Mountbatten Hotel — Restaurant in Sydney

It’s 8.30pm on a Monday night, and I’m sitting in the front bar of the Mountbatten Hotel listening to a live DJ. It’s not my usual eating environment—their restaurant Sita doesn’t even have a dedicated Google listing—but the food is surprisingly good. It’s all thanks to head chef Air Jantrakool, who spent 15 years cooking in David Thompson's Sailors Thai. Despite Thompson's restaurant closing in 2016, it continues to live on in many people’s memories as a benchmark for Australian Thai restaurants.

At Sita you’ll find Jantrakool cooking a rich khao soi ($19). This soupy Northern-style coconut curry comes with soft egg noodles, pickled mustard greens and your choice of chicken or tender beef topped with a hat of crisp noodles. The Northern larb moo ($22) will get your lips tingling with spicy and aromatic minced pork and crackling scooped up in fresh lettuce leaves. If all pub food was this fresh and inviting, I’d be a more regular diner. If you prefer one-handed bar eating, pork buns ($14/4) sandwich small slabs of twice cooked crisp pork belly lashed in Jantrakool's beautifully balanced signature sauce under some decorative vegetation in soft white buns.

Awash with cherry-toned lighting, this Bangkok-themed interior space really wasn’t what I expected from the 1882 pub’s classic exterior. Even the cocktails—produced at an attractive back-lit bar from quality spirits—exceeded expectations. The nightcap ($24) is a nicely smoky Scotch whisky-based drink in the style of a negroni, while the sunset mai tai ($21) is a contemporary and refreshing rendition of the Trader...

Monday 8th may at the main bar area a female brunette bartender was so rude I'm still shocked at her behavior. I took 4servittes from a caddy on the bar, when she removed the caddy exclaiming she had a problem taking them as they weren't free! I then put 2 of them back on the bar and proceeded to leave when she continued to loudly tell me to go. Her behavior was so shockingly rude. I'd just left a bar a few blocks in town where they bent over backwards to serve me & ensure I was happy -with numerous free snacks drinks &a warm friendly attitude to this cold agresssive obnoxious unprovoked rudness was downright unbelievable. I wonder how many other people she has scared off with her horridness? I like to play the pokies &am not shy of losing hundreds so this girl was stupid losing a customer like that. I truly am still shocked at her attitude & rudness. Never going to mount batten again! Unless being treated like a thief & general scum is the way you want...

Mountbatten Hotel doesn't look like much from the outside, but when you get inside, it also doesn't look like much. Why am I giving it 5 stars? Because one night I decided to wander into Mountbatten and let me tell you, the staff there were the friendliest staff ever. The Jameson's were really well priced and generously poured. I personally also love a bit of a go at the pokies, and you could imagine my elation when I put in my last two dollar coin for the week, and one myself twenty dollars! I immediately went to the KFC as I hadn't eaten in seventeen hours. So all in all, I had a great experience, and if you're wandering through George Street won late night, wondering what to do or who to turn to, just remember, Mountbatten Hotel is...