Perhaps the worst thing you can do is leave booking a Valentines day dinner till the last minute. Weeks in advance all the best places are already booked out. Combine this with Valentines day falling on a Monday this year, which meant that many restaurants weren’t even open (although that is pretty stupid on their part, as Valentines day is a licence to print money for restaurants and florists). So Husband and I were left a little stumped as to where to go. Finally we settled on a casual and cheap option where we could actually book a table. That option was Tyranny of Distance, a interesting looking bar/restaurant just off Chapel Street in Windsor. Tyranny has an open front, which gives you the impression that you are actually sitting outside, but with a bit of protection from the elements. It is a nice feeling on a sunny 26 degree day, although I suspect in winter this place feels a little chilly, even with outdoor heaters. But when we visited it was a perfect warm evening, and I was looking forward to some al fresco eating.
Sadly, the interesting fit out was about all I liked about Tyranny. There is nothing wrong with Tyranny as a bar, where you might meet friends on a warm evening for a beer or two. But if you plan to venture past a pot of beer, go elsewhere. And for this I include both wine and food.
Let me explain. We arrive, and are greeted by a casual waitress who shows us to a table for two. We are given menus and then left, for a long time. They place is around half full, so a capable waitress should be easily able to cope with that many people, but all the other customers appear in the same boat as us, desperate to order at least a drink and craning their necks to see where the waitress has disappeared to. We managed to waive her down and order our drinks and food. After a good ten minute wait (again, I can’t see what the hold up is) our drinks arrive. Husband has a white rabbit white ale ($8) and I have a glass of the Spinifex pinot noir 08 ($8.50). The beer is fine, cold and delicious. But the wine is tart and I suspect has been opened the night before. Added to this is the fact that it is served in a water glass (no wine glasses here) and all up amounts to no more than a few sips. This is laughable for $8.50 a glass. In the name of romance, I smile and continue to drink the glass of wine I would normally send back. What was also laughable was the state of the toilets at Tyranny. One unisex cubicle which looked worse than a nightclub toilet at 5 am. I will spare you the graphic description, but its close proximity to the kitchen makes you wonder about the hygiene of the whole place.
The food, when it arrives after a considerable wait, doesn’t really improve matters. I have the “paella”, allegedly slow cooked saffron rice with mixed seafood, chorizo, chicken, capsicum, and peas, ($20), which really is just seafood risotto, and a badly done one at that. The rice is gluggy and the chicken dry. The chorizo has been overcooked and lost its lovely flavour (if it ever had any to begin with). However, the prawns are quite nice and pull the dish out of the terrible category. Husband is not so lucky. His rib eye steak ($27) looks atrocious on the plate – the steak had broken in two during what appeared to be some form of wrestling match in the kitchen, and it was topped with overcooked asparagus and some form of onion concoction that resembled vomit. Because it was Valentines day, and you can’t complain too much about a restaurant when you are trying to be romantic, we struggle through our meals attempting to be positive. But really, as we both admitted in the car on the way home, the food was pretty abysmal.
We weren’t the only ones that appeared to struggle at Tyranny that night. One couple who arrived not long after us were sitting at their table for a good twenty minutes before they even received menus. They looked awkward and uncomfortable, so I suspect it was a date early on in their relationship and neither of them had the balls to suggest that they just left. I bet you once they received their food (which they still hadn’t got by the time we left) they wished they had. So in summary, if you want to eat food that you could cook better at home, practice your skills in flagging down a waitress and pay for overpriced old wine, head to Tyranny. Otherwise, go elsewhere, or simply settle in at Tyranny for a beer and enjoy a warm summers evening, because that is what it does best.
