Wraven's Journal

A decision to trek out to murrumbateman's Shaw Winery for a birthday lunch promised a lot and delivered a lot.

The dining experience at Witchery's Kitchen (the restaurant within Shaw Winery) boasts fantasic views of the surrounding country side and a delightful ambience.

The nuts and bolts of the experience were very good. The service was fast, attentive and friendly. The quality of the food was excellent. The lamb was tender, the prawn ravioli tasty and the home made beef pie to mouthwatering.

Despite the excellent experience there were detractions. The coffee was spilt on the saucer when it arrived, the $26 for wine at the cellar door was more expensive than other wineries in the region, and the cost of mains, at $26-$29 felt $2-4 more expensive than what they should have been.

Overall the experience met all expectations and is well worth the drive.

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Tossilini's is one of these italianesque style restaurants that serves modern australian food. The problem with these types of restaurants is that they blend formal and casual dining into a completely forgettable experience.

Apart from the company, my most recent experience at Tossilini's was definitely forgettable.

Service. Slow, forgetful and unhelpful. Our meals came out in reasonable time, but the extra's weren't done well. Getting a beer required 3 requests and hot chocolate arrived when a cappuccino was ordered. And when at a table of six, I expected a request for water would lead to the arrival of more than 600ml of water for the entire table.

Food. Good food. The barbecue prawns were excellent and the pizza on the special's menu was simple and tasty.

Overall we had a reasonable meal but not because of the service. The food and company made it a good meal but the service continues to be that elusive element that is completely lacking in almost every restaurant in Canberra. Are my expectations excessive? I hope not. Otherwise the hospitality industry has managed to move us to a state where the best we can hope for is vanilla service that doesn't inspire and doesn't surprise.

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It's been 6 years since my last visit to the pancake parlour. This morning's venture into the world of pancakes was outstanding. The mid-morning service and food was of a quality exceeded that of what you get at some of canberra's top restaurants.

The coffee arrived within minutes of being ordered, was hot, fresh and full flavoured. The pancakes arrived soon after. The ice-cream was a little melted but beyond that the butter-milk pancakes were light, fresh and fluffy.

The whole experience made me question why I frequent the local cafe's for coffee and cake more regularly than the pancake parlour. Overall, I heartily recommend the pancake parlour.

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So what's with Gus' ridiculously slow service. We all know that Gus' cafe is an institution in Canberra. It's been around forever and whenever you want to meet someone in civic it's common to just meet at Gus'. But, the more times I go to Gus' the more I am disappointed at the quality of service I receive.

Just this morning I decided a late breakfast, 10:30ish, was how I wanted to start my Sunday. After ordering my coffee and eggs I was reasonably happy with the speed at which the first coffee arrived - despite them having delivered a flat white instead of a cappuccino.

As we passed the 30 minute mark, and with no eggs in sight, I stopped a passing waiter and enquired whether the eggs were on their way. The response was one of deflection that the food comes out in waves and that my order should arrive soon. Well, another 10 minutes passed and finally my poached eggs with bacon arrived. By this time I'd ordered another coffee - which also took some 10 minutes to arrive.

So after beginning my poached eggs it quickly became clear that the eggs had been over cooked. The yolk more closely resembled a hard boiled egg than poached egg. However, I was unwilling to request fresh eggs considering it took 40 minutes just to get these.

I've now come to the opinion that while Gus' is an easy place to meet someone, it is best to meet and move on rather than meet and allow Gus' to abuse their name and take fucking forever to deliver something as simple as bacon and eggs.

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