Thursday, February 28, 2008

Restaurant Review: Ferrucci's Italian

Valentines Day has come and gone in it's usual fashion, some went out, some were alone, some forgot what day it was and were subsequently kicked in the balls.

Being married now I decided that maybe it's time I started taking the missus out for dinner and giving her the chance to be disappointed in me when I no doubt fuck the day up, the pressure of Valentines Day is insane and petty, one day to show your love? I show my love all the time but now I gotta go that one step further? Christ....

Anyway, we went to an Italian Restaurant named "Ferrucci's", which as you can see on the add, it proclaims to be 'Newcastle's Best Kept Secret', perhaps they should have kept it a secret and we would have had a nice night.

Sadly this was not the case.

The night started well enough when we discovered that the shoddy motel the restuarant was located in had a carpark designed by MC Escher, with car spaces that succeeded in blocking off exits and winding paths that leaded nowhere, we were greeted by a Telstra worker who elegantly parked his normal sized ute across-ways over two parking spaces, he also happened to be standing in the middle of the road having a beer with his friend. Now I don't want to sound like an uppity git, but this guy looked a few stages behind in evolution, with his sloping brow and matted beard he was a textbook example of early man, I was only too happy to provide him with entertainment trying to get my car out of that place in a series of Austin Powers styles 35 point turns.

Eventually we found a parking space in the motel a few doors down, this one was actually a car park and It felt like crossing the train tracks into slumsville as we left the respectable area and ventured forth into the restaurant.

now I use the term restaurant lightly, this place looked like a church youth group rec room with alcohol, it had dodgy glitter stars stickered onto the window, and I noticed that nearly every piece of furniture didn't match.

We were seated in a corner in between two other tables, my arse brushed the back of a man's head as I tried to squeeze in without him budging, it was a shame I didn't have a fart lined up because that would be the most opportune time of my life right there, the table had no leg room whatsoever, being a glass topped outdoor table with lower shelf.

Looking around the room I was hit with nostalgia, when we lived in the western suburbs of Sydney, my father had a bar filled with coasters and beer memorabilia, that was made back in the early 80's and since we moved in the early 90's it's now dated charm floods my memories of childhood. It seems that Ferrucci's was either built or updated in 1982 and since then they've done nothing to change it, It looked like something out of a Cold Chisel film clip, there was an upstairs area which I'm sure was better, but for some reason we were shoehorned into the tiniest seats in the house despite there being only 3 other people there.

Once we were seating uncomfortably we ordered our drinks, now the drinks fridge was the huge lumbering beast next to the toilet door, the loud hum of the machine drowned out the mood as it was a full 10 feet away from any point in this place. We watched the waitress take our order and walk towards the fridge, only to veer at the last second and chat to her other waitress friend for a good 5 minutes, laughing away and bantering on probably about utter shit. My opinion of this place had already hit rock bottom.

The time came to order, we were given the menus that just made me laugh, they were faded photocopied pieces of paper bound rather shithousely by string and had various bits of food encrusted on select parts, were they samples? god only knows.. we quickly ordered and our journey had just begun.

When we ordered there were still only 6 people there including us, and that slowly filled up over time, but the wait was disgusting, nearly a full hour waiting for some chicken and steak, and people who showed up 20 minutes after us still got their food first, the entrees were crap and way too small, and for some reason the chef spent more time out of the kitchen than in it.

We got our food, I selected the house specialty, Chicken Ferrucci, and it was the biggest slab of chicken I've ever eaten in one go, drenched in melted cheese and various herbs this looked like a hobo's delight, swimming in grease and falling off the plate, I was not impressed.

We ate our meal and politely paid, then left feeling sweaty from all the greasy shit I just ate, our romantic dinner was just ruined.

I should have known the minute I walked in there, instead of candles they had pretend flames, with a small light that was yellow... then red... then blue... then green.... then back to yellow.. That's something I'd expect from McDonalds children's parties.. not an Italian Restaurant.

The service was horrible, the food was bloating and swimming in rancid gunk, the furniture was probably picked up at Vinnie's one afternoon and the award winning certificates plastered on the walls were just vain, as if to prove to me "we're not crap! see we won awards!"


You may have won awards in the past Ferruccis, but that isn't an excuse, you need a makeover bad.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Madz Bloodz

Had the arduous task of replacing an old PC for one of the ladies upstairs today, asking a person what programs they need installed on their PC only to be asked "what's a program" in reply makes my brain want to grow hands and strangle the life out of myself.

sifting through a multitude of unused PC's with various ailments was grand fun indeed, each machine had a unique yet crippling problem with it that could only be found 15-20 minutes into installation of microsoft office

be it a busted power supply or simply the wrong version of windows (i managed to pick the only XP Home edition out of a pile of 20+ Professional machines), the task had turned from a simple distraction to an comedy of errors.

And then I saw it.

Clearning out an old centre PC I noticed that the XP user avatar on the start menu had changed from the default horse/rocket/soccer ball, instead it was a black image with some red writing, I couldn't quite make it out, but I knew it was created by a student when they should have been working.

I tracked down the image and had a mighty chuckle, ladies and gentlemen, I give you 'MADZBLOODz' taken down from it's original 3meg glory


Bloodz represent

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