The Bayview Bar — Restaurant in Western Australia

Just came home from a disappointing and quite frankly bad experience at The Bayview Bar. To set the scene, There was only one other table in the bar, and it looked like a business function in their function room. There were two management staff on, one lady who looked like she was busy doing admin things on her computer. The other manager was a gentleman behind the bar who seemed to be more in charge of the floor. There were also two young ladies doing the actual service, one looked like she was doing training as the other girl was helping her out with how things worked.

Si ordered our food, steak sandwich for him, fisherman's basket - grilled for me, plus two cokes. Our food came out extremely quickly, which was fine considering how quiet they were. Simon's steak sandwich was ok, not as good as last time but not bad. My food was a different kettle of fish (pun intended). Pretty much everything tasted the same. The fish tasted like supermarket bought Vietnamese farmed fish, the scallops were very under cooked, scallops are meant to be rare, hell you can eat them raw if they are a quality product. These were not quality, there was none of the caramelisation you want in seared scallops. The squid lacked flavour, the prawns were okay. The chips were pretty good though.

We were never quality checked, our drinks also never arrived. I ate about two thirds of the seafood before i just couldn't do it anymore, it was bad man and if i wasn't so hungry I would have eaten less, if we had been quality checked I would have complained immediately.

Simon finished his meal, drinks never showed up, no staff members even looked in our direction. I got up and went to the bar. I asked to speak to a manager. I told them we never got our drinks and they looked at each other and were like "ohhh rigght yeah we are having issues with our till they aren't printing dockets", I say okay but that isn't all, I told them about the bad quality of my meal, I ask what kind of fish it was and the gentleman says it was Red Spotted Emporer that came in that morning. "Really because it tastes like Vietnamese fish" I said, he is unimpressed and assures me that it was the Emporer, now, to be fair, I've since looked it up and it probably was Red Spotted Emporer, the fillets I googled look like what I received but it was just so bad. At this point he walks away from the conversation but still gives me side eyes while I continue with his coworker. She says that she will give the feedback to the chefs. I explain that if I paid $20 for the meal it wouldn't have been a problem at all, but they are charging $35 for what tastes like frozen imported seafood and it isn't good enough. I also questioned the service, stating that with four staff members on it is pretty bad that nobody realised we had no drinks and nobody bothered to check on our meals after we received them. Her reply was that herself and the male manager were not actually even meant to be rostered on that day... ? So you are telling me you are actually overstaffed and this still happened? If you weren't meant to be there then who was meant to be in charge? She was admittedly polite unlike her co-manager but these excuses are 100% not good enough. She asks me if I still want my drinks...."no thank you we are finished now". She gives us our money back for the drinks and assures me again that she will pass on my feedback. No apology, no trying to salvage the situation to get us back in the doors again.

The whole experience left us both with a bad taste in our mouths that wasn't just due to the food. Service is important and a bad meal can often be overlooked if service and complained management is handled properly. We won't ever go back to Bayview, we won't ever recommend it to anyone, if someone tells us they are going there will will try talk them out of it. Word of mouth in a small place like Bunbury is crucial and it sucks that a venue like Bayview with such an amazing location and potential to be great is wasted on bad food and...

Had been to Bunbury many times before but never been to the Bayview Bar. Decided to give it try last evening. We didn’t have any expectations of this place after we had been to several restaurants along Victoria Street, the food there was mediocre and overpriced, and thought all restaurants in Bunbury will be the same. The wait staff here were very accommodating and friendly. We mentioned we were feeling cold (it was a cold windy and grey winter evening), and they turned on the heater for us. After 10-15 mins wait, came our amazing dinners. The Grilled Barra with Chorizo and Chickpea cassoulet was so delicious, We are not chickpeas fans, they are always bland and tasteless, but these chickpeas together with the Chorizo were so yummy, and the Barra was cooked to perfection! This dish also came with several mussels on the plate, which was very unusual. We also ordered the Chilli Mussels and we asked to make the dish extra hot. The sauce and the mussels were amazing. We really love the mussels on our plates, they were fresh, plum, juicy and huge, the best we had in Bunbury. A wait staff came to check how our food was, that’s a nice touch. The price of the food was very reasonable too. I don’t drink beers but tasted the beer my husband ordered, and it was beautiful. The other day we went to an expensive Italian restaurant at Victoria St, husband ordered a Bolognese, cost $28, the most expensive Bolognese we ever had in our life. Worst thing was there was nothing special with their Bolognese, the pasta was ok, the mince was course, the sauce was bland. I can cook better Bolognese than this restaurant, and it's a very basic and simple itanlian dish but they can't even make it shine! We will never step foot into this overpriced Italian restaurant ever again. But we’ll definitely come back to the Bayview Bar to try other dishes and enjoy...

We dined here with the work social club.. What a disappointing experience. We had platters served & when the waitress brought those around she didn't bring plates or serviettes. They were placed randomly on a table & we weren't advised they were there. Some of the guests were offered the platters while some of us had to seek them out. We ordered cocktails then after some time had to ask where they were. They hadn't bothered.to see who's they were &.just.dumped them on another table. When we left the bar area as soon as we turned the corner into the dining area we were hit with the pong of cigarette smoke & then instead of water views we had views of the smokers. Our dinner menu was limited as in we only got a choice of 3 options. This apparently was governed by the restaurant. Not even a steak meal was one of the options. When we queried why there was no steak available we were told to see our co ordinater. We later found out it was the restaurant who dictated what we could & couldn't have & if you ask me it was to make things easier for the chef. Some of the fish was overcooked & very dry. I could get better cooked fish.at the local takeaway for cheaper & more tastier. The chicken parmigiana meal didn't even come with.a salad - just a piece of chicken & chips. Those two items didn't justify the price of the meal. Some of the chicken also was overcooked & tasted like cardboard. We injected a substantial amount of money into this place & they have left me feeling very underwhelmed along with others in our group. I definitely won't return nor will I recommend the restaurant to any of my...