RedDot BrewHouse

Didn't try the beer as was having wine, but they have good choices and I'd go back to try them. After dinner elsewhere.

We couldn't get booking at Spruce for pancakes, so we tried here. On the whole, I would rather have skipped brunch and starved until dinner. Within five minutes of sitting down, and before the waitress could fetch a mosquito coil, the wife had been bitten no fewer than five times by diverse airborne parasites. (There was much entertaining shrieking and hopping up and down to accompany the various strafing runs). By the time we had left, coil or not, she was sporting nine bites. (Edit: ten - we found one on her back too!) I'm inclined to put this down to the two large, shallow greenish pools by the entrance but perhaps the mosquitoes had driven in as a family to enjoy a light snack before church.

We ordered the pancakes (missus) and the burger (me) and I was thinking I'd take an option on the pancakes if they turned out to be any good. The pancakes were thick crepes and rubbery in texture (which is what happens when you can't make up your mind whether you're doing hotcakes or crepes) but were otherwise inoffensive, so my option was not taken up in the event. I also had a coffee, which was the highlight of my meal because it was merely adequate. The wife had some lychee thing which was also unremarkable. She'd have liked fresh fruit juice but, apparently, squeezing a few oranges is beyond the scope of a specialist purveyor of drinks.

The burger was the size and shape of a cricket ball, defeating the very purpose of it coming in a bun - so you can eat it like a sandwich. Pythons could perhaps achieve this feat; for humans it is highly unlikely. Also, I bloody hate mushrooms: I hate the taste; I hate the texture; most of all, I hate the smell. Sensibly, therefore, I took the precaution of specifying that I wanted the burger without mushroom on it.

You know where this is going, of course: nobody who has ever asked for anything specific from waiting staff here will be surprised to discover that the burger came a la mushroom. "What's this?", I enquired rhetorically, pointing at a greyish diced sludge atop my burger. "Oh," said the waitress, looking crestfallen, "the mushrooms." She didn't do anything other than looking crestfallen so I helpfully added (repeated?), "Can I get a burger without mushrooms?"

When she returned, three minutes later, brandishing a plate with a burger, it occurred to me - as it would to you no doubt - that it takes more than three minutes to cook a burger. Especially one that thick. Or, if it doesn't, why did it take so long to bring it the first time? Possibly, you could toast a fresh bun and wipe the mushrooms off a burger in that time, don't you think? Supporting this theory, the fries occupied a heat spectrum running from lukewarm (hottest) to cold (least hot). Also, Red Dot really needs to change its pre-made oven chip supplier. Although doubtless not aided by the heat dissipation as they were paraded about Dempsey Estate, the fries are not good at all.

Now, to be fair, I went back recently and the beer wasn't bad and the barbeque menu turned up decent enought food - with which there was literally nothing wrong.  The service was even not rubbish.  So I'm going to balance out the appalling marks I handed out the first time and make them merely mediocre...