not impressed! rotten experience!. the purchase of a $5 membership, entitled us to a rude bar tender, entrance to the zum kaiser dining area with its assembly line cafeteria-style food counter where the meals are overpriced and are of low quality blandness all the while feral children were allowed to run around like wild animals without the parents getting reprimanded and some sort of archaic, out of date, backwards payment “system” … i can see how membership has its privileges!
having a 2 for 1 voucher from the brisbane’s dining book, my partner and i thought we’d try zum kaiser for lunch as it had been a while since we’d had german cuisine. the restaurant was a part of the german club and in that we were not members, my partner had to buy an annual membership then sign me in. it was only $5 so although it was not a lot of money, it would have been nice if this had been noted in the dining book. the nice thing about this membership however, is that allows us to enter any other club or legion.
when we had entered the german club, we had to climb stairs to get in so unfortunately this exclusive club, excludes those in wheelchairs or mobility devices.
the bar tender we first encountered, whom we bought our membership from, seemed bored and showed the absolute minimum for what one might consider pleasantries. tony explained to us that zum kaiser was cash only so that if we wanted to pay with credit card we would have to start a tab with him. as he explained “you pay me. i pay the restaurant.” in that we only had credit cards, we decided to start a tab and ordered to pints of beer ($15 for both). in that we didn’t recognize some of the german beers, tony had been nice in allowing us to sample two.
taking our beers into the zum kaiser dining area, it reminded me of hogwart’s from harry potter. “wrong country” my partner replied when i’d said that. in that it was virtually empty, we had no problem finding seats at the many rows of long tables, nicely decorated with black linen placed over white table cloths. in that the staff were busy still setting up behind the counter, my partner was having trouble finding a menu. a couple at the far end of our table lent us theirs.
the menu had a pretty good selection but the prices seemed quite high with a lot of the meals ranging from $22-27, but there were a few cheaper options. there was one vegetarian dish, the ever popular german veggie pilaf. we soon found out that on weekends they have a chalk board of specials and that is what you order from. we noticed that the “specials” were items listed on the menu but that the price seemed to have increased. how is this a special? am i missing something? we did notice that the bratwurst with mashed potatoes and mixed veggies had dropped 90 -cents and was $16. one item that had not been on the menu was the rouladen for $15 a dish that my partner was familiar with as relatives had made this.
we placed our orders (i had the bratwurst and my partner had the rouladen) with an extremely focused, not very friendly girl behind the counter. she gave us our number and we returned to our seats.
it was at this time that a few couples came in with the loudest most rambunctious children i’ve ever seen in a restaurant. allowed to run around the tables, screaming and getting in the way of club members, i’m not sure why the parents didn’t take their kids to a park. i hate it when parents assume that everyone will enjoy their kid’s cuteness. i’m surprised that the restaurant didn’t do something about this.
our meals arrived, delivered by a slightly friendlier waitress. my first disappointment came just by looking at my meal: it was absolutely anaemic. pale sausages atop white mashed potatoes and mixed veggies that seemed to have a lot of cauliflower, and sauerkraut on the side. this was the most unappealing dish i’ve ever seen! next big disappointment was the food itself. the bratwurst seemed undercooked which made the texture even more fatty and blob-like. the mashed potatoes were so pureed that this would have been wonderful if i didn’t have a single tooth in my head! there wasn’t any flavour; it was just mush. the mixed veggies were your standard cauliflower, carrots, green beans and the occasional piece of broccoli found pre-cut at any local big chain grocery store. these veggies had been expertly boiled to the point of extreme blandness and i’m sure not one single ounce of nutritional value remained. the sauerkraut was the only flavour, but it had done nothing to save this disaster. this meal was truly disgusting. poor quality and bad value, this should be an embarrassment to the restaurant.
my partner on the other hand, fared better than i had. rouladen is a type of steak that has gherkin, cabbage and bacon rolled up in it. the beef was very tender and the filling was quite flavourful, but didn’t have a lot of bacon. the parsley potatoes were soft without being mushy and had a light but distinct taste of pepper. a serving of red cabbage on the side which had been braised, definitely tasted like cabbage, but without the bitterness to it. this was obviously the better meal of the two!
if things hadn’t been bad enough by this point, it got worse when we went to clear our tab with tony. we gave him our 2 for 1 voucher and he rudely snapped at us “did you show this to the restaurant” my partner replied “no, because you said we’d be dealing with you.” tony got a bit excited at this point and began using large hand gestures as if this would make things clearer for us “you pay me, i pay the restaurant”. still not getting what he was trying to say, he abruptly ordered us “to the kitchen”. with our marching orders, we re-entered the dining area to find tony was already at the restaurant’s till. we showed the girl our coupon, she deducted $15 off our bill, tony took the receipt, we marched back to the bar and paid with our credit card. so what was this big deal? why had tony try to humiliate us? he simply could have gotten the receipt himself with the coupon instead of putting on this big show which in the end, had amounted to nothing. we were, after all, the customers. actually, we were members (or in my case, just a guest who’d been signed in), so why had we been treated this way?
the appalling behaviour, the lack-lustre food and just the overall experience was so bad that it completely ruined the rest of my afternoon. it was a complete waste of time and money. i hope that if there is a board of directors associated with this venue, that they do something to shape this place up.