20 Sussex Street, Sydney
Reviewers present: Burger Bot and Joe Blogs
Review time: After work drinks
Just like The Twelve Days of Christmas, the Sussex is a cumulative song where each verse is built on top of the previous one. There's drummers, pipers, leaping lords, ladies dancing, maids, swans, geese, a handful of gold rings, colly birds (seems like a lot of birds, yes?), three French hens (more birds!), the two schooners we're rating on this pub and a beer garden with a Moreton Bay Fig. Okay, this really has nothing to do with The Twelve Days of Christmas, except for those last two items, but I just wanted a tangent to open this review up with. Read on for our actual thoughts on The Sussex Hotel...
The Burger Bot and I have been to The Sussex a few times, each time with the work crowd. To set you up with where this review might be heading, we don't really rate the place that highly as a pub. That's not to say it's bad, but there are so many better pubs out there. And that's part of the problem I think. For these reviewers, it's the local work bar, too quick and conveniently located a few minutes walk from work. The start of month watering hole never changes (between the Sussex and nearby Office). The crew even refer to it as its old name, "Moretons". Out of all the pubs and bars in the general area, the Sussex is their first choice. Maybe just too easy and familiar I guess. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to call a place home or hold onto a "local" but it does get tired. With those cards on the table, lets move on.....
Like a few of the pubs we've reviewed so far, this isn't our first visit but it is our first sampling since starting the blog and forming some review standards. All the first paragraph aside, it's not a bad venue. There are multiple bars and drinking areas here, including a large all-weather outdoor area, featuring a large Moreton Bay Fig tree, which obviously inspired the pub's previous name.
If you're looking at the establishment from the Kent Street side, actually the rear of the venue, what appears to be the ground floor is a bit of a swankier looking bar/lounge. There are a couple of different areas offering a variety of seating options. The bar here has opted for Thai cuisine, calling itself Suriya's, and for a pub they don't do too badly with the food. The flavours are good (have had the massaman beef a few times) with perhaps the only real problem being the servings are too big, not leaving a lot of room for the liquid stuff.
If you're looking at the Sussex Hotel from Sussex street, which is actually the front as you would have guessed given the pub's (current) name, the ground floor sits below the aforementioned Suriya. Down here at Barrangaroo level we have a larger bar and more generous room for milling. Dubbing itself the "Sussex Bar & Garden", some slightly older stylings of the pub remains here although it has been given the usual 2000's-swank-wank-renovations which, I believe, rather than give it something unique in the area, brings it down level with every other reno'd bar in the city, state, maybe even country. Nothing out of the ordinary here and quite frankly, makes me a little bored.
So we pull up a high table on this evening and drink Fat Yaks and Cascade Pale Ale. For the record, Carlton Draught is a steep $5.90 a schooner, which perhaps caters to the corporates of the area. During the course of the evening amongst the chitty-chatter-chin-wagger out in the beer garden area under the Moreton Bay Fig, some platter finger food is served up and it doesn't look too bad. Burger Bot reports that it has improved since a previous visit. Like, for example, he hasn't suffered a case of food-poisoning-goodness this time. On a previous visit to the Sussex Bar over a lunch time, we ordered up a few schnitzels and, look, they were okay but they weren't anything to write home about. Sydney pubs, when will you ever get a good schnitzel right? It's not hard!
Tonight standing out on the paved "garden" area, Burger Bot and I discuss all things Sussex Hotel for the review. I make mention that I would be quite comfortable coming along with a group of like-minded mates in the early Summer afternoon, grabbing a seat in the outside area and slurping a few coldies around the tables under the old tree. Unfortunately, for a bunch of pubbies, the beers here are too expensive.
For those in the neighbourhood looking for a Thai meal for lunch or a quick post-work beer, this is an option. It's also a pre-night-out-stone-throw from Bungalow 8 and other bars of the Darling Harbour area if you're into that (not us!), but other than that, it's just another pub in the city with nothing overly special about it to keep these pub goers coming back on a regular (or semi-regular) basis. 2 schooners from us!
