The Boathouse Bar & Restaurant — Restaurant in Port Macquarie

We were traveling to Byron from Sydney & decided to break our drive and stayed at the Sails overnight. We were tired so decided to stay and eat at The Boathouse. There were four of us and the server decided to sit us outside (even though there were a few 4 seaters available inside - some other tables had the reserved sign on them so I knew those were spoken for) So we waited in our seats for 20 mins and no one came. The server said she would be back with water and take our order. I finally got impatient and asked the person manning the front counter if we could be seated inside because I pointed out that we haven't seen a server come out. It’s like we’ve been forgotten out there.

So we were finally seated inside. Took another 10 minutes to get someone to get our orders. It took about an hour to get our food and 3/4 had a problem.

1. cesar salad order we requested a full order with chicken. came as a small salad no chicken.

2. my husbands steak came out cold. he ate a few bites but he couldn’t get pass that it was cold. my steak also came cold but i flooded it with gravy so it kinda made it slightly warmer.

3. My daughter ordered fish and the fish skin was pretty much covered with an inappropriate amount of salt. she bit into it and had to spit it out. we didn’t want to be a pain because we waited so long for our food so she just removed the skin and ate.

once we got our food, nobody came back to check on us. my daughter who ordered the Caesar salad just ate and i figured the server forgot to note it down. we couldn’t flag anyone to come to our table.

so we finished eating and i went to pay. i asked if the order for the Caesar salad came with chicken. The server said it did and i said well it came to our table without chicken. She was like, that’s so strange. It’s supposed to be with chicken! She went on and asked if I wanted it remade and there I was with my mouth open wondering why she would ask this now after we finished eating. No one seemed to care earlier to check if the order was correct. Anyway, I thought she fixed the bill and removed the cost of the chicken. Apparently she did not and I ended up paying for a side Caesar salad for $31.

Again we were to tired and because we’ve been in that restaurant for 3 hours at this point. My husband said that was the worst meal he’s had in Australia and the worst service.

I’m not sure if they are under staff but the service was terrible. I do not recommend this restaurant to anyone. I paid a little over $200 for 3 sodas, 2 cold steaks, salty fish and a side Caesar without...

I made the mistake of not checking reviews before heading there lesson learned again.

This is the restaurant at the bottom of a hotel, so it’s the breakfast lunch and dinner for the hotel, it is absolutely by no means a fine dining experience that the price would make you think.

The menu is limited yet ok for a small easy restaurant however the food didn’t even come close to matching the faded printing on the old paper menus.

We both hadn’t had steak for a while so one was the eye and the other wagyu rump we are not large plate eaters so we opted out of extras.

Well both plates had just the steak only and a small round mash potato thing.

We have visited many steak houses and restaurants that offer such meals and you do get what you pay for however this was far far from it, a cafe breakfast bar restaurant playing at fine dining charging like fine dining yet serving up cafe meat.

Both meals were left on the plate half eaten which is saying something as that’s all there was to eat.

The meat quality on the rump was extremely poor and very chewy done rare, the eye was tender yet the flavour was not there, done medium rare.

$60 for a small cut of steak only to leave it on the plate I don’t think so, best approach for this place is stay as a breakfast bar restaurant for the hotel or revisit the menu step back from the high sell and be a family place as it is absolutely not fine dining as the menu and the price would have you think.

Had the meal matched the price then it would be an atmosphere and decor only difference.

Wait staff were lovely, furniture well it’s the hotel lunch bar so you get the drift.

$195 for two steaks left on the plate and 3 drinks yeah I don’t think so.

1 time only visit...

Stopped in as we were staying a night at the hotel. We paid $180 for two steaks, a kids meal, some sourdough and a beer. The first $55 scotch fillet that came out was grey, overcooked (meant to be medium rare and it was well done) and was heavy on the gristle. It was served with a dozen undressed wilted roquette leaves and a ‘potato rosti’ which was inedible due to a strong eggy flavour and being cold in the middle. The sourdough was similar to a coles or Woolworths ‘sourdough’ and the end bit was half stale. The $59 eye fillet was undercooked, but was passable, again served with wilted roquette leaves and the rosti. We sent the scotch fillet back, the staff were quite accommodating and apologetic. We then sat for 20 minutes waiting for a replacement steak, by the time it came out even my 3 year old was finished eating. Again the steak was grey, very gristly and overcooked, somehow they found even more wilted roquette to serve with it this time, and it had the wrong sauce. All in all, very disappointing experience. For $55 for a scotch fillet it wasn’t even passable for an RSL buffet. Someone needs to buy the cook a meat thermometer and practice cooking some steaks as they obviously can’t cook steak to touch, and they need to work on presentation and purchasing some fresh garnish. Do not get sucked in to the convenience of eating here if you are staying at the hotel, overpriced, and sub...