Poachers Paradise Hotel — Restaurant in Rutherglen

We ate at this pub twice on the same day while visiting Rutherglen. Lunch was fine, and the staff were all very friendly. The new publican, Mitch, I think his name was, was friendly. It was pub food only, but the food and the experience were good enough to bring us back that evening for dinner.

Once again, the staff were wonderful. It's a nice country pub. Unfortunately, the food was a bit of a disaster this time. I had the metriciano. The pasta was so overcooked it was close to paste. The sauce was basically tinned tomatos stewed with packet salami slices and bottled sliced olives. Basically a bland, unseasoned tomato sauce flavour, it was more stew than pasta. I couldn't finish it. It's probably worth noting that one of our party is a chef, formerly head chef of an Italian restaurant in Brisbane. I should have listened to her warnings not to order the pasta.

My wife had the Caesar salad, and that was fine. The third member of the party had a parmy, which was also OK, made with deli ham and commercial tomato sauce. But well cooked and generous portion.

But the adventure started with our fourth and most unfortunate diner, who ordered the steak. The most expensive item on the menu it's worth noting. It was ordered rare and came out well done. We asked to return it and that was no trouble for the staff. But the replacement steak came out only about 2 minutes later. It was simply not possible to have cooked another steak in the time it took. And it was also well done, in fact, more well done than the first. So back it went.

The third steak arrived, and it was apparent, just from looking at it, that it was raw. Not underdone, not blue, and certainly not rare. It had a little colour on the steak, and it appeared that it had been placed on a moderately hot flat grill for a few seconds on each side. It was slightly coloured without being browned. The inside was not just raw. It was as cold as a steak taken from the fridge.

We gave up and ordered another salad.

The staff remained friendly, professional and apologetic throughout the whole encounter. It was odd that Mitch observed much of the transaction from various corners of the restaurant without approaching us. Had he done so, we would have assured him that these things do happen. And likely this review would not have been written.

As it was though, one of our party did write a review that described what happened fairly and accurately. Mitch's response was basically that it wasn't worth responding to. He didn't address the issue of the poor quality of the pasta or the disasters with the steak. He just dismissed the review as not worth responding to and told us not to come back. Well thanks Mitch, but there was never any danger of that.

So here's a challenge Mitch; respond to this review honestly. If anything I've written above is inaccurate, point it out. Just put aside the petty insults and address the issues raised. Accept that the criticism is accurate or tell me I'm wrong. Tell me the food was great, or the steak wasn't raw, or that you weren't standing in a corner just inside the back door, watching your staff deal with the steak disaster and eventual refund.

Ultimately mate, you just had to say sorry. Every restaurant has a bad night from time to time. But leaving your staff to deal with problems then resorting to cheap insults and telling customers not to come back says way more about you than it...

Disorganised Chaos! The atmosphere was horrendous because they had a band playing at HIGH volume from about 6:00pm on, and it was clear they were catering to the loud drunken mob in the front bar. Booked ahead and arrived at 6:30, was unable to get a dinner order taken until 7:00. Waited until 8:30pm and when we asked how much longer it would be? We were told (very rudely) that we weren't patient enough, that we were lucky not to be waiting for 3 hours and if we didn't like it we could have our money back. So thats what we did, which means I cant comment about the food, we didn't get any. We were paid in full and then escorted from the premises and told "not to come back". On the busiest long weekend of the year, these people could not organise, their kitchen, or their dining room and in 120 minutes had managed only to get out about HALF the covers out, but somehow that was the customers' fault. Can't wait until they finish refurbishing the Victoria Hotel. These guys will be out of business. Love Rutherglen and the Roaming festival, but The Rutherglen Hotel was and is, just one...

Brilliant staff, absolutely amazing. Steak was sent back 3 times before giving up and switching order, one attempt was still fridge cold. It wasn’t hot enough to melt the butter on top. But the service staff were more than happy to refund and replace. Parmi was bland, topped with honey ham and tinned tomato. But cooked perfectly, and a generous breast serving. Pasta special was overcooked to the point of being a stew. Caesar salad was not mixed, and overdressed. As well as missing several key ingredients which make it a Caesar. The poached egg was hard boiled. But the calamari topping was very nice. During all of which the owner/publican would wander past our table trying to discreetly watch, as well as watching the refund transaction happen from the window.

Later edit: Changed the service from 4/5 to 1/5 due to owners response to...