Wednesday 13 October 2010

TWO GASTRO PUBS - TWO STORIES


We have been to two very different Wellington pubs in the last week or so. One in Lambton Quay on the site of the old Paris and New Orleans now reincarnated as Keenans and the other is 3C down Chews Lane off Willis St.

One a very fine example of a good gastro pub - the other is crap.

The good one is 3C. The food is great, well cooked and reasonably priced. the wine list is fulsome and bar staff attentive and knowledgeable and the place fair bulges with sweaty Bettys and hard on Harry's on a Friday night. Its a fine example of its kind.

Keenans is everything you dont want in a gastro pub. Surly waitresses, food that is so bad that you will talk about it for weeks and its not cheap and has a skinny wine list to boot.

Keenans has a really good spot. It should be the place people go to do the " off the radar" or " fireside chats" that are a feature of Wellingtons public service and political scene.

But the lunch we had there started off with a waitress not bringing us menus or wine lists for about 10 minutes. Nor any water.

And there was no fish and two other dishes were off the menu.

The steak my mate had was, in her words " perfect if you wanted to skate on it all the way to Hamilton". It really was a a piece of rubber masquarding as beef.

I ordered a small Antipasto plate for $15 and a side of fries We got an odd plate of not very nice cold stuff and mounds of bread.

" Breads nice" said my mate...
Everything had a supermarket look about it and when the waitress went to pour the wine she sloshed it into the glass filling it three quarters full. Then stood back like she was expecting us to taste it.

Then she screwed the cap back before realising that she hadn't poured the next glass. Duh.

The chips were good as was the bread but for an antipasto plate, a steak sandwich and a $38 bottle of wine, you want more than just good bread and chips.

So if you want a cold beer and chips down the parliament end of the town - it could fit the bill -thats if you can get past the grumpy waitress.

Our advice is stretch it out and walk down to Willis St and enjoy the superb service and excellent and well priced food at 3C.





4 comments:

tina said...

So it was spelt wrong -

definition of FULSOME

1
a : characterized by abundance : copious describes in fulsome detail
b : generous in amount, extent, or spirit the passengers were fulsome in praise of the plane's crew

Anonymous said...

Had lunch there last Friday was busy but the service was great and I thought the meal for the $ was awesome.

Anonymous said...

We went in to keenans today for lunch the waiter was helpful when I had look through the wine list I thought it was pretty good at a reasonable price.

When we saw the price of verve at $110 we thought it was too good to pass on.

The fish was very fresh and only $10

Anonymous said...

Best food for lunch only 10$. I think it's great.