esilio benedetti
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The duchess of Spotswood...keeping the name in the hope to keep the customers not knowing how bad it is. What a sad state of affairs when you went into this once walked into this OG of breakfast places with excitement, today we walked into here with the foreboding reality that it has sadly gone down hill so bad in quality and Street presence that hardly a soul was in there....after eating there, we know know why. Ordering was prompt and efficient. No sparkling apple juice, no worry...we will order something else.
Cappuccino....smallest cup ever! At least it was the right temp. Chocolate Oreo milkshake.....no it wasn't. Carrot, apple mint and ginger.....yeh try again. Apple ye, the merest hint of the others, looks like apples was the cheapest things going.
On to the food. Son and I ordered their once signature dish, the Duchess of pork, the beautiful one a seafood omelette. We knew things weren't right when from one of the staff yell out " I don't think we have any bags of seafood omelette left." We looked at each other quizzedly and nearly did a runner, but we chose to stay. Food came out, the beautiful ones omelette was laughable in its inept construction. All the ingredients of the omelette bunched to one side, not like an omelette and what should have been Crystal Bay prawns and smoked salmon was instead frozen small prawns from a big green W deli section and a small scenic of what looked like mushy smoked salmon. Not perturbed, my wife ate on...but at $24, surely they are taking the mickey.
My son and I looking forward to our meal, laughed when it was presented to us.....it looked they missed half the ingredients or maybe the tried to be real fancy and put on micro vegetables. The cauliflower florets on the plates are like what you have left over after cutting up your cauliflower...you know...those annoying little crumbs that are hard to pick up. And to make it even funnier, there were only 3 pieces on each of our plate. Someone's job is to actually count it! The signature pork jowl was no such thing (having cooked many of then and as one of my fave proteins), but instead was a dry flavourless slab of nothing that had been compressed together to make it look fancy. Went to mop it up with some of the brush stroke of what was an artistic rendition of a fancy line....it to tasted of nothing. Oh well, it at least lubricated the pork. The final peice of the eating puzzle was the croquette that was on the offering. My son advises me that it is cold....to that I say I will order another. No, he just leaves it to the side. Not exactly sure what it entailed on it's inside but definitely not pork and Gruyère the inside.....unless it was a new fashioned what pork varieties. Seems it was more just a mixture of cheeses. Alas, I to had to leave it behind after the first bite. For it was stone cold. We put this experience down to bad judgement on our behalf. For once a decade ago was one of our highlights on the brunch journey. One where we travelled over an hour to eat and happy to do so. I paid the bill and at $96 I thought a bit steep but wasn't going to argue. Then....when asked how was my meal I retorted that the croquettes were cold and inedible. I did not dare mention the other components of the dish else it would have made me laugh. Not one ounce of apology from the person who makes the coffee and took our credit card who was presumably the manager as this is how he acted during our time there. Instead (without a word of a lie), he turns around and says to a person who was presumably cooking the food for the day...." YOU NEED TO MICROWAVE THE CROQUETTES FOR LONGER." so loud, that you could have probably heard it across the street. My wife and son certainly heard it at the door.
Well....our journey to what was a once fine establishment has drawn the curtains. How it can survive doing microwave food, prepared omelettes and satchels of butter at the top dollar us beyond my comprehension. Good luck to them....and to you if you get warm food.
