family. The fish was cooked well. The tom yum broth tasted nothing like tom yum - wasn't balanced or enjoyable. The menu looked like it might have had actual prawns - it didn't.

Thr kids minute steak was good - my daughter was impressed. She enjoyed her steak and chips. It came with a fancy salad - not something you would expect for a kids meal and she didn't eat it.

My partner had the lamb backstrap which was overcooked. He preferred my child's kids menu minute steak.

Chips - the fries were okay. The aioli was a bit bland tasting mostly like a standard mayonnaise.

A lot of the flavour combos were just a bit strange and unbalanced. All of the desserts sounded weird too.

It was hideously overpriced for what we received. The food is what I would expect to find at a club. $12 for a large mount Franklin sparkling water was a bit of a joke. If the mains were $25 I would have felt less disappointed but spending over $200 for 2 adults and 1 child is way too much for this place. It is trying to be fine dining but delivering an extremely average experience.

Unless you are staying at the hotel or hospital, I think there is a lot better food at this...

Let's start with the good news - my steak was excellent. The staff were prompt, attentive and polite.

However. The steak was $38. The asparagus (excellent) was $12. The onion rings (so so) were $12. The gravy (not flavourful, but not Maggi either, so ok) $6. My main course was $68. Wow. That's more than a one hat restaurant in Sydney, where the bearnaise (included!) is superb, the linen is crispy, the room is next level, and the staff sublime. (Rule of thumb is three times food cost, just saying)

Serving the steak on a piece of slate on a wooden board makes no sense. I lose the juices and blunt their knife. It's a motel near a hospital, not the Champs d'Lisee.

My partner's flat bread was "like a pancake" and we left most in the board. The green chicken curry was dominated by the brussel sprouts, and was not even half eaten. We get you can't do authentic asian in a country town bcos the flavours are too strong, but you still need flavour.

The service was super well meaning but the team lacked some basics. Take the lady's order first. Pour her wine first. They didn't have the wine I ordered, and I do not believe the awards the website boasts are reflected in the wine list.

The space ... Imagine the best RSL club you have been to: it's better than that, but with the same stylist. The music - quite loud - was covers of covers (literally), but mainly cheesy love songs, which suited the mood to be fair.

Almost none of the meals Google suggests I rate were on the menu.

A compliment to finish- they are open Monday night, which is...

Front of house were great so I really didn’t want to leave this review but the food was so bad it had to be done.

Food was actually some of the worst we have ever eaten. Frozen prawns for a $21 prawn entree? Just don’t put prawns as an entree if you can’t get fresh. Chargrilled octopus that isn’t even chargrilled and is served whole in a soap tray, you need to cut these so it would be nice to serve on something you can actually cut on, why is the sauce so sweet on this? Pork belly was all fat? Like come on check the meat when it comes in and if it’s not useable don’t accept the meat. Send it back. Prawn linguini, again frozen prawns in a dry pasta, if you’re going to use frozen prawns in a pasta at least butterfly them and cook in a hot pan so they get some flavour. You also need to taste each packet of them as these were way to salty. There was no sauce at all in the pasta, add some olive oil or butter and actually put some effort into the dish.

Overall we were very disappointed, my wife is pregnant and as we booked at 8pm everywhere was closed by the time we left. We couldn’t get her anything elsewhere. We ended up at coles and cooking at our apartment at 10:30pm.

I can’t recommend enough, do not go here to...