The drive there was an adventure in itself—twisting and turning along a very narrow lane with thick vegetation on both sides, streetlights sparsely interspersed. The packed carpark showed promise that the place would be pumping, but, as it turned out, most people were there for the two other seafood restaurants at the Club. Considering it was a Saturday night, Matilda Bay had a constant crowd, mostly young families and groups of friends. Sadly, the food left something to be desired. We started with the crab chowder, which was creamy with lots of ingredients, except that we couldn’t taste the crab at all. Thankfully the Picada squid was tastier, pan fried with garlic and chili basil, but it would have helped if it was less chewy. Unfortunately, though the colorful Matilda’s grilled chicken salad looked good, the overly generous sweet house special dressing drowned the dish. We didn’t mind that our mains came half an hour apart, what was worse was that they too were a letdown. The Matilda Bay Burger was mediocre while the grilled Cajun chicken would have fared better if it was simply named grilled chicken without raising expectations of Cajun herbs. The sweet sauce that accompanied it tasted vaguely like the dressing in our salad too. The only thing going for this place is the by-the-marina view of the boats and the water and its really friendly manager. If we had to return, we’ll skip the food and just head for the bar.
