Hampstead Hotel

I’ve had this review sitting in my file since December. I was hoping that my memories of this below average meal would fade so as to write a fair review, but unfortunately for the Hampstead they have not.

We arrived at the Hampstead on a Thursday lunch time before Christmas for our work luncheon. The place was pretty full, but had the feel of Pensioner Day as we looked around. The room was very noisy and we sat next to the water features in the front windows that also made it very hard to hear the person next to you. $39 a head (prepaid) each was the cost for our lunch – so we were expecting a decent meal. It took them at about 20 minutes to start taking everyone’s choices.

From the set menu I selected the prawns for entree, the porterhouse steak for mains and the friendly waiter allowed me to change my dessert to my childhood favourite, ice cream with chocolate topping. Of course, once I changed mine suddenly half of my table wanted ice cream!

Beer wise, they had pints of Pale Ale on special for $4 so I grabbed one of those. It took them over 20 minutes more before any food started coming out, by then I was well into my second beer. The food was bread rolls for the table, not the entrees.
Another 10 minutes or so later and my prawns arrived; not straight from the ocean but they were okay.

20 minutes or so later my steak arrived. I had asked for it to be medium. Of course, it was not medium, but closer to well done. The steak came with what seemed like one of last week’s roast potatoes. It was so over cooked and dried out, it was inedible. The steak wasn’t much better. In fact it was the worst steak I have ever eaten; it was completely tasteless. I only ate about half of it – as did many of the others on my table. About half an hour later my ice cream arrived. It was cheap bulk buy ice cream but it was okay so I ate it.

Now remember, this was just my experience and opinion of this place. You may have been there before and had a good meal; but I found the Hampstead to be well below average. The time it took to get served and the time between courses was much too slow. The meal quality for the price we paid was awful. Of the 40 or so of us that went, every person I spoke to about the meal was very disappointed.

Overall that meal was enough to make sure I never go back and our work Christmas Lunch will definitely be elsewhere this year.

Rating:

Reviewer: Beer and Burger