'Twas Friday night and Darwin Foodies has the Tracy Village Bistro on its radar. The lady, her family and I thought we'd check it out to see if it was any better than the usual family outing at the Casuarina Club. It's a pretty big complex with (from what I saw) a pokies room, bar area, games room for the kids, pool table area, the bistro, a function room and an outdoor BBQ area.

The bistro is out the back away from the noisy areas which is nice. The dining area at the Casuarina Club is right next to the kids playroom, which really should be called "Quarantine zone with rabid screaming monkeys and out of control Tasmanian devils", so it was nice to have some peace and quiet during dinner. The crowd here seems be generally a bit older than the Casuarina Club as well, which may or may not be of interest to you.

I ordered the marinated pork chops, except they didn't have any, so the crumbed lamb cutlets it was. The lady and her sis got the chicken parmy with the her parents sticking to form by ordering fish and chips. It's been a while since I had lamb of any kind so I enjoyed it, nothing amazing though. The steam vegetables were pretty limp and uninspiring, I'm guessing they were of the pre-cut and frozen kind.

The lady wasn't impressed with her dish, commenting on the lack of flavour and the fact that it was barely over the line cooked inside. Oh my. The saddle tail salmon fish and chips that my lady's parents ordered had possibly the most anorexic bits of fish on a plate I've ever seen, there was probably more batter than fish. It probably explains why future father in law looked a bit grumpy. So by now if you haven't gathered already, the food wasn't all that great. We also only had two salad bowls and one bottle of water between us, apparently washing the dishes isn't high on the list of things to do for the staff. At least it was cheap though, with most things on the menu under $20. Did I mention it was fairly warm in the room? Yeah, I was sweating.

Not all was bad though, the staff were very polite and friendly however, and were very quick to serve meals. Our dishes arrived after 15 minutes which was pretty surprising given the lack of noise coming from the kitchen. They must have elite ninja chefs back there or something. Tracy Village Bistro - cheap, friendly, casual. Doubt I'll be back though.