Seafood Master — Restaurant in Sydney

Brutally honest review but acknowledging the circumstances. Wanted a good seafood broil experience and reviews were favourable so I booked in advance for a 5:30pm slot seeing that it was Mother’s Day so would anticipate it to be busy. The app responded back to me with that time confirmed, but a few days later it self-updated for 6:30pm, then 5pm! I called to confirm for 6:30pm; fine.

On the day, the front of house mentioned we had to wait because the booking before us overstayed their welcome because they arrived late. So we got penalised for being on time but 10 minutes to wait seemed fine. She said she would call us to return. 20 minutes in and nothing, we went back up and she was busy allocating another booked group before attending to us. She said she forgot to call us, but there was a table waiting.

We sat down and ordered via a QR code. Standard practice. Cutlery and cups arrived but no water. I noticed another table got water served with their cups so clearly they forgot. We asked staff for water - didn’t come. We asked another staff member and this time it came.

Many minutes passed. It was one hour after our initial booking had passed already (1/2 hr before being seated and another 1/2 hr waiting for the order when the water arrived). I scanned the QR code again and the entire order was gone! However after asking a second more competent staff member (mum was impatient and asked the first staff member she saw; clearly assigned for other tasks), they confirmed the order did go through the kitchen albeit with attitude.

Note, many tables were served before us despite us being seated longer. And it was noisy. There were more people lining up outside to get in; good luck.

We were minutes away of walking out, feeling like 3rd class citizens, the excitement for seafood broil long gone. 8:15pm rolls by and we get our meal. Finally.

The signature for 4 with fried noodles was a good call; garlic butter was rich and plentiful and the seafood cooked well, not overcooked and dry like many restaurants tend to do with white meat in seafood. The noodles soaked up all the flavour and there was a good variety for the price. Rice on the side was a bit overdone but whatever. There was silence at the table; we were satisfied on the food front. Most of the restaurant emptied out at this point and the car was approaching its 3 hour parking limit so we couldn’t enjoy it at a good pace, mind you it was 1hr 45 mins since our arrival time. We mentioned to head of house about the waiting and incompetent staff as we paid and they gave us a tea gift which was probably left from Easter or something. That’s not the greatest compensation but we were empathetic on the fact that it was Mother’s Day and as such extremely busy.

Lesson learnt. Some, salty by the service and handling of us, will not return. First impression was enough Hallmark day or otherwise.

I will, but not for a while, and definitely not during anticipated busy periods. And please get the service up to scratch as it was obvious we didn’t get water and the cooking took forever; perhaps someone can check in with us the status of the order since the feeling of walking out should never ever even be...

Food was great, price is decent. Started off great, ordered food through the app, noticed there is a bug in the app as i would add items in cart but it wouldnt actually add. Had to add a few times and double check its in the cart before proceeding to order. 4 dishes came out pretty quickly and food was delicious. Asked a staff if we could get a pair of gloves as one friend didnt have any. Staff never came back with gloves even though they made eye contact with us multiple times whilst delivering food to tables near us. The dinning area was less than half filled so not busy yet. Ribs came out but we werent given any knives to cut into the ribs, asked another staff for a knife and ofcourse, they didnt come back. We are an hr into our meal and still missing 4 more dishes, asked one of the staff to double check where is the rest of our order, the staff went to the kitchen only to come back out to deliver food to other tables, then they would continue to keep delivering food to tables around us and not acknowledge us even when we made eye contact with them and waved them down. Service here is terrible, it wasnt that busy, it did pick up a bit but there were enough staffing to atleast acknowledge us for our enquiries. If it was busy id understand but to have 3 different staff not come back to us to even say they were busy and will be back shortly or to atleast say anything to us to update us. Ended up ruining our night as this was a farewell dinner, we finished our dishes and went to check out (still hungry) advised check out staff we werent happy with the service and were missing dishes. Had the missing dishes removed from our bill and a 'we are busy' excuse for the staff not acknowledging us. Definetly not going to come back, such a waste as food was amazing but the service is something we definitely dont want to revisit. Judging by all other reviews, service has not changed. I can see several people complaining about lack of service and seeing replies stating they take these complaint seriously and will improve in future. Clearly this business does not take any negative feedback seriously and this is proof. I do not recommend this place to anyone unless you want to pay...

Our first visit there last night was really disappointing. There were multiple issues that ruined it for us and we weren't alone as we witnessed at least 3 other people complain and ask for refunds. These were our issues: passionfruit cocktail - completely unbalanced, no ice in it, luke warm at best, lemonade must have been flat becasue it was just pink sweet vodka. Nothing pleasant about it and it cost $16 for a small Champagne glass some of our food just never eventuated our entree came out after we had finished eating as we were ready to leave despite asking for it many times no crab pick availabl for getting the meat out of the crab legs empty bottles and plates not collected at all till we specifically asked wings under cooked, seafood waaay overcooked and rubbery -n service very slow and staff not particularly customer friendly no soap to wash hands no attention to detail eg had to ask for plates and cutlery when these should have been on table when we got there but weren't brought out till we asked for them after our food was served menu clearly states that the "mornay" is a "rich creamy bechamel sauce" but unfortunately there was none of that on our mornay oysters or lobsters. Just grated tasty cheese which was overpowering and unpleasant on a delicate taste like lobster. All our mornay products , 3 lobsters and multiple oysters and scollops went back to the kitchen to be fixed and we never saw them again despite promises to make new ones. Manager had no idea what to say to anybody about any of this but offered partial refunds whoich is fine but we actually went there to have dinner not leave and go looking for food elsewhere.

This seemed to be a common theme amongst other patrons and on the whole for us seemed a complete waste of our money. We were a group of 8 and the general consensus is that we won't go back there. Food is bland and tasteless and unless you get it smothered in sauce not worth eating. We eat out a fair bit and I have not ever complained before but this was just a whole series of stuff ups from...