Shirtless Dining

A friend marked her birthday by doing something slightly risque tonight. She organised a birthday dinner at The Manhattan, a restaurant tucked away in Martin Place, the heart of the financial and business district.

We shared a cordoned off corner with a hen's night party, where we were served by 2 fairly young and buff waiters. They wore singlets, a bow tie and a jacket to start off the night. And as the night progressed, the ladies warmed up with alcohol and start clamouring for the waiters to doff off the top half of their clothes. The waiters were obliging and by the end of the meal, they'd taken their tops off and posed for photos with the ladies. There wasn't really anything you couldn't already see at a beach and even if there were, I doubt I'd have been much thrilled by it. Frankly, I thought the visual display was rather boring.

For $30 per pax, we could choose our food from a 3 course meal set. I chose squid tempura for the appetiser, perch fillet for the main and strawberries and vanilla ice cream for dessert. The food was just terrible. The appetiser consisted of 4 stringy pieces of deep fried squid rings, a dash of sweet chili sauce and a few leaves of lettuce. The main had bits of vegetable (rather dried carrot and green beans), a smattering of potato chips and an overdone perch fillet that tasted none too fresh smothered in sauce. The dessert was less than a scoop of ice cream, a handful of strawberries and a bit of cream. Quality control was clearly lacking as some received melted ice cream and excessive cream while others like me, had hardly any cream but a marginally more generous serving of ice cream.

The service was decent although not particularly noteworthy. Ambience was OK although on first impression, the place seemed a bit seedy as one walked down to the basement; and the music was a bit too loud for quiet, polite conversation. Not exactly the place to have pleasant conversations without going hoarse.

Clearly, patrons who do go there for dinner are not there for the food, no more than men frequent Hooters for their food.