Karoo & Co (Wahroonga) — Restaurant in Sydney

Three years ago I gave this place 4 stars. Today I am leaving it 1 star, at best. I decided to eat here today for something new. I ordered the Beef Ragu and was looking forward to it. It arrived presented quite well. However as I placed the meal in my mouth I realised that looks are deceiving. After inspecting the meal it appeared like the pappadelle noodles were well cooked (this is the only thing I ended up eating), they were sprinkled with a few pieces of pulled beef and then toped with a canned tomato sauce and parmeasan cheese. The tomato sauce was not cooked at all! It had no seasoning and still had that tomato 'tin can' taste that you get if you don't cook the canned tomato sauce. And to top it all off, the price for this dish was $24. Literally, I could have done 100 times better. I have also eaten $10 microwave meals from Woolworths that were better. I personally don't go out to eat for the sake of going out, I go out to eat things that I can't make myself. This meal definitely left a bad taste in my mouth, so much so, that I had to go to another cafeto get a coffee and get the gross taste out of my mouth. The other thing that has annoyed me about this place is that because I like to eat on my own, the wait staff always rush me. They try to get the order when I'm not ready, but if I ask them to come back in 2 minutes, I'm left there waiting for at least 5 to 10 minutes before they come to get my order. They would be better off asking their customers to order at counter than offer this chaotic experience. I wanted to end this review saying, that I am not just being negative for the sake of being negative or trolling. I am just sharing this as I don't want anyone else to have this bad experience. A lot of my friends love this place, but I'm always wondering why as my experience has not been the...

Went for breakfast after an 18 hour shift (from the nearby SAN hospital) along with my family. Ordered the big breakfast, omelette, and a mocha and hot chocolate. Ten minutes later someone came out serving us two plates of toast with cold hard butter and some vegemite (which we thought were complimentary). A few moments later and a few bites on the toast, the lady in the counter approached us and told us that it was served on the wrong table (no apologies mentioned). To avoid conflict (I was very tired from work and just want to eat some breakfast) I told them to just add it to my bill and I will pay for it (to my dismay). We still continued to wait for the real breakfast that we ordered. 20 minutes passed by, another lady approached us and asked us if we were waiting for something. I told her we are waiting for our order. She then proceeded to check the status of our food. Apparently it was not being made and it would take another 10 minutes to finish it. At that point in time (tired, hungry, and disappointed), my family decided to cancel the order. I ended up paying for the most disappointing breakfast a tired man could have (the toast that was not meant for us). No apologies from the staff. Business as usual. 😠 Good thing the sausage sizzle at the election center compensated for that...

We had dinner here on a rainy day, it’s a small, warm and cosy restaurant. The service by the owner was super friendly and welcoming throughout our visit, which was a positive compared to the fact we waited 45 mins to be served our order and the waitress was confused throughout our stay, not knowing what drinks where in/out of stock and saying things like “I don’t know what that dish is” when she served us the pasta 🙂

When the food came, we were overall happy with our dishes. We ordered the salcciaca pizza which was great, the pasta bolognese and pasta ragu were also good, and the risotto was ok, missing a bit more flavour but being cooked as risotto should be.

Overall a good experience, would be even better if the kitchen crew and waitress raise their game slightly to match that...