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Home » Rowers Restaurant, 3 Centenery Drive, Mosman Bay, (End of Avenue Rd) Sydney NSW, Australia

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Rowers Restaurant, 3 Centenery Drive, Mosman Bay, (End of Avenue Rd) Sydney NSW, Australia

Rowers Restaurant, 3 Centenery Drive, Mosman Bay, (End of Avenue Rd) Sydney NSW, Australia

3 Centenery Drive, Mosman Bay, (End of Avenue Rd) Sydney NSW, Australia

(02) 9953 7713

"The Magic that Makes Dreams Come True" it says here on this glossy card, promoting the Rowers. There are paragraphs of this purple stuff "...located on the tranquil harbourside.." anyway, it looked OK, and we'd just taken the ferry over from Circular Quay to have a look at Mosman, maybe get a bit of lunch, and the Rowers appeared to be the only place. We were welcomed, seated and after quite a while, were given menus. L went for the Gourmet Pie in a Pot (of the Day - turned out to be Beef) and I chose grilled Baramundi. When the waiter was finally ready to take our order, she offered us garlic bread, but we refused, although it was late and we were ravenous. We just wanted what we'd chosen, not to fill up on gratuitous refined carbohydrates. Feeling virtuous we sat back and waited.

The Rowers is one of those places where you can see them working in the kitchen, so it was entertaining to see the chefs slamming various dishes on the counter and the waiter shaking her head and arguing. Bowls and plates of food piled up in a row, steamed for a bit and then grew cold. The waiter dashed back and forth explaining, apologising, delivering food, taking it back, re-delivering the right food to the wrong table. Long after we had finished our drinks, over an hour after we'd first been seated, she whizzed past our table and dumped a plate of cold garlic bread on it.

"We didn't order that" we cried

"I know, but you might as well have it, nobody else wants it and it's getting cold" she muttered as she dashed off to rectify yet another delivery cock-up. Oh, look, we fell on it - too famished to be proud. It was cold and greasy and not good. A mere 20 minutes later, well into the afternoon, when all the other diners were scraping their dessert plates, leaning back and admiring the famous view, we got our food ! The pie was far too hot to eat, so poor L, starving by now, broke the crust and laid the pieces of meat around on the plate to cool off. Not Nanny's Best Table Manners, but the man was desperate.

My barramundi on the other hand was warm, not hot, on a bed of unremarkable new roast potatoes. New potatoes should never be roasted, it's a waste of time, potatoes and cooking fat. I just shovelled it in.

We didn't complain because the waiter was actually working hard and appeared to be doing her best. No idea what was going wrong in the kitchen; no idea why she was waiting that big room on her own; even though it was half full she had a lot of tables to see to.

But we didn't leave a tip or order anything else. She knew we'd had a lousy experience, and didn't say much, neither did we - we just bolted. It wasn't cheap, either, so if you ever go on the Mosman Ferry - take sandwiches. The Rowers thinks it's pretty special, and the room is lovely, with great harbour views. But whoever manages the place deserves to be shot. Or at least fired.

DM 2007

By Daisy Middleton at 16/04/2007 - 12:56 | 2007 | Australia | Rejected | Review | £££/$$$ | 1 comment | read more | 411 reads

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