Captain Corelli’s - Menai

Love this cafe! The food is amazingly nutritious and tastes absolutely wonderful The service is great I would recommend it to everyone.

One of my favorite acai bowls I've had in Sydney The portion is generous The smoothie base is not too sweet and tastes fresh.

Long overdue catchup with another couple we wanted to try Captain Corelli's at Menai as we had not been, heard good things and it was close to home.As soon as we entered, the staff were amazing, and kept up the incredibly high standard of customer service all night. Very impressed as unfortunately it is lacking so much everywhere else.For entree I ordered the Sydney rock oysters served three ways; natural, crispy fired and shot - fantastic! Enjoyed every morsel as did my friend. The boys ordered salt and pepper squid, which looked standard and tasted fine and the Carpaccio of beef with truffle mayo, rocket, artichoke and parmesan - another delicious meal.For main I ordered Fresh cut spaghettini with Spencer Gulf prawns, lobster sauce, chili and garlic - to die for! So tasty and delicious. My girlfriend ordered the fish of the day (dory) with parmesan and herb crust, prawn ravioli, clams, garden peas and pink sauce, our husband's both had The Captain's prawn and scallop ravioli with tomato, garlic, chili and basil. Everything was delectable.I chose the Mini vanilla bean brulee with caramelised banana - wonderful. My girlfriend had the Affogato - vanilla bean gelato, chocolate, honeycomb, frangelico and shot of espresso - another winner, my husband had the Greek honey pannacotta with popping candy (bit "Heston") strawberry jelly, fresh berries and raspberry sorbet, which he enjoyed.The boys had beers whilst we girls washed it all down with a couple of bottles of Villa Calappiano Pinot Grigio (Italy). Fantastic night - will definitely return and highly recommended.

The restaurant has changed hands to an Asian fusion place from the original Capt Corelli. Great layout and bar but that's it. The menu is quite limited and has staple Chinese mostly with some other Asian dishes. Starters of spring rolls and steamed dumplings were ok. The sweet and sour pork was not too bad but the portion sizes were massive. Enough to feed four and there were only two of us. The Malaysian chicken curry was uneaten. Nothing Malay about it. Nasty stuff. When the highlights of the meal were the prawn crackers then you know the place has problems. One other thing. Asked the barkeep for a Manhattan cocktail. Blank look. Same with whiskey sour. If you are going to offer a fully stocked bar then at least have a barkeep who knows. There are better places in menai for Asian food.

We dined here with another couple who had been here previously. They had enjoyed the food on their previous visit but had said the service was really slow. Still we were keen to try this new addition to dining in Menai. Oh dear, what a disappointment! The waitress was pleasant but had not been properly trained - "Yup" is not the sound to make when taking orders!! Either repeat the dish the customer orders or say something like "Very nice" but not "Yup"! And when handing out the cutlery, don't leave your fingerprints on the them. It's unhygienic. Then there was the food. Three of us ordered the Whitebait Fritters and three of us couldn't eat them - oily, doughy batter, tasteless. Not a good start. The fourth had Garlic Prawns - it was an unusual recipe & again tasteless. The mains were no better. The Crispy Skin Fish is served in a broth on a bed of mussels, some of which actually had a mussel in them. As soon as the fish had contact with the broth it went to mush. And the best thing our friend could say about the Wagyu beef was that it was edible. We were not charged for the uneaten entries & the floor manager did apologise. This restaurant needs a lot of work - staff training and new recipes would be a good start. There are much better places to eat at Menai.