Buzz Cafe in Darwin, Australia Doesn't Deliver on the Buzz of It's Own Hype

In the Northern Territory of Australia, Buzz Café enjoys a reputation as an upscale restaurant in a fabulous location. The hype for the restaurant does not transform to the performance of the restaurant in delivering a quality meal.

Buzz Café operates out of Cullen Bay, an upscale area recently created to take advantage of the harbour and beaches that look north out of Darwin. Opened in 1997 it became a popular place for meeting prior to taking a sunset cruise off the Darwin coast. Buzz Café's fare is listed as bistro/café, modern American. The décor inside the restaurant was created from wood brought from Indonesia and crafted by a local Darwin artist with several key highlights, such as the men's bathroom with a two mirror and tables that allow all the guests to look out onto the water. As a café, Buzz serves wine, coffee, entrees, mains, and desserts.

We were greeted when we arrived promptly and given a table with a view of the harbour. As more of our party arrived, we were able to change tables as needed to accommodate the extra people. We were served drinks, but noted that we were neither served nor offered water, which for me is a negative as water should always be available.

We ordered a round of drinks that included a Strawberry Daiquiri, a Pina Colada, and soft drinks. The Pina Colada was returned unpaid for after tasting it, as it was just not mixed properly and was given the lowest rating of all the mixed drinks we tried. The Strawberry Daiquiris we were given were drinkable by one of our guests, but the other one was also returned, for the same reasons as the Pina Colada.

We ordered our meal and were served in a timely fashion. We found for the prices, the actual servings were small and not as filling as they could have been as the prices were all in the twenty dollars and up ranges for the main lunch dishes.

The prawn and mango salad was served with one half of a mango and a small serving of prawns on a spread of lettuce leaves with a very bitter dressing. The member of our party that had it could not finish it because of the dressing.

Another dish was the spaghetti bolognaises which was served without meat. Although it had an interesting sauce on it, and spices, the fact it was served without meat did not make it worthy of the price they were charging. The fact that it was served without meat was commented on by all the members of our party.

As a group, we found that despite the location, ambience, and service, the quality of the food did not live up to the hype for the inappropriately named Buzz Café. As such, it would be difficult to recommend Buzz Café as any more than a place to go for a quick drink before heading out on a dinner cruise or perhaps a stop over to a more complete restaurant.