Brunelli...or Brutally Fail!

From first glance of the title (and the picture on the left with a pinkish-red cross through the name), that sums up the experience at Brunelli on Rundle Street on Friday night - and I reassure you that it is not the first time! I have been there multiple times, not really by choice.

Anyways, this review is not about previous times (another post for that if I can be bothered), but about my most recent experience on the Friday evening which has just passed.

Let's begin by reviewing the food - the dish which I ordered; I always like crab pasta, and I knew that Brunelli was definitely not going to make it as nice as Chianti's crab pasta, but I was definitely in the mood for some crab pasta that night, and so I ordered their restaurant signature dish:

Brunelli - blue swimmer crab meat, spanish onions, chilli, garlic, rose sauce and topped with prawns

From first glance at my pasta dish, where are the prawns???? So of course, I flipped the pasta around, and there were NO prawns to be found at all. Next, the crab - don't even get me started with the crab meat. It was powdery and soggy (almost like eating a can of really bad tuna) - and my friend, AF, agreed with me on this one. The crab meat was absolutely pathetic. The only positive edible item from that dish was perhaps the actual fettuccine pasta which was half-decent. The portion of the pasta was really quite big, but for the price you pay, I really would rather have the quality rather than the quantity.

Next, the service - it was disgustingly horrendous. From the service counter (with the lady going "Next...WHAT DO YOU WANT?" which was yelled out by the lady with the meanest expression), to the non-existent and rude waitresses, it was an appalling dinner. On my table alone, a couple received the wrong pizza (because the rude lady at the service counter had actually written down the wrong pizza, even though the couple were re-questioned at the counter regarding their choices), and my other friend just had the wrong dish cooked (instead of penne primavera, received tortellini primavera). What made it even worse was that the waitresses did not know what dish they carried out (apart from yelling out "pasta" or "pizza").

When we ran out of parmesan cheese for the pasta, we had to wait for literally 10 minutes for one of the waitresses to even turn up close to the tables, then having one of us chase them down to ask for more cheese, and the even more ridiculous response was the following: "What? You want cheese? What cheese did you want?" and of course, my friend looked at her blankly with the 'you are kidding me right?' expression and only then did the waitress semi-realised that they had given us very little parmesan cheese. 

The owners (I am pretty sure the lady at the counter is one of them) should be very thankful that we did not make a fuss, but just ate what arrived. 

The only positive service I received was when I bought a drink at the bar. The restaurant is an absolute disaster - terrible service, but even worse, horrendous food. I used to love the previous restaurant, Cafe Buongiornos, with way better service and very home-ly food, but Caffe Brunelli has literally ripped the place to pieces. If you intend visit this restaurant, I hope you have a better experience than I did, but if it was up to me, I would avoid this place altogether unless I did not have a choice.