The Australia — Restaurant in Wales

After visiting this pub for several years with great staff and fantastic food this place has hit an all time low I believe it has put myself and my family off for good. We arrived at 5 and ordered at 5.20 (it was quiet and managed to order early before 5.30 as that's when food service starts) 10 minuets later it gets busy and they proceed to order food. 50 mins goes by and qe notice people getting served their food before us, who infact ordered well long after us. We ask politely what's going on and all we get from a staff member is "I don't know" bluntly off a really rude woman who clearly didn't want to work there. We wait another 30 mins for food that's a total of 90 mins waiting time for food considering we were the first order of the day!! Our so called food came out with items missing. No pineapple for gammon, no onion rings for burgers and no mint sauce for lamb. We again ask about the missing items and apparently they don't have them in stock but didn't care to tell us when ordering. And it was an expensive meal!! We then go to eat the burgers one beef one lamb and they are both red raw. All food was left and the raw burger resulted in food poisoning (throwing up an hour later all night long). The gravy for the lamb was pale orange and the mash was clumpy and tastless, we need up complaining just mentioning the foods unedible to be snarled at and ignored by the waitress who proceeds to speak in Welsh to colleagues laugh and walk away. I've never experienced something soo rude in my life!!! Felt soo unwelcome and no managment to be seen. As I've said before me and my family have been coming here for years and it's always been highly rated by myself and others but today felt like it had changed drastically for the worse both in service from stage and quality of food. Unfortunately we didn't even think to get photos of the food we just...

I really wanted to like The Australia - because it does serve a really good pint of ale. Unfortunately, we also ordered food & it was all downhill from there. We were kept waiting over an hour for our starter - whilst people who ordered after us received their main courses. At one point we were told the starter would be "another 5 minutes". It showed up 10 minutes later. To be fair, it (Welsh Rarebit) was pretty good. About 20 minutes later (80 minutes or so after I'd ordered), the main courses arrived. Apparently, the kitchen were running out of chips - I wasn't told this (I overheard a conversation between the kitchen & bar staff), but it shows from the laughably small portion of chips I received. The plates hadn't been warmed, so everyone's vegetables were luke warm at best. My pie was rather bland & the meat was tough. My wife's scampi was "ok - but not as good as the Creel" (a fish & chip shop down the road). My son's pizza looked like it came out of a supermarket freezer. He ate it, but only because he was hungry after the ridiculous wait. I told one of the staff that we weren't happy, but no one seemed to care. Instead, they tried to take the kid's plates away before they'd finished (twice) & hovered round our table waiting for us to finish so they could seat someone else. It's worth pointing out we spent a damn site less time eating than we spent waiting for the worst meal I've been served in Wales. To add injury to insult (which is the right way round, in this case), the next day I had a stomach upset. As the pie at the Australia was the only thing I'd eaten & no one else in the family had, I'd say it was the culprit. Bottom line: Porthmadog has plenty of other options. Choose...

We have been regular visitors here since taken over by Purple Moose. Good basic but quality pub food at a reasonable price. Not quite up to its best tonight 10/03/22. Maybe different staff in the kitchen. Here two weeks ago and they seem to be running out of dishes. Lamb shank both times and it’s low season. Ordered mushroom starter which was not on the ‘off’ list but fifteen minutes later the waitress came to tell me they were out of mushrooms. Ordered Welsh Rarebit instead and it arrived looking nothing like. A grey paste heavily mixed with grain mustard on a thin sliced cheap bread. Luke warm and not hint of cheese in the taste. It was awful and I sent it back apologising as I don’t complain and will eat most anything. Main courses arrived. Gammon and steak pie and they were okay but not quite up to usual standard. Hard to define and picky. Gammon cooked but fat not so. Needed a hotter grill. Pie really nice but pastry a bit underdone. Especially the sides and underneath. It was okay and maybe if we had not had the bad starter it would have have been perfectly acceptable.

Still given them four stars as it’s a great pub and the beer is excellent. Top rating to the bar staff who acted perfectly.

Message here. They may have just taken their eye off the ball. It’s all in the detail. Every customer is a new experience.

Do not be put off going because of my over detailed ramblings. It’s a message to the...