Hellenic Club Trattoria, Hellenic Club Woden – Emphasis on Hell Service

As I’ve said before – Canberreans are known for putting up with crappy restaurants, bad service and sh#te food – but going to the Hellenic Club Trattoria – this demonstrates that Canberreans recommend crappy restaurants.

After being recommended to go to the Hellenic Club Trattoria by a friend’s work colleague – we decided to give it a go.

If you aren’t familiar with the Hellenic Club – it is Canberra’s Greek club – complete with a tacky Greek-style entrance (think the Pantheon but cheap and nasty), a tacky Pokie Machine room (“Zeus’ Lounge”, “Triton’s Lounge” - Queen of the Nile a-hoy!), several tacky themed entertainment rooms (the Apollo Room, the Olympus Room, the Aegean Room, etc etc), a pretty ordinary bistro serving non-greek food (of course!) and the Hellenic Club Trattoria – their Italian restaurant.

Now – there was something tweaking in the back of my mind when we entered the club – “why are we going to an Italian restaurant in a Greek club??!”. But I was reassured by one of my friends that the Italian Club in Manuka does great Chinese…

As we grabbed our table, my mate and I strolled up to the bar and wanted to order a couple of beers… We were confronted by a fat girl who looked not too dissimilar to Mama Fratelli from "The Goonies". For about a minute – she refused to make eye contact – then she suddenly snapped at us – “Are you dining here? You need to take a seat…!!”. Hey – she even had the attitude of Mama Fratelli to match the look. We managed to leave an order with her for our beers then we made our way back to the table.

After waiting for about 15 minutes – we had noticed that there were a couple of beers sitting on the bar counter. The evil Mama Fratelli was giving us a few evil looks. She then proceeded to use a straw to stir the two beers on the counter. One of my friends thought this was fairly “queer” (in the non-sexual way) – and then began to give Mama the death stare… One of the drone wait staff picked up the two beers (we had ordered three) and plonked them down on our table. We then quizzed the drone why had Mama Fratelli stirred our beers with a straw? The drone replied “to keep the head on the beer”. How bout just repouring the beer – or perhaps serving them as soon as they was poured?! We snapped back at the drone – complaining that we had ordered three beers – and they quickly brought out the third beer after that.

After waiting for another 10 minutes (is this a common theme in this blog??!) we managed to get a psychic connection with some of the waiting drones – and they took our order (on a giant order pad complete with all the menu selections – klassy with a “k”).

The food wasn’t very prompt – it took about an hour for our mains to come out (two pizzas and a pasta dish)…

I had ordered a “Mediterranean” Pizza – which sounded sort of exotic on the menu. But in reality – it was more like “do you want some pizza with your cheese??”. My other friend’s pizza was just the same – tonnes of cheese, not much topping. To make matters worse – the pizza base looked and tasted like it was from Pizza Hut… eggh!

OK – so what are the lessons here:

1. Don’t let any Canberrean give you recommendations on good restaurants (except for my blog – which only speaks the truth)!
2. Don’t go to the Hellenic Club for food (whether it be the Trattoria or the Bistro)!
3. Don’t go to a Greek club for Italian food!!
4. Hope in hell you don’t have Mama Fratelli serve you at the bar…!

On another note – well before the days of Work Choices and new Australian Industrial Relation laws – I used to be a uni student / part-time waiter. About 6 years ago - I once had a “trial” at the Hellenic Club bistro – where I was to demonstrate my waiting skills (or lack thereof) for three hours in the bistro on a public holiday (ANZAC Day – the most significant non-religious public holiday in Australia)… Admittedly – I was a pretty lousy waiter – but I didn’t even get a phone call back from the Hellenic Club – even though I gave them three hours of my time on a public holiday (ANZAC Day no less)…!! I think the Hellenic Club’s workplace relations puts Work Choices and John Howard to shame…