A restaurant crawl

Australians know about the pub crawl. This is when men (mostly men I think, rather than women) visit pub after pub partaking of a drink (usually beer) at each venue. I suppose its a case of the last one standing wins. As a non-drinker I've never fancied the pub crawl but I don't deny others of their pleasure.

Rather than a pub crawl, we, that is, my three house guests and me, had a restaurant crawl of sorts this evening. It wasn't planned nor intended. Following the movies at Randwick we checked out the numerous restaurants around the cinema, most of them heaving with customers in this holiday period. We selected a Thai restaurant but found that the only unoccupied tables all had stools. Any chairs with backs to them were taken. Mt didn't fancy spending a couple of hours on a stool (neither did any of the rest of us, I fancy) so we decided to move on to another of the Randwick restaurants but all were packed.

I suggested we drive across to Bondi where a newly favoured Thai restaurant was located. Fearing I would not find a parking spot I was pleased to get one only metres from our destination but my pleasure soon turned to dismay when we discovered the restaurant was closed for the day.

What to do? Then I remembered there was a Hungarian/European cuisine restaurant a hundred metres or so down the road. I'd never dined there but have noticed it is always heavily patronised. We wandered down and although it appeared at first sight to be full we were pleased that one table for four, with chairs and backs, was available.

That was where the pleasure ended. The restaurant was hot and apparently not airconditioned. Service was extremely slow as it seems every other table had arrived just before us and they were still at the ordering their meals stage. We were on the verge of leaving - and I was in a mental blank for suggestions of further eating options - when our order was taken, so we remained.

Given the circumstances I suppose our meals arrived in a decent time but they were mostly disappointing. The quality was reasonable but nothing special and the quantity was borderline adequate. The waiter service was mostly perfunctory and scarcely welcoming.

As the nominal host, I was a bit embarrassed and at dinner's end we left for home all feeling a little down.