The Costi's Fishmarket - Rouse Hill

the Costi's

Mmm... fish and chips. There is a big open area at this shop for people to order and wait for fresh fish and chips, as well as lots of fresh seafood on sale here. On a Sunday, this shop can get pretty busy. The standard fish and chips are reasonably priced at $6.80, but when you want to know what type of fish you're consuming into your stomach, you need to pay a bit more for that kind of knowledge.

On this particular day, the perch, chips and salad what my partner decided on. We also decided to opt for the seafood salad (rather than the garden or greek variety) for extra cost. This came out with yummy yummy fish - nicely grilled to golden brown - soft and tender and tasty. The chippies were big and fat and cooked well (albiet a little soggy for my partner's liking). And as for the seafood salad, a few more prawns would have been appreciated, but on the whole, the salad was alright.

Perch, chips and salad - $12.80 (+$2.50 for seafood salad)

In addition to the fish, chips and salad, my partner decided that we would also need 12 calamari rings ($7). I'm pretty sure more than 12 came out. These calamari rings were big and juicy and tender and deliciousness! Cooked well with not too much batter, you didn't need to break your teeth or jaws to get into these :)

Calamari rings - $7

So overall, this place is pretty decent for a quick lunch or snack. So they're not the best on customer service or smiles (especially when busy), but at least their food is good.

Ratings:
Food - 8/10
Service - 6.5/10
Ambiance - 6.5/10
Value for money - 7.5/10
Overall - 28.5/40

The Costi's Fishmarket
Rouse Hill Town Centre
Rouse Hill
NSW 2155
tel: (02) 9629 9033

Tequila's on Main - Rouse Hill

Tequila's on Main

For a friend's surprise dinner party, we went to Tequila's on Main in Rouse Hill Town Center. Although the first thing that crossed my mind was ribs - I was okay when the higher order decided on the Tequila's Fiest Banquet ($37 per person).

So the night carried on and food filled out tables. There was garlic buttery bread with chili flakes (which, by the way, was not part of our banquet menu). Some of my friends liked it, some not.

Chilli Garlic Butter Bread

Then there were buffalo wings - just enough for one each. Extremely extremely BBQ-saucyness. But really - although they claimed it as "Tequila's special BBQ sauce", you could probably make this at home just by chucking in a bottle of your generic BBQ sauce with your chicken wings.

Buffalo Wings

There were Nachos - topped with beans, beef, chicken, salsa, guacamole and sour cream. This was your average nachos. Nothing special and not too bad. I probably would have preferred it to be more cheesey on top (rather than below the corn chips).

Nachos

The next thing was, in retrospect, probably the "Flautas" - which is a chicken mix rapped in tortilla (supposedly "fried crispy" - which it wasn't) and served with quacamole and salsa.

Flautas

Whereas this dish, was probably supposed to be Tauito Bites - crispy rolled corn tortillas filled with beef, topped with cheese and salsa and served with jalapeno dip. Lets just say that the beef was close to black - tasted like a weird spice-y (not hot type spicy) type deep fried thing. Wasn't very appetising.

Taiuto Bites

Then we had three huge plates of corn chips - with Guacamole and Salsa Dip.

Corn Chips with Guacamole

The amazing thing was, the waiters tried to convince us that that was all the food for our table of 20... only to be told a bit later that - no, more food will come out providing that we finish what was on the table already. It was supposed to be an "order as much as you can" type thing but you can't waste food. It would have been an okay concept if we didn't think we had to finish 3 huge plates of just corn chips and dip. And it really would have been preferred if ALL the food on our banquet "menu" could come out before we had to ASK for more food. For instance, our $37 banquet menu was supposed to include American Skins (potato skins), Chicken Tenderloins, Mexican rice and creamed potato along with the other stuff we already had out. The fact that they didn't even let us sample the whole menu was quite dissappointing (especially since there were two cheaper banquets we could have orders $33.90 and $30.50 for probably the same amount of food we had for our banquet).

So after practically begging them to bring more food out, they came up with this - creamed potato... nothing more needs to be said about this.

Creamed Potatoes

Mexican rice - being Asians, we all probably could have made better tomato fried rice.

Mexican Rice

And "potato skins" - or rather, just half a potato with salso or ham and cheese on top. Hmm... where's the crispy, crunch "famous" potato skins we were imagining???

Potato "Skins"

And the Chicken Tenderloins??? Non-existent~

At the end of the day - each of us (20 odd people) forked out around $40 for the banquet (where not all food came out. I didn't really like the way the waiters didn't tell us upfront that we could order more of whatever we wanted on the menu - and I didn't like the fact that they stopped bringing us food when the table was filled. What happens if there was a dish we really didn't like and we didn't want to finish? Would that mean we wouldn't get any other types of dishes?

So, overall, what can I say about this place? The food is very average - worse than what my partner could have whipped up at home - but more convenient cos I don't have to do the cleaning up. For close to $40 - I think we could have experienced better quality food elsewhere. I guess, objectively speaking, the mains at Tequila's isn't that pricey - just don't let them talk you into the banquet menus!!!

Would I come here again? Hmm... probably not- the fajitas and tortillas and nachos and basically everything else tastes a bit (or quite a lot) better at Chilis (another Mexican chain).

Ratings:
Food - 4/10
Service - 5/10
Ambiance - 6/10
Value for money - 4/10
Overall - 19/40

Tequila's On Main
Shop GR082 Main Street,
Rouse Hill Town Centre
Rouse Hill 2155
Tel: (02) 9629 5055