Pancakes by The Pond — Restaurant in Tasmania

I have to say, I really enjoy a trip to the Salmon Ponds, but I was hugely disappointed with this cafe and felt it brought down the entire experience. In their favour, the setting is lovely and staff were friendly. But that's about all. The food is extremely basic, nothing more than I could make at home with supermarket stuff, and priced well up like a fancy brasserie.

Note it's not "pancakes" - you get 1 pancake, very thin rolled up more like a crepe - not a thick stack the way they usually come. I had just 1 of these crepes with about 5 strawberries and a dollop of cream, it set me back $15!. The savoury ones which come with a meat filling and a tiny salad would be extortion at $18+. My sister ordered a burger for $14.50, and I was shocked to see what came out was clearly a supermarket hamburger bun, with a basic meat patty very similar to the Coles Angus burgers I buy in packs for $6 for two. I'm not saying it was one of these, but the taste wasn't anything to write home about so I can't see the benefit. What's worse, the basic few fillings were accompanied by some relish and nothing else on the plate - no chips, no side, which I mean is fine if you're selling for $8 (standard at say a corner takeaway), but $14.50!! This is just unheard of for a basic tasteless meat-in-a-bun.

A little further turnoff for me, and I know it's not critical and I'm not a prude, but when you pay $15-$18 for sit-down table service you sort of expect at least a smart looking waiter who can manage to get out of bed and throw some jeans on. Not here. The man who served us, to his credit was very nice and friendly, but bizarrely chose to wear an old sloppy baggy T-shirt, baggy track pants, old sneakers, and failed to shave that day. Maybe this was an exception. Maybe someone called in sick and he's normally in the kitchen. But I wouldn't dream of ever dining in a cafe wearing this, so why would he think it okay to wait in his own business wearing it - straight from a Sunday arvo out in the shed? I know, it's not critical, but tells you something about where their head is at in terms of what the general norm is at historic-day-out tearoom-type places.

I very much recommend a day at the Salmon Ponds l. But they have excellent BBQ facilities there - do yourself a favour and pick up some burgers at Woolworths in New Norfolk. You'll get basically the same experience...

Feb 2022. What started with great service and excitement, turned out to be a total disappointment. Staff were eager to serve us, grab our orders and have our beverages brought to the table. Pancake menu looked amazing, with a great choice of sweet and savoury on offer. Between is we ordered sweet and savoury. Sweet ranged between $8.50 and $14.50 and the savoury items between $19 and $22. To be brutally honest, the serving of sweet and savoury were identical, and of you are intending on enjoying a meal, you'll be bitterly disappointed. Servings are tiny for the price. A little more than entree in size. A grown adult would require two to three of these to be satisfied. Hardly value for money. When we went to settle the account, we asked to make two separate payments. The young cashier questioned his supervisor how, and the supervisor quipped back rudely "we don't split bills". Not willing to argue, we settled upfront. We were able to settle upfront and split between us, however if you're a little tight on cash, be prepared that the cashier team may not have the time of day to assist you, or care. To add salt to the wound of the experience, they charge $8 per person to enter the ponds. But that's for another review of the...

Hands-down one of the worst food experiences I've ever had. After being poorly seated by a teenage worker who clearly didn't want to be there, we had our first look at what appeared to be a menu with quite a lot of nice options. We ordered our food, once again served by the same, clearly never trained staff teenager, and upon it arriving at our table were incredibly disappointed. Not only did she give us the wrong plates, where I was given meat as a vegetarian, the serving sizes were tiny and poorly presented. Upon digging in, we found the pancakes to be under cooked, the mushroom to still be solid and the salmon to be terrible. It was served by a side of what can barely be described as a salad, with just a few leaves, a quarter of a tomato and a single slice of cucumber. As well as this, the kitchen staff were all poorly presented with hair out and no food safety, taking the liberty to scratch their faces and adjust their hair while plating food. The experience was terrible, overpriced, and we still left hungry, we would have been better eating the food you have to pay for to feed...