I have been wanting to go to the French Corner Restaurant since I moved to Highett about two years ago. People had told me how great it was, and how wonderful the food was and so on.

Tonight was the night, myself and my housemate went in at 8pm for dinner.

Sadly it did not meet expectations by a long shot.

We were asked for drinks rather quickly, and for our meal, which was good. We got bread and water, with lovely soft butter, which was also good.

Our appetisers came relatively quickly, and were delicious.

It took quite a while after we had finished the appetisers for the dishes to be cleared away, but we were both looking forward to our mains.

It was at the 20m mark, at about 8:50pm, after our dishes had been cleared that we started wondering were the food was, we were both pretty hungry by then.

Still nothing. There was a table of 11 still to be served, so I assumed that we would get served straight after them. Yet they did not get served, either.

By about 9:10pm, the large party was served, so we thought that dinner would be along shortly.

We watched desserts coming out, being served to people, but no main meal was served to us.

No-one asking if we wanted more drinks, no-one coming to tell us why our food was so late, and no-one coming to apologise over the lateness of the meal. In fact, we were pretty much ignored. That is understandable to a point, as it looks like there was one waiter and one gentleman behind the bar. But still, some sort of acknowledgement of our presence would have been nice.

It was at 9:15pm that the waiter came over and said that our food would be out shortly. No apology, no offering us drinks, no explanation - nothing.

And it was at 9:30pm that we finally got the main courses.

Much to my shock, my dish was covered in onions. I was very upset, having waited for so long, to be presented with a dish to which I am allergic.

It certainly did not say that it had onions on the menu:

Moules Marinière avec Frites et Mayonnaise
Small $14 .00 Large $28.00

Mussels cooked in white wine with parsley and garlic with housemade chips and mayonnaise

So not only did the food take too long to get to our tables, I could not eat it.

I told the waiter, and he had the chef make one without onions. Okay.

That took a further 15m to get to the table.

So, by the looks of it, it only takes 15m for food to be cooked - maybe a little longer for a medium-rare stake - but certainly not 1hr.

The food itself did not live up to expectations, either. It was okay, but nothing special. Certainly not worth the price.

And we couldn't even think about having dessert after that shamozzle!

At 9:45pm, we paid - full price, I might mention - for the very late meal and left.

We are both very unimpressed, I must say. This is is no way what I expect from any restaurant, especially not a restaurant like the French Corner.

Approximate cost: $25