Brunswick Street: it's a thriving metropolis of trendy cafes, cute boutique shops and busy bars. So I figured, as I made my Sunday sojourn there for a lunch date with a friend - an exercise that has become something of a tradition lately - that we couldn't go wrong. Oh boy, was I wrong.
Having been the first one to arrive, I scouted the street for a place I could read the newspaper and sip coffee while I waited. A place called Tenth Muse at the northern end of the street (across from Bimbo's) caught my eye. It had funky retro orange seats and a low-key, relaxed vibe. In a gastronomical leap of faith, I went inside, and took a seat near the window while I waited for my friend to arrive. An older blonde woman who looked like she had barely woke up nonchalantly asked me if I was after coffee or lunch. I ordered a cappucino.
Twenty minutes later, my friend arrives, and I still haven't received my coffee. None of the waitresses had come near me. I was tired, hungover, and in dire need of sustenance; even some water would've been nice. When my friend sat down, I considered, on account of the absent coffee, leaving and going somewhere else, but my friend had already got comfortable. I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt.
The blonde woman returned and then said apologetically to me, "Oh you ordered a coffee, didn't you? A latte?"
"Cappucino," I corrected.
Not a great start.
So our coffees come out after a bit of a wait. We were given menus to peruse but neither of us were really taken by the options. And where were the eggs? There was nothing in the way of eggs or breakfast at all. We were considering going somewhere else until my friend asked the waitress if they had any breakfast options. The woman, who looked tired and ragged, apologised again and dumped another menu, this time with the all-day breakfast menu attached, carelessly on our table. ("Someone's got a hangover," my friend muttered to me under her breath). Great. So we'd wasted a whole 20-25 minutes staring at a menu we had no interest in.
We made our decision on our breakfast options pretty quickly. But trying to get a waitress to come anywhere near us? Another story.
After another 15-20 minutes, I finally managed to flag down a waitress and ask if we could order. I ordered the eggs benedict with mushrooms and a hashbrown, while my companion opted for the eggs florentine. Pretty straightforward. The lady (dim blondie again) nodded as we made our orders, without taking notes, but you could tell it was going in one ear and out the other. So surprise, in five minutes she was back: "Sorry, you'll have to repeat your orders," she says vaguely. Neither of us are feeling good about our situation at this point.
So after another long wait - probably something like 30 minutes - our orders finally arrive. By this point we are irritable, completely famished and ready to inhale our meals. However, this was not meant to be. The plate is plonked in front of me and to my horror, two poached eggs stared up at me, completely naked, teasing me with their bare orange yolks. The hollandaise sauce was noticeably absent.
"Hollandaise sauce is on its way; apologies from the chef," the waitress says politely (a brunette this time, who seems a little more switched on than her sleepwalking blonde colleague) but we are less than impressed. I'm thinking (and hoping to high heaven) the sauce is going to follow. Soon.
Wrong. We were forced to stare at our meals for more than 15 minutes, as our mouths watered and our tummies groaned. I was losing my patience.
Finally, a waitress returned and assured us we would get discounts on our meals because of the missing hollandaise. "So what, are we supposed to eat them without the hollandaise?" I asked her. She assured us it was still coming. I told her the eggs were now cold. The chef came over, and finally it was agreed that she would make the meals again, from scratch, and bring them out with the hollandaise sauce included. Wasteful, and annoying. "I'm so sorry, " the chef said, "but we're really under the pump today." Looking around at the half-full cafe, I wondered what would happen if the place was actually busy?
The waitress and chef said they could have the meals back out in five minutes. We weren't holding our breath. And lucky that, because it took something like another 15 minutes for the meals to emerge again. I also had to ask for another fork, and we had no salt at the table. The waitress had also said she'd bring us more water, and hadn't. They offered us drinks as compensation. But no, we didn't want more coffee. We just wanted to eat and get the hell out of there.
So finally, the much-awaited eggs arrived, but not without what almost seemed like the cafe's twisted idea of a joke. The whole meal was literally swimming in hollandaise. The offending yellow liquid had taken over the whole plate, completely eclipsing the eggs, engulfing half of my hashbrown and disturbing the buttery harmony of my mushrooms. And if that wasn't enough, an extra glass tub of hollandaise sat perched amongst it all, mocking us in some kind of glaring yellow statement. Really guys, we know you must've gone to a lot of effort to make the stuff, considering it had taken something like an hour for us to get it, but did you have to (literally) rub our faces in it? Not only that, it was shabbily made: not creamy like hollandaise should be, but drowning in oil. Gross.
Following our meal (I think the waitresses were too scared to collect our plates) we argued with the staff over the payment. Finally, the chef insisted that we could both pay $10 each, less than half-price. I agreed to this even though my friend was reluctant. I was just tired and wanted the whole experience to be over. Tenth Muse is a new kid on the block (I think it only opened this year) so I did feel sorry for them to some degree, but the standard of service was simply unacceptable. I don't know if we were unlucky or what, but if I can give them some advice it would be: 1. Hire some staff who give a shit or even at least pretend they do. 2. If you can't make hollandaise sauce, you probably shouldn't be in the industry. 3. If you can't memorise orders, use a notepad. 4. If you keep up service like that, you won't last long.
Needless to say, we left Tenth Muse feeling far from inspired. The only - and hopefully the last - bad meal I have ever had on Brunswick Street. Next time, I'll settle for the cheap pizza at Bimbo's.
I told my boss I would get her this for her baby shower. Yes, it is creepy. We're thinking that Total Recall was maybe the inspiration behind this creation:
I think we all know what people are going to use this for. Do they really need to spell it out?
