Alio - Surry Hills

You know that feeling when you're in a bit of a rush, and you want to enjoy dinner but you can't properly because you're edging to have your food delivered pronto and get frustrated when the service is slow? Well, I was stuck with that bit of agitation whilst dining at Alio recently.

Dining at Alio was a last minute decision. We were headed towards another restaurant in Surry Hills when our attention was grabbed but some nice aromas and semi-full restaurant for a Monday night. We waltzed on in - we had probably a bit over an hour allocated for dinner before our sugar hit and which we thought was ample time for an entree and main.

A quick squiz down their drinks menu and their sunset cosmopolitan caught my eye. A mocktail with a range of different juices promised - alas, all I could taste was apple. If I had closed my eyes and drunk this I would think... mmm... apple juice.


sunset cosmopolitan

An amuse bouche came out first. The small cup of pumpkin and ginger soup was really creamy and tasty and deliciousness. In retrospect, if what I got for dinner was a large bowl of this soup, I probably would have been pretty happy ~

pumpkin and ginger soup

We started with a an antipasti board ($34) to share. It was an impressive slab with prosciutto, bresaola, coppa Nduja salami, white anchovy, container of green olives, pickled onions, marinated mushrooms, yummy paremsan cheese and awesome buffalo mozzarella with bread sticked and bruschetta. Everything on the board was quite good. But then again, how bad could cheese, cold meats and bread get? :P

 

antipasti board - $34

After clearing the antipasti board, the waitress asked if we wanted out mains served. Yes indeed! but 5 minutes ticked by.... 10 minutes.... 15 minutes... and the time went on and on and on. We went from being early to our next destination to on time to late... 15 minutes before we had to be at our next booking, we asked the waitress to check on our food. She came back a bit later with just my pasta ($30). A few minutes later, hubby's mussels ($25) came out. Hubby's mussels were steamed in white wine and garlic. It also had zuccini slices, fennel and fregola. The sauce was really white winey and the garlic flavour (or any other taste for that matter) seemed to be drowned in this alcohol.

mussels in white wine and garlic - $25

I was a bit shocked at the presentation of my fettuccini. It was like some kid just slopped some pasta on a plate, drenched it in tomato water and chucked some cooked cherry tomato on top. Unimpressed. The hand rolled fettuccini was still al-dente, but the sauce was pretty dismal. the pan fried prawns were really quite bad - chopped up into miniscule pieces, overcooked and pretty tasteless.

prawn fettuccini - $30

And if you thought that was a bad end to the meal? Well,  we were in a rush, so we decided to pay for the meal at the counter. There was this guy standing there flirting with the waitress behind the cash register. Being flustered and all, the waitress handed us our bill... and being in a rush, we hubby just looked at the total amount and paid. It was not until I got in the car, thought about how the total amount seemed a bit fishy, and digged the receipt back out that we realised - yup, we paid for some other table's meal. Dammit - ripped off for a crappy meal! :(

Ratings:
Food - 6/10
Service - 5/10
Ambiance - 7/10
Value for money - 6/10
Overall - 24/40

Alio
5 Baptist Street
Surry Hills
Tel: (02) 8394 9368