Restaurants in Papanui

10th February 2010
Live locally and read in the local rag that new owners have taken over - thought I would pop in and see what the low down was. Met Wal the new owner and partner Jules - mid 30 couple who want to make the RAT rock. New menu in place that they are fine tuning. Live music will vary each week - they are listening to the bands and deciding which ones work and which ones won't - everything else as is - few maintenance issues that no doubt will get sorted so all in all looks like the RAT might once again become my local. Nice to see some life back in the place.

14th October 2010
love the decor, the service and food is great, its nice to go to a resturant where the waitress and chef listen to what you want as we are a family of fussy eaters, Frienly, great price good value for money, cant wait to go back again

26th August 2010
Pizza's were ok. If you buy a more interesting one then they're not too bad, but a bit greasy. However was really disappointed at the size of them. A mate and I brought a Large pizza to share, assuming that one normally eats half a large each and is left feeling satisfied.... Pizza Hut's large is what I would classify as a Small, and I could have easily eaten the whole thing myself. Was left feeling really hungry.

27th April 2009
Fine dining food in a relaxed atmosphere. The service is fantastic. Highly recommended, this is easily my favourite restaurant.

20th January 2012
As my wife is Mexican, I thought it would be a great idea to go there for a birthday lunch with 15 friends including their children. When I made the booking I was told it would be no problem, however when we arrived they sat us in a part of the restaurant (opposite the kitchen) where the tables were set out in a very awkward fashion which meant that the group had to be split in two and sit separately from each other!?! Not ideal for a birthday celebration where you obviously expect everyone to sit together! We were quite disappointed with the arrangement given that we'd been squeezed into a very confined corner of the restaurant and yet the bigger more spacious area of the restaurant was set aside for single tables. We spent a lot of time getting up and moving around (with kids prams etc) and trying to rearrange the tables in order to get everyone to sit together but it just didn't quite work and it spoiled the occasion for us! Had they planned to have us on the other side in the more spacious part of the restaurant it wouldn't have been an issue, although apparently there are some legitimate reasons why they do this. If however I was judging them on their quality of food alone then I give them 4.5 out of 5 stars! The food was really good! It wasn't necessarily genuine authentic Mexican as they claim - my wife is from Mexico, so she's knows what's authentic Mexican food or not - but even she was impressed by the food! In fact a small number of the party were elderly people who tastes are somewhat resistant to the misconstrued concept of Mexican food being always just 'hot and spicy' - only to be pleasantly surprised by the delicious tasty food they had ordered. Additional note: After contacting the restaurant about the issue with the table arrangement, it seems the issue came down to a lack of communication when the booking was made. To their credit, I am a lot happier with the manager's explanation of events and the arrangement made to resolve the issue.

26th July 2010
Great food, great food what more is there to say!