Old Dnosauria

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Parlour Wine Bar Disappoints

Visited the month-old Parlour Wine Room twice over the weekend, came away disappointed both times. How can Parlour disappoint? Let us count the ways...

Friday night - checking it out for a post-work drink. First impression = passes abound. This is going to be the Old Parliament House for winter. Similar demo attracted and isolation from anything else you might want to do. Wonder if it'll make it through the cool-new-thing phase and stay in business. Eventually find a seat outside, stay for one bottled beer (most of the tap beers are out of stock) and then head off for dinner in Kingston (that's a whole other story).

Saturday night - just seen Iron Man in Dendy Premium and followed up with more drinks at Gus'. Get to Parlour and it's packed inside. What's with this design? Does it intentionally have too few seats to force people to mingle? Did they think that mixing the entry way with the bar queue was a good idea?

Head outside for seating. Only a couple of the gas heaters working. Wait for table service.

Wait some more.

And some more.

Grr - ok, line up at the bar. Wait more. More than 5, just less than 10. Get to bar and watch one bar dude throw away two drinks and mutter that his head's not on tonight while disaffected man wipes down the coffee machine and puts a few glasses in the dishwasher halfheartedly. Looks up, sees people six deep at bar & sighs. He can't take tapas orders at the bar, apologises for the wait and promises to send someone right out. Most of the tap beers are still out of stock.

Dude working the floor v busy collecting plates looks very stressed, ignores us. Maybe someone didn't come in tonight. When we flag him down we get something I don't know the name of, something between a tisk, gasp & exasperated sigh (the sound generally followed with "...well I never"). He takes food & drink orders but can't make heat happen; they're out of gas (out of gas in Canberra in May = FAIL). Turns out Mr Tongue Clucker is the manager. No explanation for what's gone wrong or apologies re delays.

Later, tapas arrives and is nice. Drinks do not & must be chased. Scout party finds room on a leather couch inside and we stay for another half hour or so before deciding it's not worth spending any more money there.

Parlour looks nice, but it is vacuous; pretty without the substance. Staff weren't bringing their A game. I'll give it another chance, but not for a while, 'til everything's bedded down a bit more.

Postscript

Disappointed to find reviews that read as if they've just rehashed the press release without having visited. "Water views" sure, that slice between the wall and the trees, if you're like 7' tall.