The Lucky Bee

Went there last night to celebrate my sons 21st, just a small family gathering of nine. First of all the service was friendly and a nice atmosphere. The food was ok but really just finger food and hard to fill us all. Then came the bill.It was locals night so we received our 15% off but then….there was the credit card surcharge and a whopping $46 surcharge for a group booking ( over 8 people ). Not advertised or mentioned. Outrageous.This place is suitable for the rich Aunt that catches the ferry from Sydney and wants to meet you for a Sunday bite to eat and a cocktail, not worrying about the bill, not an average family that wants to feel full at the end. Also $28 for a glass of wine is a wee bit far fetched!

Second time dining at Lucky Bee in Ettalong. First time was okay but had a few menu items unavailable and didn’t want to review after one visit.Second time around, pretty disappointed in both the food offerings and the deceptive drink menu.Ordered pork and prawn shumai, they were nice tasting but nothing a Woolworths frozen section can’t beat.The crispy chicken wings were okay, again not a stand out and no garnishing as you would expect for a place like this.Our original order of the Thai “Lon” prawns was unavailable… chose The “Singapore” chilli prawns which consisted of 9 nicely cooked prawns and rice. Nothing amazing. Sweet chilli sauce tipped on a stir fry of prawns. Again, nothing you can’t get at surrounding restaurants. And definitely nothing Singaporean.What really annoyed me was the wine. Ordered the bottle of Burklin Wolf Dry Riesling ($68), which I have had before and liked which was promptly poured into our glasses and away we drank. Something tasted different and upon checking the bottle realised it was a bottle of Tolley Riesling. Oh well I thought, wine was okay enough. Curiosity got the better of me at home and I found you can get this bottle for $10 at most bottle shops! What a rort! Great boutique wines here!If this is what modern south-east Asian dining is, I’ll stick to the good old fashioned Thai we have on the coast and go to Sydney for a better experience for both food and drink.And another mention would be to stagger the orders because otherwise you’ll get all dishes at once and struggle to get to them before they go cold.

Came to celebrate a birthday and left disappointed. We started with the pork soup dumplings which were fine but nothing unlike (xiao long bao) you get from most Chinese dumpling restaurants for half the price, $21 for 5 dumplings was a bit steep so I kind of expected it to wow us with something unique or different but they were just standard.Next up we tried the chicken wings and that’s where it went down hill fast, I usually read google reviews before I go to places but unfortunately this time I went in blind and now I regret it.. 5 chicken wings for $26 and they were tasteless and chewy, we ate one each and couldn’t stomach anymore.Lastly we ordered the 5 crispy duck spring rolls ($21) hoping that would save the meal but unfortunately they also were nothing special either, not sure if we just got a bad batch but they were oily and had an unpleasant taste. We only ate them because we were hungry. Left the restaurant feeling like we had just eaten cheap oily cocktail party food and our stomachs felt it for the rest of the night.

When I have a disappointing experience at a restaurant, my approach is to give direct feedback rather than posting a public review. However, if you check the online reviews you may understand my reticence. I anticipate the owner will make this personal and ridicule me, my occupation, my appearance, my facial expression or whatever his abuse du jour may be.The food can speak for itself. It was spectacularly bad. I paid $22 for duck spring rolls that were burnt and filled with a flavourless paste. And $12 for a plate of small fried vegetable wontons that were filled with a paste indistinguishable from the duck spring rolls. The $22 chicken wings were overcooked on the outside and undercooked on the inside - and so oily they were inedible. It was $12 for two steamed pork buns when the frozen ones from Coles have more taste. There were no garnishes - nothing to make the plates look appetising.The margarita was syrupy and did not have the anticipated tang.Now I wait for the abuse to flow.

I really wanted to like the lucky bee!The restaurant looks really nice decor wise and the menu offers some good options that you don’t often see in this area. But they really need to do something about their large glass front window. 2 people walked into this within 20min a of us arriving. The food was good but the service and the the wine incident let them down and made me feel like we had been scammed.We had bang bang chicken, duck spring rolls and prawn curry. Food was nice, it had good flavours, some things were a little on the mild side, but the ingredients were fresh and tasty. portion sizes were good. Price seemed to be a little more than you would expect from similar restaurants but only by like $3-$5 per dish so overall food was worth it. The presentation of some things could be improved, serving the spring rolls in those horrible plastic red baskets felt cheap and didn’t suit or match the other dishes.The service was a big let down. The waitress just seemed really unbothered and wasn’t very attentive at all. When bringing the wine to the table, she put the bottle down and went to walk away but turned back and asked “did you want me to open it?” When we said yes she twisted the cap to open it and then walked away leaving us to pour our own glasses. I don’t think it was unreasonable to expect she would open and pour the $62 bottle of wine. They were busy but not full and the staff didn’t seem to be rushing so not sure why their service seemed so absent, we had to really wave them down a few times for basic things as they never checked on us.The wines on the menu were all around $60-$80 per bottle, which was fine given the brands and regions they were from (although it did seem odd that their wine list prices were so high given their food prices, I would have expected cheaper options, but I like nicer wine so happy to pay for quality). The wine we ordered was not the wine given to us. When I questioned this (I only noticed after it has been opened as it came in the bucket) and was told “oh yeah no, it’s different… didn’t someone tell you?” I said no at no point did the waitress say anything and was told “haha oh sorry she should have said, but it is the same price though”. Except it wasn’t, the wine we ordered is $15 from Dan Murphy’s (I know as I’ve purchased it before) it’s not the same price or quality as the one on the menu and it’s rude and unfair that they are charging people for this.The tables next to us seemed to get a different wine to the one they ordered too. For a place that has only been opened a little while it was pretty disappointing and the lack of care from the staff is enough to make me not want to return. Management if you read this, please think about updating your wine menu as you are effectively knowingly ripping people off. Or at the very least, have alternative wines that are of similar quality and value to your menu, its common courtesy.Overall if I was just rating the food it would be 3.5 stars, but with the lack of service and switching out to cheaper wines it left a bitter taste and overall left us feeling disappointed.

Best restaurant on the Central Coast!I had two friends visiting from Sydney today and had to take them here for lunch.I can’t fault this place. The service wasattentive and friendly. The music/playlist was really fun and the ambiance of the new venue is amazing. The main reason I dine at Lucky Bee is the food. I love the flavours and presentation of the food, they obviously take a lot of time, pride and effort into each and every dish on their menu. My favourite dishes this visit was the crispy fried eggplant and minced prawns with a side of rice to soak up all the goodness.Grateful we have a restaurant like this on the Central Coast! Already looking forward to my next visit!

Great food. A little pricey but good none the less. Sichuan Snapper was great as was the beef cheek curry.