20190830 Payneham Tavern & Brunelli

Stephen had been in town all day at the Toastmaster meeting rooms trying to get the Karaoke working for our special SprachenFest on 30 October. We met for a coffee at lunch time. It was a cruisey day today. On Monday and Tuesday I wasn't receiving emails at work - due to the email server settings blocking out spam - just happened to delete all my other emails too!

I was glad to get in out of the cold at the Elephant to our usual pre-booked table. Chad was telling me that he also has a key-ring now for the Elephant - another VIP member!

Because we are going to the Payneham Tavern, (it's Richard's turn to choose), Stephen thought it would be a good idea for him to drive there. That meant he couldn't have more than 1 1/2 pints of beer. He regretted his decision as he saw the jugs over-flowing with beer :-)

Tonight, at the pub, there was Stephen, me, Chad and Con. Chad decided to have a look at the reviews for the Payneham Tavern! In hindsight, I wish he hadn't. There were some pretty awful things said about the hotel. The food stank, the service was abysmal... one reviewer even likened the Tavern to Faulty Towers with its comedy of errors. I forced Chad to also read out some of the good reviews to prep us in the mood for the journey.

We were meant to meet Richard and Albert at the Tavern at 6.30, but we didn't end up leaving the Elephant until about 6.25. It was a brisk walk to the car parked on Hutt Street and Stephen expertly navigated us to the Hotel.

It looked like a NSW RSL club from the outside. Lots of lit signage with flashing 'Pokies Here' signs. The car park had plenty of spaces and we were able to park near the entrance. On walking into the place, we could hear and see the boop, blipp of the pokie machines buzzing away. The dining room and games room was off to the right hand side.

We went through the glass door and into a very large dining room with lots of large round tables. The bar was off to the right hand side. We saw Richard and Albert queuing at the bar. Richard said that he had been waiting 10 minutes to be served. It was definitely  RSL-like in its modern facilities catering to large groups. However, tonight it wasn't busy at all.

We were seated at a round table right next to the entrance, by the toilets and by the large television screen on which the quiz was going to be played. We were also in front of the games room with its 3 darts boards, pool tables and betting screens. Lovely! :-)

Albert is looking frail and a bit tired from his dislocated shoulder. He showed us X-rays of his bones. He still had his arm in a sling. His walking is getting worse and he said that the phsyio wouldn't give him a pass to return to work, so he was at home. He had used up all his sick leave. I hope things work out for Albert. He's a gentle soul.

Albert has taken over the paper folding duties from Craig and created a lovely fan which he kept and didn't share with anyone else :-)


So... we had just heard some shocking things said about the food. Was it really that bad?

Stephen and Chad started it all off with beers - Stephen had the Furphy beer which he said was nice.

We had our crusty breadrolls to start which were sitting on the bar - unusual, but functional. Many of us ended up having 2 - 1 before the meal and 1 after.

Chad had the burger and chips with fried egg. I had the salmon with veggies, hollandaise sauce and chips, Stephen had the schnitzel with veggies and chips with mushroom topping AND pepper sauce. Albert had the seafood basket with chips. Richard had the chicken curry with rice and salad. Con had the bangers and mash with gravy.


It all seemed to look ok. Mine was a bit on the small side and I polished it off in 3 minutes. Albert tinkered with his food and left over half of it.

Scores:
Me - 6 (I felt queasy afterwards)
Stephen - 7 1/2 (not bad)
Chad - 6
Con 4 (his comments was it was bland...)
Richard - 8 - the salad was a bit unusual with the curry, but hey he enjoyed it.
Albert - 3 (not sure whether it was the food or Albert not feeling well)

When it came to the quiz we had a bit of Tracey Chapman playing in the background. We had a QuizzaMe button control which Richard was given charge of. There were about 10 groups playing - we were under the banner of 'Bucket of Doom'!


The way the quiz worked was like this... the quicker you press the correct answer the more points you scored. If you abstained from choosing you didn't lose any points, but obviously didn't gain any either. If you got a question wrong you got points taken away.

There were about 8 rounds altogether. We actually won one of the rounds, but ended up coming 3rd overall. It was fun enough. I think Richard got the most pleasure out of it as he loves these sorts of things. The first prize was a $100 voucher and second prize was a $50 voucher. Assuming, you want to come back to the pub!

Richard asked Stephen and I if we wanted to go and see Kasey Chambers for free!!!! YES PLEASE! was my answer.

So, after the horrible (and very funny) reviews on the Tavern, what did we think of it in the end? It was clearly struggling to get numbers, hence, the free quiz, but the place itself was fine if you like RSLs. Clearly, the food had mixed reviews from the group. The venue looked clean (it had been refurbished recently). Still, it wasn't our kind of place.

One small thing... it took about 20 minutes for the staff to clear the tables away. I am assuming, since they were one of the groups playing the quiz, they were too busy for actual service :-) They scored -441 and came last - is this an omen..??

Richard took Albert home as he was feeling tired. He was really struggling with his walking going to the car. Chad, Con and Stephen and I went to Brunelli in Glynde to wait. We waited for Richard then ordered coffees. Richard had an apple cheesecake and Stephen had a Vanilla Slice which he didn't think much of and left a third.

Richard made the comment that he didn't recognise any of the service staff at the cafe. How things change so quickly these days. From my perspective, it looked like the staff get younger by the minute.