Foreign Correspondent: Grand Hotel, Kiama

The Sydney Pub List team need holidays sometimes. However, the urge to review a pub doesn't die. Whilst these pubs are not in Sydney or surrounding suburbs, we thought it would be fun to offer up pub reviews on places beyond. See the Foreign Correspondent page of our blog for more details and the list.

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49 Manning Street, Kiama

Foreign Correspondents: Simone & Joe

Time of review: Lunch

The Grand Hotel, Kiama

While taking a long drive through to the Southern Highlands, Simone and I decided to detour and grab some lunch in coastal town, Kiama. Going with the pub theme of late, we rolled on past the Grand Hotel and decided to give it a go.

Located just a stinky-ocean-smell-away from Kiama's popular Blow Hole, The Grand Hotel is a bit of a blow hole itself. Or at least that's what we thought after our visit. Come along with us on our little recap and find out why.

We walk into the front bar and notice a few oldens perched at a table nearby, a bit lifeless like they've been literally sitting there for years. A couple of younger guys are finishing up their meal, which helps settle us about whether to eat here or not. Looking over the menu, which has a handful of reasonable options on offer, I quickly settle on, you guessed it, a burger. Simone goes for the Chicken Schnitzel, stating she hasn't had one for a while. Hopefully a good one to start back on. Ordering up the drinks was probably the nicest part of this story. The surly girlie behind the counter pours me a Carlton Draught for $4.40 and Simone a massive glass of Lemon Squash for under $3. The drinks might come in plastic schooner glasses but the drinks prices be good!

We take our number and head for a nice spot to sit, talk and eat. On our search we lap the front bar, pass a hole in the wall with a couch (looks like somewhere the kids had a good time in late last night), a gaming room, a separate bistro dining area, and then a back hall leading out into the sunny rear of the hotel. I head for outback while Simone seeks out the ladies room. On my way out to the covered concrete slab out back I pass the guys toilets and I know this because I can smell them through my nose, eyes, ears, mouth, every hair folical on my body. Unfortunately it's about this time I realise I probably need to use said facilities.

A short time later Simone and I are sitting out back in the courtyard/beergarden area - actually, it's more like a big boys shed area, roofed in with partially open sides and a view of the carpark. Ok, there are some hills over yonder in said view but no view of the water. In the boys shed we note a flashy pool table (currently occupied by a small group of high-vis clad guys), three skill tester machines, one of which is a punching machine, a few rows of wooden tables and a handful of low maintenance plastic tables and chairs. There's ample seating out here on this empty Sunday afternoon but we can't help but wonder what goes on here in the evenings, like the Saturday night before us. I can imagine some kind of slothy-dude and slut-fest going down regularly, hence the hose-out compliant concrete floor and seating. Music is playing out back, as well as inside. "Not particularly good!" exclaims Simone. On the other side of us we can't help but notice a larger group of guys havin' a laff, hoeing into the beers and generally being annoyingly rambunctious. A young female glassy comes out to pick up more than a dozen empty schooner glasses and they give her a bit of stick. It's about this time that another of the lads arrives from the front bar with a tray of shots and the lot of them down them instantly. It's not even 1pm.

The boys den, hose-out compliant

Simone and I are talking about the place and some of it's more "finer points". I bring up the guys urinal smell, which immediately prompts her to talk about her ladies' experience. "The ladies toilet was a bit .....weird", she opens with. "You have to go via the gaming lounge to get there.  You wash your hands with a view of pokies and it smelled awful. It's only lunch time, surely they could have cleaned it. Unacceptable." I had to laugh and cringe at the same time before going into my take of the boys concrete room of doom. In there I noted the concrete hose-out-compliant floors (which would hose out into the pathway between the hotel and beergarden), mountains of stinky urinal cakes in the tin trough, and three hand basins with only one of them having a working tap. Classy.

The food arrives. A nice change in direction of the telling of this story. The schnitzel and burger saved us from totally slamming the venue.

Simone's Chicken Schnitzel, for $15.50, comes out with chips and side-bowl of salad. There's no gravy flavour option however. Just gravy. It's a pretty no-frills looking meal but the chips look good and Simone notes that they use a real chunk of chicken as opposed to that reconstituted rubbish. It's a good serving of chips, and she likes that the salad is a separate bowl with dressing throughout and not just a whimpy drizzle on top. Overall, the schnitzel wasn't too bad, albeit a tad high in price.

Tasty rectangle of Kiama

I've ordered the $14 South Coast Beef Burger, of course. Instead of the standard round bun dealio, I'm interested to see the rectangular cut flat Turkish bread before me. In between the toasted bread I find myself biting into a lovely meat pattie, again not round but kind of pushed out in the corners to fill out the entire rectangle burger. Also in here is cheese, tomato, beetroot, lettuce and a bit of sauce. It's actually a really tasty burger and much to my tastebud satisfaction. My only problem with the burger is it's size. I reluctantly forfeit before finishing, leaving chips and burger carnage scattered about the plate.

Waiting for lunch, during lunch and following lunch, our conversation is constantly interrupted by the gang-of-dicks on the booze. There's another large cheer amongst them as one of the lads finishes a beer. Good on you, sport. A slightly older couple appear from inside, awaiting their food to come out. If only we had warned them about the unruly mob. An ever-so-slightly roundish guy walks past the large window (don't know if one of them or not) and the drunken mob start into chant, "Show us ya tits! Show us ya tits!". I think that was about our cue to leave.

As we finished up a drink, contemplating the trip to Illawarra Fly in front of us, the mob leaves. This gives us some an extra minute to reflect over our Kiama Grand experience. Like the Blow Hole we'd seen a little while before it, we felt slightly let down. There was no massive event, nothing spectacular, just a bit of a hole with some water in it.

Give it a blow here: www.grandhotelkiama.com.au