Waterside — Restaurant in North Island

First meal here, I enjoyed mine, loved the vibrant flavours of basil pesto mix with clearly fresh crispy blanched local produce beans, served with requested Diane Sauce on the side which is not lost in history from every breast of chicken to the side of every one of my steaks that I ensure is brought to my table. I thought my Eye Fillet steak altho deliciously cooked was small, however, wise is the chef who adds this sauce to their repertoire of skills especially when I come to dinner at your place! the crispy chips elected with my steak were nice for unashamed dipping. My friend didn't like the in-house-creation tartare on the side she was served in the dish with her 'Fush n Chups' obviously the taste must be at the discretion of the individual, I found it a bit strange tasting at first hence im commenting on it to detail here, but on its own with the veges I liked it. This needs some research to get the right combinations to appeal to a wider audience palate. There was a slightly different creamy white sauce drizzled over the juicy fresh salad which was beautifully presented with moist crispy fish fillets all tasted nice 👍

Excellent comeback from their fair share of troubles like the other restaurants nationwide thanks to the lengthy changes of constant confusing C19 restrictions, a brilliant location lovely staff, Mikayla and Emma served us diligently to start with and the chef's willingness to make an off-the-list sauce is big in my book. The only glitch for reasons unknown I couldn't see is reasonable service timelines weren't watched carefully and need improvement perhaps : = leaving your clients hungry and feeling like they have been forgotten, waiting to order food more than 20+ minutes is far too long especially having a prestigious lake front location left us stunned having to wave down some service?

#1 to present first class service to begin with, then serve the unclean glasses?.. this is the basics. white sediment like paint scrapings of some kind in the bottom of my glass? a little suprising.

but if this review invokes a response from them I will definitely increase my rating, and edit this review drastically.

-acknowledgment of mistakes is the first golden rule in my book and as you can see diners were alive and well as a pleasant enviroment experienced by all soaking in the scene of dimming sunset which these pics reflect. Thank you Waterside , we will dine...

Normally quite a nice middle class restaurant with a good view to the lake. The road is in front but it is still nice. The service is very bad. At the beginning not every second table was occupied but we already saw guests raising hands. We could order our 3-courses-menu after about 15 minutes. Everything ok. After 75 minutes more we were still waiting for the second dish, the main course. The “chef's choice fish of the day“ was sounding really nice with some vegetables and coconut rice on the side. On the plate suddenly was red sauce, after we tried we knew it was tomato sauce with mushrooms and CHORIZO...very nice fish fillet with chorizo? Are you serious? And no rice also. Taste was bad and because we were told something completely different we were not really happy...no taking back...but after 15 more minutes we got 2 spoons of rice additional...serious? I never saw something more unprofessional. The rest was already cold of course. I finished my steak already this time. The waiter thought about nothing else than asking for the desert when the other (bulls...) plate was still full. Ridiculous. After finishing that we ordered desert. One was the “chef's daily choice of cheesecake“. The waiter said it's a Frangelico-Cheesecake. Uhh! Nice!Of course we want that! After one minute the waiter told us it is sold out🐵 serious? Nothing happened, no sorry, no anything... One good thing we have to mention in the end: they are...

Ok, so it didn't start off great as we walked in there was only one couple in the building and we sat down. We waited a bit and heard some talking in the back, my husband went to get us menus from the coutertop. As we were tempted to just walk out and go elsewhere since we didn't see anyone around, another family came in and sat down. (the door slammed a bit behind them so it was enough to get someones attention) and as they sat the other family, we were noticed! The service was quick with a drink order from that point and the server was very attentive! It was pleasant. The food is great! We had Jalapeno poppers and calamari to start with and it was very flavourful! Just the right amount of spice and hot cheese. Fantastic. I thought I was going to need a lemon slice for my calamari, but it was so full of flavour, I didn't need anything else. My husband had the Pork Carbonara and I had of course, in true American style... a burger! The pork carbonara was delicious as I had a bit since it looked so great. Well presented, perfect portion, full of flavour. What more can one ask for? The buger was equally nice, however, the only thing is, I could tell it was a sort of premade patty. A thick one, delicious, but definitely not hand sculpted. Either way, the food and service was great. I cannot complain. I absolutely will stop by again when I get to Taupo again....