Crit #1 -- Poplars Restaurant @ D'Aria Wine Farm, Durbanville

A totally anti-climactic evening....

Well, let's start with a link to the place.....

A pleasant looking place with a potential positive first impression that was spoilt by walking into a deserted reception area with apparently no-one who was interested in the fact that potential customers had just arrived......

We decided to overlook this fact and were attended to after about 5 minutes of wandering about (no service bell in sight either...).

Once seated at a comfortable table in a pleasantly quiet area, we inspected the menu, starting with the cocktail menu, a choice we were to regret later. We ordered 2 cocktails and where supremely let down by both. One was a pinkish something that tasted vaguely of medicine with soda-water, the other an orange coloured liquid that could have done service to wash the dishes in. How mixing strong flavoured alcohols end up being almost devoid of flavour, I do not understand. Possibly same sort of effect as mixing too many different paint colours and ending up with bland grey......the cocktail barman has mastered the art of turning alcohol into dishwater !

The main dishes we ordered where ok, but no wow factor. The "Five Hour braised Lamb Shank" was tender and not too bad tasting, but no prize winner.

The Seafood Risotto, while adequately prepared, was no better than an average paella and again - no wow factor except the price.

When it got to paying, the Credit card machines took all of 15 minutes and numerous potentially embarrassing failures to finally process our payment. When you charge this much for food, at least have the decency to have a working card payment system.

We will not be returning......