Bay Vista Parramatta — Restaurant in Sydney

(3.5 stars) Bay Vista looks like something plucked straight out of Las Vegas. The expansive, two-level dessert bar is set at the base of Altitude, Parramatta’s tallest riverfront residential tower. At this massive - 700 square metre, 300-seater - operation, guests are encouraged to eat dessert first as a means of coping with life’s little uncertainties.

As you make your way around the space, arranged like a food court with different dessert stations positioned around a diverse seating area, you’ll see more of their philosophy outlined in gleaming gold leaf lettering. “I want to have a good body but not as much as a I want to have dessert,” is written onto a concrete pillar next to a giant replica of the modern Grecian mural from their original Brighton-Le-Sands cafe. Started by Bill Mougios in 1991, the café made a name for itself as a late night ice cream destination. Mougios, who owns this new venue with his son, Peter, and George Katsabaris, is clearly hoping to capitalise upon the expected population boom in Parramatta, by taking on a venue that’s three times the size of his original.

Mougios has staffed it with a veritable battalion of young women, each wearing denim and a red and white plaid shirt with a matching rockabilly headband. They are quick to seat me at a table with a tome-like illustrated menu book, which perhaps would have been more impressive if it had looked a little less tatty.

Not being all that big on eating desserts, I popped in for brunch, which is a reasonably recent addition to their menu. Running from 8am-11am every Saturday and Sunday, it gives you a chance to eat some savoury stuff alongside all the sweets. To my eye, brunch seems pitched at men, dutifully accommodating their partners’ love of pancakes, offering up dishes like the ‘BV DOG’ Breakfast ($13.90). This hot dog stuffs all your breakfast needs – bacon, grilled mushrooms, fresh tomato, smashed avocado – around a good quality frankfurter, then smothers the lot with oozing, melted cheese. It’s presented in a basket on a soft hot dog bun, surrounded by potato crisps.

What I liked about it was the popping bite from the all-natural frankfurter, which contained no gristle or fillers. What I was less keen on was heated avocado (it should have been applied after the melted cheese) and eating chips for breakfast. Where I should give some credit to Bay Vista is that they definitely came up with some menu items I hadn’t actually eaten before.

Just like the brekky hot dog, the Cheese ‘Waffle’ Melt ($12.90) was new to me. It takes a thick, savoury waffle and tops it with bacon and more gooey melted cheese, then dusts it in mild paprika that's has more colour than flavour. The cheesy, doughy, creamy waffle is more hectic than it looks, so we ask for chilli - they only have flakes or sweet chilli sauce. Our requested chilli flakes improve the dish tenfold, with their lively heat balanced by the quenelle of sour cream.

By now the relentless pumping soundtrack is starting to make me feel a bit manic. It clearly suits the gym bunnies visiting on cheat day, and people on a massive sugar high, which is pretty much everyone else in here. If you can’t beat them, join them I thought, and ordered another unique brunch menu item – the Fruit Toasted Sandwich ($13.50). Basically it sandwiches slices of the best banana I’ve eaten in months between two slices of thick raisin toast, gluing it them together with sweet strawberry jam on one side and smooth peanut butter on the other. The resulting breakfast sandwich is smothered in white chocolate sauce and dusted with crumble. Lesson I learned from eating this dish: fruit toast doesn’t really work for me, unless it’s smothered in melted butter.

Best thing I put in my mouth at Bay Vista was their Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich ($14.90). Presented on another soft bun against crisps, this new menu addition won me over with perfect bite-through on the generously applied steak, savoury onion gravy, juicy, red capsicum and judiciously applied...

AVOID this place! I went here to grab a coffee and a snack. It was mid afternoon so this was one of the only places open. There was not one other patron, I should've known better just on that alone. The girl on service had a look on her face like she was being held there against her will. I had to ask her to repeat what she said to me 3 times as the music was so loud and this young lady was mumbling into her boots. I had a look at the dessert selections, there were quite a few. I know it's a dessert place but I wanted something with a bit less sugar, so I chose a simple rice pudding. The mumbling girl offered to smother the pudding in Nutella or caramel sauce. Again I had to ask her what she was saying as she was almost incoherent. I declined the offer to destroy a perfectly good rice pudding in such a fashion. I ordered a large chai latte to go with my pudding. My order arrived, and the rice pudding, and in fact the entire plate, had been doused in icing sugar. The pudding itself had a mini empty ice cream cone just dropped on top of it. Presentation was zero. The pudding itself was too sweet and didn't have enough cinnamon in the mix. The mini ice cream cone was a mystery. Then there was the chai. The latte had been made using so much chai mix that there was a huge pile of sludge in the bottom of the cup unless you constantly stirred the cup. The taste on both these items was ok, but way too sweet. The size of the rice pudding was reasonable. The price for these two items was not reasonable. TWENTY TWO DOLLARS for a cup of rice and milk and a cup of chai sludge! No wonder this place was empty! I most heartily do NOT recommend this place. For anything! A terrible waste of a...

Good desserts option especially when you don't have time to live up at the churro place across the road... this is the second best on this part of eat street. Be warned, portions are oversized!! Photos in the menu look under sized. Once you put for medium instead of small because the image looks small, you discover the portion size is huge!! I would not mind a lunch or dinner to have a pleasant surprise with generous portion sizes but for desserts it almost should not be legal to serve this much sugar to anyone! There was 10 of us including the kids, no one was able to finish their portion. No tap water. We had to but water bottles to quench our thirst. Not a good option. The crepes was mid. The pavlova was nice. The acai pistachio was nice. Too sweet but. Hot chocolate ok. Nice atmosphere and music and plenty of staff and which service. This is good to see. Not many places have this many staff serving customers. I have 5 star for atmosphere. But the menu is toooo long and tooo many options! I like options but it's a headache trying to see the different variations of the so many variable options of crepes for example or acai... too make things more difficult, the 30 page menu is not even numbered! Do if you find something interesting you need to hold the page whilst holding the other page that had other interesting options. I think keep it simple. I think this menu can be maximum 7-8 pages and still offer the same variety but in a brief way. I don't know if we will visit again but if we do we'll definitely order for sharing and...