The Sussex Website: www.thesussexhotel.com.au
Reviewers present: Burger Bot and Joe Blogs
Review time: After work drinks
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| The Sussex Hotel, Kent Street side. Blurry dashing-for-the-train filter. |
"2 schooners and a pub with a Moreton Bay Fig"
Just like The Twelve Days of Christmas, the Sussex is a cumulative song where each verse is built on top of the previous one. There's drummers, pipers, leaping lords, ladies dancing, maids, swans, geese, a handful of gold rings, colly birds (seems like a lot of birds, yes?), three French hens (more birds!), the two schooners we're rating on this pub and a beer garden with a Moreton Bay Fig. Okay, this really has nothing to do with The Twelve Days of Christmas, except for those last two items, but I just wanted a tangent to open this review up with. Read on for our actual thoughts on The Sussex Hotel...
The Burger Bot and I have been to The Sussex a few times, each time with the work crowd. To set you up with where this review might be heading, we don't really rate the place that highly as a pub. That's not to say it's bad, but there are so many better pubs out there. And that's part of the problem I think. For these reviewers, it's the local work bar, too quick and conveniently located a few minutes walk from work. The start of month watering hole never changes (between the Sussex and nearby Office). The crew even refer to it as its old name, "Moretons". Out of all the pubs and bars in the general area, the Sussex is their first choice. Maybe just too easy and familiar I guess. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to call a place home or hold onto a "local" but it does get tired. With those cards on the table, lets move on.....
Like a few of the pubs we've reviewed so far, this isn't our first visit but it is our first sampling since starting the blog and forming some review standards. All the first paragraph aside, it's not a bad venue. There are multiple bars and drinking areas here, including a large all-weather outdoor area, featuring a large Moreton Bay Fig tree, which obviously inspired the pub's previous name.
If you're looking at the establishment from the Kent Street side, actually the rear of the venue, what appears to be the ground floor is a bit of a swankier looking bar/lounge. There are a couple of different areas offering a variety of seating options. The bar here has opted for Thai cuisine, calling itself Suriya's, and for a pub they don't do too badly with the food. The flavours are good (have had the massaman beef a few times) with perhaps the only real problem being the servings are too big, not leaving a lot of room for the liquid stuff.
If you're looking at the Sussex Hotel from Sussex street, which is actually the front as you would have guessed given the pub's (current) name, the ground floor sits below the aforementioned Suriya. Down here at Barrangaroo level we have a larger bar and more generous room for milling. Dubbing itself the "Sussex Bar & Garden", some slightly older stylings of the pub remains here although it has been given the usual 2000's-swank-wank-renovations which, I believe, rather than give it something unique in the area, brings it down level with every other reno'd bar in the city, state, maybe even country. Nothing out of the ordinary here and quite frankly, makes me a little bored.
 |
| 20 Sussex Street frontage, night-time on-foot-phone-camera filter effect |
So we pull up a high table on this evening and drink Fat Yaks and Cascade Pale Ale. For the record, Carlton Draught is a steep $5.90 a schooner, which perhaps caters to the corporates of the area. During the course of the evening amongst the chitty-chatter-chin-wagger out in the beer garden area under the Moreton Bay Fig, some platter finger food is served up and it doesn't look too bad. Burger Bot reports that it has improved since a previous visit. Like, for example, he hasn't suffered a case of food-poisoning-goodness this time. On a previous visit to the Sussex Bar over a lunch time, we ordered up a few schnitzels and, look, they were okay but they weren't anything to write home about. Sydney pubs, when will you ever get a good schnitzel right? It's not hard!
Tonight standing out on the paved "garden" area, Burger Bot and I discuss all things Sussex Hotel for the review. I make mention that I would be quite comfortable coming along with a group of like-minded mates in the early Summer afternoon, grabbing a seat in the outside area and slurping a few coldies around the tables under the old tree. Unfortunately, for a bunch of pubbies, the beers here are too expensive.
For those in the neighbourhood looking for a Thai meal for lunch or a quick post-work beer, this is an option. It's also a pre-night-out-stone-throw from Bungalow 8 and other bars of the Darling Harbour area if you're into that (not us!), but other than that, it's just another pub in the city with nothing overly special about it to keep these pub goers coming back on a regular (or semi-regular) basis. 2 schooners from us!
The Sussex Website: www.thesussexhotel.com.au
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