The Fat Oyster Bar & Eatery — Restaurant in Hibiscus and Bays

We went for the oysters (see below), but the business practices left a bad taste. It was a public holiday, for which we were charged a 15% public holiday surcharge! 😱 Now I imagine this is to cover overtime costs, but since it’s a public holiday, surely the increased traffic more than makes up for it. 🤷🏻‍♂️ Secondly, when purchasing a dozen oysters, they charge for 11, per the menu. Our server said we could order a selection, and be charged at the dozen rate, but we were charged the full price. 😢

That said: we came for oysters. Firstly, the actual meat of these oysters is on the small side. There were 4 options: Normal (plain), Surf and Turf, Wakame, and Beer Battered. We tried them all. The batter was very light and delicate, so it didn’t overwhelm the oyster. On the other hand, the Surf and Turf did overwhelm the oyster. The Wakame was tasty, but the plain oysters were the best. I’d recommend those and the Beer Battered ones. We also had the shoestring fries with aioli sauce: it was a good helping of fries, and the sauce was delicious. The initial serving of sauce was very small, and ran out quickly, but we requested a refill (which was thankfully free).

We had the Spicy Bloody Marys, which were good, and a Spicy Margarita—also good.

The restaurant itself is very small, but there are a few tables crammed together on the street outside with umbrellas, so I really can’t give a good rating for Atmosphere, and even though there are kids’ items on the menu, I wouldn’t recommend this place for kids: too cramped.

Lastly, I found the prices to be quite high (see menu). The 15% surcharge on top of that was a bit...

This is so disappointing to write. We were so impressed with this restaurant about a year ago and decided to go back for a cheeky date night. It was riddled with issues:

Of the five dishes we had:

The oysters were plump and fresh, but the white balsamic vinegar, however, was nondescript and bland.

BBQ octopus. The Octopus was cold and bland, the chermoula and green harissa flat and tasteless with a green hue of a sauce that was not fresh.

Baked Eggplant. Okay, but it lacked in seasoning. THis was quite a special dish when we had it in our previous visit.

The dish of the night was the fish tacos. There are no genuine issues besides the fish not being blackened or charred, as the menu suggests.It was still tasty, though, despite turning up as beef cheek tacos in the first instance, met by an eye-rolling waitress when we pointed it out.

8 Spice pork belly. I would put money on the fact that there are were not eight spices on the pork belly. The kumara mash was a sloppy puree, and the raw red onion was bizarre. The crackling was chewy, and the pork was dry.

To top this off, the service was average. I had to rummage through a drawer of a waiter station not once, not twice, but three times for cutlery, salt and pepper, despite asking (I should not need to ask for cutlery when you've removed it after the first meal). The wait staff were uninterested, and when paying for the meal and noting that the dinner was average, we were offered an "Oh, we're so sorry" and no genuine interest in...

Unfortunately we didn't have a great experience like the other reviews. I hope that this feedback can be taken on board by the owners and not just heavily defended. We booked well in advance for a Friday night. We ended up being moved and sitting at three different tables throughout the night - just to satisfy another group of diners. Cocktails took forever to come, however, they did make 2 that were not on the menu so that was good. I felt that the wait staff were constantly trying to take our glasses and food when we weren't finished with them. I suggest they buy more glasses if they're that desperate. It was quite irritating to have to constantly watch and defend your drink. The food all came out at the same time which was great. I had the seafood chowder which was piping hot. I would have liked more chowder and less bread but the idea of serving it inside a cobb loaf is cute. Overall, I felt that the portion sizes were small. The music had a good variety but at our third table (which was right next to a speaker), the volume and bass were too high - I felt too deflated to mention anything by this point. This is a newish restaurant and I wish them the best for the future. I'm sure it will improve over time, however, I have no plans to return...