Ema Wihapi-Solia

Review of Shed 5 Restaurant & Bar/The Cr...

Great greeting on arrival for four of us there for...

Great greeting on arrival for four of us there for my mother's birthday dinner. I always start with a rating of 5 for restaurants and take points away based on the experience throughout the night. Can I just say, I've come to Shed 5 multiple times and tonight was rather disappointing.

The good stuff:
- seated by the window
- maitre d organised a way for us to extend our table time (may not have worked out in our favour, should've just left it at the regular sitting time slot)
- knowledgeable wait staff
- Duck entree was amazing as usual and love the balsamic they use for the bread
- creme brulee was tasty

The bad stuff:
- weird way of ordering. I usually order for multiple people (have done so with other visits here), but this time it was everyone order per seat... and got cut off by wait staff. Annoying habit I hate.
- the overall dining experience felt almost purposefully dragged out with no fillers in between (I.e. offer more drinks perhaps) water glasses went empty for about 20 mins! I noticed other areas being served well by their wait staff, so maybe ours was a dud
- my main was super oily and super salty. I had to get others to taste it to make sure i wasn't imagining it because I know my taste buds can be sensitive sometimes, but they agreed my meal was salty. Needless to say I couldnt eat much of it.
- long wait between main, dessert and after dinner drinks.

Last time we were here, while its not a NZ custom, we tipped our wait staff really well and unfortunately this time we paid our bill and left.

Not the usual Shed 5 standard, so don't base going there on this review alone. I will still go back with a new season's menu, but yeah, left tonight feeling a bit disappointed.