A WIRB Restaurant Nightmare

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On Tuesday night I went out to dinner with a few mates and experienced something different.

I’ve dined at a decent number of restaurants in our nation’s Capital (no, not Auckland, Wellington), both pre and post Entertainment book. Those restaurants that I have tried have of course ranged from sublime to just ok.

On this occasion, I decided to choose something casual, inexpensive and BYO. Little did I know that the service was to be very casual, inexperienced and in many ways BYO! I chose La Casa Pasta on Dixon St (Wellington), a place that I had frequently visited in years gone by. In the past it had been a relaxing dining experience with food that was not bad.

This time the food was about Italian as Man United and as authentic as a $2 Rolex.

Why was the experience so bad? Here was the run down. To set the scene, it was a Tuesday night but it would be fair to say that the restaurant was about half full.

My mates and I were seated with menus and then left to ourselves for what must have been near twenty minutes.

Now, I watch a bit of TV, which includes Kitchen Nightmares, and I’m sure that someone should have asked us if we wanted drinks or something!

We all took turns performing Jedi mind tricks from afar to entice some kind of service but to no avail.

The Service Door was locked on Tuesday night

While they were gone we actually got some service but only after I tractor beamed the waitress with my eyes.

Asked if we would like a drink, I replied no and explained that the girls had gone to grab some bottles of wine. We did order one glass of juice along with making our food orders.

Seeing we had a lot of spare time and very little to talk about, we concluded that the bar in the restaurant was approximately 6 metres away. The bottle store would have been 400 metres away. Guess what drinks we got first?

When the hounds returned with vino, the young barman who looked like he might have auditioned for the role of Boy had he been a year younger, arrived at our table as quick as a flash. He did not offer to open our wine and serve, but to ID everyone at the table. Cheeky little prick!

As if any of us boys looked under 18 years old or had in the last 10 years. After Boy checked for ID he smartly waltzed back behind the bar and was again busy doing nothing. When we asked him if he had a cork screw to open the wine a minute later he produced one and gave it to us as he continued to keep himself busy doing nothing behind the bar - the true definition of useless.

Barman: "Wine held in by a cork?" Patron: "I'll do it - you look busy....."

After asking for a third time, the juice made it to the table. We concluded that a delay of that magnatude must have been due to the fruit having to grow on the tree.

The food was as expected. The seafood velvet was more of a soup than a pasta (with the token expired mussel included), the cheese garlic bread more like cheese toasties and as salty as the Dead Sea. BUT the rest was great…. if you are in prison.

The overall group feeling can be summed up as “meh”.

Ironically, La Casa Pasta was way better when they had an Asian chef. Back in the day, it was a great feed. Tuesday nights was a bland, uninspiring experience.

Sensing a review, the staff made a last gasp effort to redeem themselves by picking up on the Bob the Builder birthday badge being worn by the man of the moment, shouting a slice of chocolate mud cake. Too bad they still charged us corkage.

Basically, I will never and you should never ever visit this Mr Bun of Italian restaurants again! In fact Mr Bun’s chicken wings would have been a better option.

Tony at Nicolini’s, Courtenay Place – I will never cheat on you again. I’m sorry.

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