The Pour House and The Coromandel Brewing Company — Restaurant in Waikato

My visit to The Pour House happened 3-4 weeks ago. Afterwards, Google asked me what I thought of our visit and asked for a quick review. I quickly provided star ratings for food, service, and atmosphere and went about my day. The owner has since requested specific information regarding my critique, which is why I'm adding a few lines here. It's the first time I've ever received such a request from a business. It impresses me that they care enough to ask for more information about my visit to their establishment. I hope it does you too.

We stopped by The Pour House on our way through town a few minutes before it officially opened for business. The doors were open and there was already a short line of people waiting to be served, yet we were all asked to wait outside. It had rained and about 75% of the tables outside were wet and unusable. The gathering crowd of customers had no place to claim as their own while waiting to place their orders. Perhaps that's why I didn't judge The Pour House's atmosphere any higher. (After nearly a month, I can't be certain.) It's a casual place and I always prefer a casual, outdoor dining experience over any other.

The staff was good. The service was friendly and fast. The food was plentiful and good too. I remember that I had a beer and the fish and chips. My wife tells me that she ordered a wine and the watermelon salad. She raved about the salad.

Again, I am impressed that The Pour House asked for specific information regarding our visit there. We will visit again next time we pass...

When we found this place on Google we were really buzzing about it, craft beer and good food is normally a winner. Previously reviews looked good and the place was rammed when we got there. Unfortunately on this occasion we had a pretty disappointing meal. The nachos were simply smashed Avo on some tortilla chips, nothing else such a cheese, soured cream, chilli or onion, no seasoning either. They were super bland.

For main we had mussels in Thai sauce. The flavour of the sauce was good but there was barely any of it and the mussels hadn’t really taken any of the flavour. About a third of my mussels hadn’t open (5 out of probably about 15). I work in hospitality and unopened mussels are a fact of life - but this number seemed a bit suspect. The garlic bread was pretty small and seemed a bit of a rogue side with the Thai sauce.

Frustratingly even the beer was a disappointment, we had a pint of the Pilsner and the the Dr Hahei. Both of them had a really strange quality to them - and the pilsner specifically tasted like burnt cheese on toast. We’re pretty easy going with pints, but even we only managed to chew through half the pint.

As said at the start, the place was absolutely heaving so maybe we just got super unlucky, but 3 stars is fair based...

Very disappointing, I had the mussel pot, steamed mussels in Thai sauce - they must have been steamed a long time before we came in, they were barely warm, Thai sauce - I don't think so, a small amount of what I think was coconut cream and some chopped parsley not the slightest hint of Thai sauce, mussels were very small. Wife had fish and chips, again not very hot, small portions of both fish and chips, very little if any seasoning, about 5 rocket leaves as a small side salad, fish was apparently Terakhi, possibly but probably out of the freezer, tasted like Hoki and approx the same consistency - mushy. Spoke to the duty manager to provide some feedback, politely fobbed off, no offer a partial refund (not that that was what I was looking for, I was looking for a pleasant tasty lunch experience) no offer of a return visit to show that they can get it right. went there to see what it was like before having a Christmas get together with about 15 of us - definitely will not be going back. Only gave it 2 stars because the Spice Control Cider was...