Anticlimax at Angasi

You know how it happens in life when people build something or someone up bigtime to you, then when you eventually see/eat/read/meet them, they don’t quite measure up to the big rave reviews you’ve previously heard? Well maybe that’s what happened to us yesterday at Angasi at Binalong Bay (outside St Helens).

Whatever it was, I felt very deflated when we left.

Let me set the scene for you. A lovely sunny Sunday afternoon, albeit a bit breezy. Rita is still firmly entrenched in holiday mode, but starting to dread the big first day back at work looming large on the horizon (this Wednesday). Lunch at Angasi was a definite bonus. We arrive and are initially ignored by the 2 floor staff for about 5 minutes. No eye contact, or verbal acknowledgement of our obeying the chalked sign at the counter instructing us to wait there to be seated. The restaurant has 6 or 7 tables of couples occupied. The ambience is casual and unhurried, as it should be on a Sunday afternoon in the backblocks of St Helens.

Not a good start, but we overlook this infinitesimal hiccup in the greater scheme of things. We’re at the famous Angasi which we’ve read and heard so much about over the past few years: all of it extremely glowing and positive.

We sit down and peruse the menu. It reads well. Lots of interesting-sounding food. In fact so interesting and delicious-sounding that we can’t make up our minds so decide to have a taste of as much as we can, and hang the expense (not that cost came into it one iota anyway, but still….)! It took so long to drive up there (specifically for lunch) so we might as well get maximum enjoyment while we’re there.

We decide on 3 appetisers: Pickled Tasmanian Abalone with lemongrass and chilli jam and sake rice ($7), Scallop ($5) served on top of something which I couldn’t pinpoint and can’t remember how the menu described it, and 4 cooked Oysters (two fried in Panko with Japanese mayo, and two Salt & pepper fried with olive salsa and sour cream - $3 each) all of which sound BEAUTIFUL; 2 entrees (Crispy fried Quail with butter braised potato - $19 - and Crispy Lime Fishcake with coriander salad and sticky citrus syrup - $17); and 2 mains one of which is entitled Bay of Fires Experience ($42) which tops all the other items on the menu for price but sounds fabulous and infers I’ll get to sample a great cross-section of their reputed fine food, and I assume I’ll have been able to taste as much local seafood as I could. The menu description for the Bay of Fires Experience reads, “showcase selection of abalone, scallops, mussels, fish”. The other main was Roasted free range chicken ($28). We thought if we could fit dessert in, we’d try the Assiete plate – a serving of 3 different desserts ($25).

The waiter takes our order and we sit back to relax and enjoy this feast.

The appetizers come out. The oysters in the panko are OK but the ones with the olive salsa are spectacular. The abalone is interesting. We only get 3 thin shavings in this serve but my opinion is that you don’t actually get the true fine taste of abalone with the pickling process, so even though I enjoyed the dish, I think pickling it didn’t actually capture it. The rice accompaniment rocked. The scallop was fine too, but didn’t stand out for me.

Then the entrees – the quail was just quail, nothing different or particularly noteworthy there. Not good, nor bad. Ordinary. The fish cake was most disappointing. I make them frequently and would never put mine up against a chef’s version, but I reckon mine more than hold their own in comparison with Angasi’s.

In the interval between entrees and mains, I had a thought, which I voiced to Jamie at that time. I wondered if the Bay of Fires Experience platter content would duplicate the appetizers we’d already had. We instantly decided that wouldn’t be the case, as surely the waitperson would realise that fact at ordering time, and tell us, so we could order differently. Especially when at the outset we’d commented to said waitperson we were ordering as much as we could from the menu so we could taste a good selection of their food!

Well – you guessed it! Out came the Bay of Fires Selection, duplicating exactly what we’d just had, with the addition of Local black mussels with spiced chorizo and tomato butter sauce, and the cooked oysters we'd previously eaten replaced by a solitary natural oyster. (I'd foregone the natural oyster option with the appetiser selection as I'm more than well acquainted with natural oysters).

I left the fish cake (which obviously was their “fish” contribution to the platter); I ate the (3 shaved slices, as per appetizer) pickled abalone and rice, the (one) scallop, the one oyster and the four mussels (delicious) in the tomato base sauce.

That was it! I was REALLY unhappy, and pissed off that waitperson had not, in fact, recognized the fact that I was duplicating when I ordered, or that the kitchen hadn’t picked it up either.

Luckily, one of the waitstaff looked at the plate as she cleared back, and asked if it was OK. I had to then complain about why I was unhappy. She was a tad defensive, understandably, and excused it with the fact that our waiter had only been there 2 weeks, so didn’t know the menu fully. She apologized for my disappointment, which was nice of her, but if it had been me, I’d have offered the customer some kind of counter offer, in order to try and redeem their experience.

The Assiete dessert was fabulous. They really redeemed themselves with that, but my disappointment was too great by then and it didn’t go anywhere towards making me feel happier about the overall experience.

I am still smarting from the frustration of having been prepared to spend any amount of money in order to eat great food. I spent $166.50 for lunch and had a long drive to boot. Not happy Angasi!