The Point Hotel, Harris Street, Pyrmont

The Point Hotel, Harris Street, Pyrmont
Sunday 16 April, 2006

Last November, The Point Hotel won the AHA Award for Excellence in the category of "Best Hotel Bistro". I remember visiting The Point for dinner several years ago - the food was good but they packed 20 of us onto a table for 10 - it was ridiculous.

Anyway, I have been meaning to come back to The Point for a long, lazy lunch. With some friends up from Melbourne for the Easter long weekend, The Point seemed like a good location. On a great day, the bistro spills out onto the back terrace and they have plenty of umbrellas to provide shade.

Today the bistro wasn't too busy, they had reserved us a table inside even though it was a spectacular day outside. So we asked if we could move outside under an umbrella. No problem.

The menu is a mix of pastas, steaks, burgers, fish & chips, salads and chicken. There is something for everyone. I think the staff were bored as we were asked for our order several times before we were ready. They were attentive in some respects but we had to ask for a wine list.

I ordered the Beef and cheese burger with caramelised onions, tomato, lettuce, aioli and fries. My lunch buddies ordered Beer battered fish and chips with rocket, lemon and tartare sauce and 2 x corn fritters with salad.

They didn't return for our drinks order until our meals were delivered. We ordered a bottle of the Foresters Semillion/ Sav Blanc and our waiter returned after 5 minutes to say she couldn't deliver the wine because of licensing arrangements so we would have to order it ourselves at the pub bar at the front of the hotel. Surely, she could have told us this earlier and preferably before our meals had been delivered and mine sat there going cold while I went to the front bar and ordered the wine....

The food was average and my aioli came to the table as tomato sauce. What the!@*!There were so many little things that the staff did wrong and after we ordered dessert the icing on the cake was the waiter returning saying he wanted to go home and needed to balance the till, so could we pay now?

The desserts were good - we ordered 3 x chocolate fondant with yoghurt ice cream and the duo of gelato (it was rum and raisin & apple pie ice cream) but the overall experience was pretty average. Pyrmont now has 1 - 2 hr parking on every street from 9am - 9pm every day and some streets enforce this over 24 hrs, so be prepared if you are planning to drive.

The Point Hotel - 59 Harris Street, Pyrmont - (02) 9660-1908

http://www.thepointhotel.com.au/