Agave, Waiuku

The lunch sitting is often not the best judge of a restaurant's mettle, I think it's fair to say. The reduced menu and second-tier staff, combined with the fact that ones main focus is usually not the food, tend to make it unfair to rate the place on that meal alone. Still, I can't see myself getting out to Waiuku any time soon, so I will.

Castaways itself is a lovely place. We were there for a wedding, which in and of itself was superb, as was the accommodation at the venue. Judging by the surroundings, we expected something reasonably impressive, but unfortunately were sorely disappointed. The challenge in writing a review of somewhere like this lies mainly in knowing where to start.

So I'll start at the beginning, shortly after the mild shock of realising that, at 31 I was the youngest diner by about 40 years. Where are all the young folks?

Anyway, I'm not normally one to focus too much on service, but in this case I think it's merited. Attempting to have our order taken eventually turned into a comic farce, with me first trying the 'looking expectantly up from the table' technique, then turning my chair to face the pass, then raising a hand when the waitresses walked by, to actually waving both arms above my head for some time. Roundly ignored by every waitress who walked past the table, I eventually, about 15 minutes later, went up to reception and asked them to sort it out.

So after a while, the food arrived. Fish and chips for most of us, fillet for one. The yawning chasm of time it took for it to get to the table was explained by the fact that our steak-eater, due to being heavily pregnant, had ordered it well-done, something translated by the kitchen into 'unrecognisable'. Now, I'm British, so I'm used to overcooked beef in restaurants (I'm a blue-rare man myself), but this was something else. Grey, hard, chewy... well beyond well done.

The fish, rumoured to be bluenose, was no better, unfortunately. Dry, stringy and chewy, with thick, hard lumps of weirdly tasteless batter clumped around it, I'm not sure what they did to it to get it like this, but it's surely against the Geneva convention.

The final insult was the chips. Come on guys, it's not hard to get this right. Even local Waiuku girls must have noticed, on their 'extensive travels through Europe and Asia', that serving shop-bought frozen, CRINKLE CUT chips in mid-priced restaurant is just plain wrong. If I'm wrong, guys, pull me up on it, but if these weren't shop bought, someone needs hauling over the coals for producing the worst chips I've had in New Zealand to date.

So there you have it. If you're in the market for some really sub-standard food, ineptly served in a beautiful location, this place ticks all the boxes.

Agave
685 Karioitahi Road
Waiuku
Auckland
09-235-5130
www.agave.co.nz (really don't click this unless you feel like being catapulted to The Internet, circa 1995)