Overall 5 -
Food 3, Ambience 8, Value 3, Service 6
Ok, so having lived in Bondi Beach for a while now, there seems to be a trend of tapas bars that come and then eventually go, vanish without a trace. So having walked past The Rum Diaries on numerous occasions, seeing it packed to the rafters every night (literally), a couple of my friends and I decided to check it out.
So for me first impressions were quite good, nice ambience and atmosphere, small and cosy, sort of like you have turned up to a private function and are about to have dinner with a bunch of mates.
Our waiter came and showed us to our table, or should I say window sill. Our table was literally the windowsill at the front of the restaurant. With a lounge pushed up behind us and a wooden bench seat to sit on, to say there was not much room to move is a real understatement, if there was an award for the most uncomfortable seat and table to eat have to east at, that would have to win hands down. It reminded me of the zoo really, being squashed into a cage with people looking through a window at you.
So, the seating arrangements were not the best, but we thought we would soldier on as we were really excited by the drinks and food menu. Drinks. We ordered the punch, the punch was not available due to all the “vessels” being broken and the only one left was being used by another patron. The waiter must of assumed that we where dummies by the confused expression on all three of our faces so he went on the explain that the “vessels” where the jugs the punch was served in. Just for the record we got what you meant by “vessels”, our confused expression was due to the fact that you run a bar that serves punch with only one punch jug. We settled for a bottle of white wine.
I don’t even know where to start with the food, we ordered the Red Pepper/ Pumpkin and Chia Seed: with roquette pesto & garlic and chilli rub, the Chilli & Lime Leaf Squid: with lemongrass sauce, the Moroccan Beef Kofti: with apricot and honey yoghurt, the Roasted Squash and Pumpkin Chips: with basil aioli dipping sauce and the Rum Diaries House Salad.
So the bread and oil rubs/pesto was good and everything was starting to look up, but things quickly came crumbling back down when we were served the squid. The squid was so tough and tasted as though it was a frozen seafood mix from your local supermarket (guys we have one of the best fish markets in the world at our doorstep, I would suggest in future you look at using it) . Two of us could not even chew it and ended up having to spit it out on our plates, really attractive in front of the passerby’s staring at us through the window. Needless to say we sent it back, along with the half chewed pieces on our plates. I can’t complain about the Kofti, it was really good, just don’t think you will get full on it, it comes in a really small portion. If you haven’t gathered yet, our food had to be staggered as our window sill was so small, it couldn’t fit all our plates, one of my friends actually had to eat her mea... (Squid? hardly.... - September, 2008)
