Main Street Cafe & Restaurant — Restaurant in Invercargill City

Prologue: The food at main street was not good. It wasn't great. It was amazing

Chapter 1: A new beckoning

To put in perspective how many adjectives I would need to describe my stay and dining experience with the main street staff, you would have to assume every planet or sun in the whole universe was the exact same as earth, then square the amount of sand grains in the universe. From the outside, the building looked clean, cozy, and appeared a refuge and sanctuary from the unpredictable gales and icy rain of invercargill. As we walked over to our table, our home for the next 30 minutes, we were uneasy and restless, but soon settled in after greetings from a plethora of wait staff, and now equipped with menus quickly provided to us by staff, we had to scale the daunting menu. Every single meal looked delicious, but the pork belly burger caught my gaze the most, leading me to choose it. As I walked up after ordering I immediately bumped into the staff, who were already delivering our food.

Chapter 2: A meal awaits

I was eating the staff, thought I as I ate my meal. Simply because I was eating the food the staff spent their energy and time on, which at the end of the day is all that matters. After finishing, I paid my dues and left the fine place. I stopped abruptly as I realized the kind gentleman at the front was holding the door open. He bode me farewell, but I managed to give my regards through a harry Truman quote. "Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better." I felt this fitting because I knew the managers at main street were skillful leaders, which reflected from their well trained staff. The managers truly changed things for the better. So I walked out the door, ready to face the challenges the world decided to hurl at...

Meals were over priced for what they were. Pork belly is meant to be pork belly not a pork strip and the skin is meant to be crispy not chewy or inedible. For a meal you'd expect to have more than just a few baby carrots on the plate with one strip of pork for $36. For a meal you need to include more vegetables such as roasted or steamed but definitely more. One of our group had a entree, his main meal was brought out at the same time and left sitting going cold on the table. Staff came over once but never actually listen to what was said. Garlic and Hoisin chichen flavor was that overwhelming with the sauce that all else was lost. It was not a nice experience. Soya sauce is the closest thing I could think of that appeared to be drowned in my plate a small amount of bok choy under the chicken and hard rice in little pot. Dessert was another complete fail. Banoffee cheesecake. Caramel under a piece of cheesecake? And a scope of ice cream. This could have been improved simply by slicing banana on cheesecake and drizzling carmel over the cheesecake. That would be what one would expect. Chocolate brownie pudding? This came out with a scoop of sorbet and two bits of brownie. This should have been heated slightly and served with a scope of vanilla ice cream or cream, and one of sorbet as the brownie...

I have to be honest I would not go back here anytime soon. Upfront waitressing staff we're just great and I can't fault them. However the cleanest of the place was a bit dubious what you see in the photos and the was crumbs and smears on the tables or one or two of them anyway. The food after ordering it was a little bit slow but not too bad. My wife had the mutton birds and that in itself was not very good. The muttonbird came into halves and 1/2 particularly was very dry stringy it appears to be overcooked. I had the calamari and was not really overly impressed. I've certainly had better elsewhere. The coffees were a bit bitter and needed sugar to make them more palatable. So only three stars from me and that's just because of the pleasantness of the girls serving us otherwise I would rate it at...