We had been looking forward to dining in this new quirky restaurant where Fins used to be. I thought the landlord would be happy to have a tenant and to see a new dining concept introduced to Port Douglas would be a good idea. I was somewhat puzzled by the concept and after lunching there yesterday I still am.
The walk up from the underground car-park next to Zinc was far from inviting but we pushed on to Cyclone Sally”s and entered the restaurant.
One thing that puzzled us on the outside menu was the cost of the tap wine. Tap wine has made it’s way into southern eateries providing good quality wine wine cheaply to patrons and owners alike. A win win situation if I ever saw one. Tap wine is bought by the glass, 1/2 carafe (500 ml) or carafe (1000 ml). 500 ml carafes are common at one of our leading restaurants and we enjoy them with lunch immensely at $13 per. The same size carafe at Cyclone Sally’s is $30 per. That’s right $30 for 500 ml of non-bottled wine.
Back to lunch. We had deliberately come on Iron Man Day. We thought it would be good to sit and watch the competitors go by. Wrong, half the seats were facing the wrong way! Like others throughout lunch we moved the furniture to suit us, the diners. Each time a diner left the staff would put the seats back. Each time new diners came the diners changed the seating.
We ordered chips and two different burgers and were offered a choice of three types of bun, rye, white or mixed grain. We made our choices and ordered a white and a red 500 ml carafe each. The carafes arrived, no taste test and no ice bucket. We are both wine drinkers but on a hot day (no fans), over a leisurely lunch there was no way that the white wine would stay chilled without an ice bucket. We asked for and got an ice bucket from a waitress who looked like she was dressed by the local Op Shop with her cut off jeans with all the holes.
The burgers and chips arrived.
It took a little while to identify which burger was which. because the choices of bun were mixed up. The next task was to try and eat them as elegantly as we could with the small paper serviettes that were provided. We had recognised by now that isn’t fine dining and did the best we could. The plates were small and the bright red beetroot and other juices over-flowed onto the table from the towering burgers. The juices made the lower half of the buns soggy.
At $96 for a burger lunch in Port Douglas we are not sure we will be back any time soon.
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