Bob Sugar Torquay — Restaurant in Torquay

Located along the Esplanade, this corner beach house/restaurant opened a few months ago, formerly 'Seniors'. With the Torquay Beach opposite, on-street parking bays, and paths to walk along after a meal, this is the perfect setting and atmosphere for dining. Bookings are recommended due to their popularity.

They create beautifully presented Asian feeds matched with cocktails - a tapas place of sorts. They treat their staff well, ensuring they get to try all the menu items to discuss it knowingly with customers. This is also a great way to keep and engage staff. From the owners to the wait and kitchen staff, it was a refreshing change to see such genuine passion for the venue and what they serve to the diners.

Whether you are dining alone or a group, this place is COVID-19 safe and correctly spaced for lunch and dinner. There is an outdoor, covered area best used on warm days. The bar is a stand out feature of Bob Sugar, with visual nods to the film 'Jerry Maguire' on the walls and even on the cute bill envelope - be sure to look for these as it will 'complete' your dining experience.

Dinner Recommendations Bob Zombie Cocktail - presented in a tall tiki-style cup, worthy of the $22 spent - white and dark rum, OP rum, passionfruit pulp, simple syrup, fresh lime juice, pineapple juice, and normal/orange bitters. Krunchy ABC Prawns - Sweet Soy, Tapioca Flour, Mixed Sesame, Thai basil, Herbs, Chilli (DF, GF) - prawns cooked to perfections and ever so tasty! Sticky Pork - Fuji Apple Slaw, Herbs, Chilli, Lemongrass, Ginger Sticky Sauce (DF) - definitely the highlight of the meal and a mixture of textures, especially moist, not at all dry. Korean Chilli Fried Chicken - Crunchy Fried Chicken, Spicy Bulgolgi, Gochujang Mayo Herbs (DF) - succulent and crunchy with a hint of chilli heat.

Forgetting they were share plates, I could have easily had enough with two menu items and was happy to take some home. Do yourself a favour and check...

Very disappointing.

We went to Bob Sugar on a recent trip to Torquay. The food is a little different, being a kind of modern pan-asian experience. The clientele seemed to be mostly under-30s.

Unfortunately, our experience was pretty poor. The menu was difficult to decipher and the wait staff seemed to be clueless about providing advice on how to approach it.

Despite asking questions, a couple of us brought dishes were really intended to be share plates with 6 bite size portions, thinking they doubled as entree sized dishes.

The drinks menu was also unclear with my friend ordering the only item on the menu to mention flaming - to find out later it wasn't the flaming cocktail we observed on other tables.

My drink had weird dehydrated capsicum and lemon in it (I think). It was not edible and just kind of weird.

In our group of 5, three were served fairly quickly, but the remaining two of us, myself included, waited about 40 minutes. We ultimately, had to ask when it was coming. I'm not sure if they forgot us.

The food was OK, but nothing spectacular, with only one of us being impressed by the meal.

Wait staff were difficult to attract and when a problem was raised reacted very poorly, actually escalating it rather than resolving it.

Payment was difficult with the restaurant insisting on a single amount rather than allowing us to pay individually.

Overall, I cannot recommend this restaurant, it was some of the worst service I...

Food was nice but unfortunately the poor customer service took away from this. We were late for our 7:45 booking but called ahead to let the staff know and asked if it was ok to still come. We were told over the phone that it was ok to still come but they’d have a conversation with us when we arrived... once we got there we were told that we would still need to vacate the premises by 8:45 which we were very understanding as it was our error for being late and then a staff member proceeded to ask if we were late due to an emergency which I found a bit invasive. My 2 friends and I ordered 2 dishes each and 2 of us ordered a large cocktail. At 8:10 we were asked if we were ok for drinks to which we replied yes and that we were still going on our current ones and no more that 2 minutes later a bill was slapped down on our table as a staff member said “take your time”. At this point we were still finishing our drinks and less than 5 minutes later a staff member asked if we would be using cash or card for payment and it was more than clear that we were being told we were no longer welcome and at this point the time is 8:20, 25 minutes until the end of our booking. We rushed to finish our drinks and couldn’t get out quick enough and after saying farewell to staff we were met with radio silence. In summary good food, extremely rude and passive...