Stanley Street Station

Hearing a lot of great things about this place, I've been meaning to try it since it recently opened.

A few months ago we were on the same premises hoping to try JAR, a modern Australian restaurant I'd read some great reviews about. Unfortunately the restaurant had been taken over and was now an Indian place (a cuisine I'm not too fond of). Now back in the Modern Australian cuisine, Stanley Street Station had great appeal with its sharing dishes, mains, cocktails and board games. I thought I'd be in for a treat.

Unfortunately they were having an off night and what I hope can be put down to teething problems. We booked for 7:30 on Saturday night and arrived promptly. The waitress seemed confused and looked around for a table before telling us where she thought we could sit. The table was in front of the main door (there are two doors which creates a little confusion when entering the restaurant in the first place). The main door has no handle from the outside, so you push to enter. This however means that you can't close the door behind you when leaving. It also gives the illusion that the door is spring loaded and if entering, the door will close by itself. It won't. This resulted in our party yoyoing throughout the meal to shut the door and avoid the cool draft.

After seating us, the waitress zoomed off without asking if we'd like any drinks or even leaving any menus. Already the night was nose diving. I hate to say it didn't get much better.

Fifteen minutes later we finally got the attention of the waitress and called her over. She proceeded to pull out her pad to take our orders. Obviously she didn't care to look up at us or she would have seen we still didn't have any menus! We had to state the obvious and she hastily apologised and zoomed off to find us some. She returned with two menus (we had a table of four) and told us she'd have to "find more". She later returned with three more (a total of five menus for four of us...). Again her numbers seemed to be off as she poured water for three. The fourth glass was on the opposite side of the table, so to make life easier it was pushed towards the others. She ignored this and left again.

Reading great things about Stanley Street's varied menu, I was looking forward to seeing it (not spoiling the surprise by reading it on their website). Well, I was disappointed again. The menu was not only split into strange sections (placing chips under "smalls" instead of having a 'sides' section) but was also very limited. So much so that it took us a fair amount of time not to decide between the great dishes, which is usually the case, but to actually find one dish we wanted to order each. I was also surprised to note there wasn't a single chicken dish on the menu. Quite strange as this is often a popular choice. Perhaps I am nitpicking now but I believe that menus should have an element of consistency and this one did not, referring to both "steak fries" and "potato frites" - aren't these the same thing??

We elected to share the crispy spicy squid with mango coulis -$14.00 as an entrée. The spice was distributed over two or three pieces of squid, leaving the rest bland and the mango coulis, whilst very nice, did not go at all with the flavour of the squid. The sweet mango and salty squid flavours clashed rather badly.
When it came to ordering mains, one of our party enquired as to which "grilled vegetables" were featured in the penne. The waitress was unsure, which is fine when there's a large menu but shouldn't be the case with a menu this small. She asked the other waitress who didn't know either, before asking the chef. FYI it was eggplant, zucchini and capsicum. I was fine with this and so ordered the penne - $22.00. After a 30 minute wait, the mains arrived.

For a grilled vegetable pasta there weren't many grilled vegetables. What was there was sitting on top rather than mixed through. The prawns, whilst lovely and meaty couldn't really be called "garlic prawns" and probably shouldn't have been garlic prawns in the first place as the tomato flavour was quite strong anyway. Apart from this, the pasta was tasty and filling and the rocket and slices of parmesan were lovely.Deciding against the pasta due to a dislike of zucchini, my guest chose the steak - a 300g New Yorker for $24.00. She commented that she would have preferred a sirloin or fillet steak but was happy with her choice. When the steak arrived it looked great. Nicely marinated and served with chips (but note no sauce or none offered to go with the chips). She was not given a steak knife either and so was stuck carving into her New Yorker with a standard knife. This made things a little difficult, especially considering the steak was very chewy. Without a steak knife, it was harder to cut many smaller pieces so she was left chewing away at large long lasting mouthfuls. She wasn't too impressed! Her partner didn't think his own meal was much better (sampling both and commenting that of the 300g steak, 15g was tender!) He ordered the Roast Atlantic salmon with puy lentils, vege broth and balsamic jus - $24.00. What he was served was a very small piece of salmon (bear in mind he's a personal trainer so rather large but health conscious). The salmon, being small and very bland didn't quite cut it for him as a meal. He also doesn't like rocket. Poor guy!
My partner ordered the braised beef cheek, pea & shitake pie with sauerkraut and Saskia beer beetroot jam for $20.00. Our table oohed and ahed as pies were brought out to other tables. Their crust popped out beautifully over the rims of the pots and looked flakey and delicious. Needless to say, my poor partner looked as deflated as his pie crust when his own pie arrived!

The pie at the table next to us

My partner's pie

The pie too, was apparently bland with only two pieces of beef inside and the rest mainly peas. He did comment however that the beetroot was very nice.

Overall, the restaurant was very noisy and though the waitress was constantly apologetic about neglecting our table, the service was not good. The tables were metal (the sort of thing you'd find outside a cafe) which created a bit of a sterile environment

When the bill arrived, we noticed that the pad they'd taken the order on (and that the bill was on) still had the JAR header!

Stanley Street Station had great potential. Unfortunately none of this was evident at dinner on Saturday night. The place was busy - a good thing. But the left hand side of the restaurant looked over-crowded and the right hand side, where we were seated was often neglected. Our table, facing the kitchen was lit up and then dimmed every few minutes as the bench, where the chefs placed ready dishes had overhanging lights that would turn on when dishes were ready to go out. It would turn off again when it was empty. This seemed to change the lighting on our entire side of the restaurant!

I won't be back to Stanley Street Station but I think in a few months, when they sort themselves out, and perhaps improve their menu and throw down some tablecloths, it may just be a good restaurant!

Do you prefer going to new restaurants or restaurants that have successfully stayed open a few months/years?