Iron Horse Inn, Cardiff NSW

Lamb shank lovely, lamb rissole was average

7pm on a drizzly Wednesday night. This area of Newy is pretty dismal anyway, and the Iron Horse didn't do much to improve it, in spite of claims that it has been revamped. (I can't imagine how it was before.)
The beer on tap had at least a couple of decent drops, and I had a Balter XPA from the friuendly barmaid in the cosy (but empty) rear bar before considering the food choices.
The adjoining "bistro" is a huge, featureless room apparently designed for not-too-extravagant functions. At least it was very clean, the furniture was new and the motel carpet was ungummed. Standard pub grub on the menu. I opted for the deep-fried barramundi. It arrived promptly enough. The fish was horribly dry and almost as tough as steak. The chips were good and the salad was fine if unimaginative. The waiter did ask about the food as she was clearing up, and I reported my findings. "I'll tell the chef", she said, and that was the end of that.
I see that this place has had generally great reviews, so I might have hit the food on an off night (should there be any off nights?) But as a venue, it's pretty much a dull suburban, no-surprises pub. Maybe that's all most people want, but hardly worth 4 stars.

Thanks for taking the time to make our off menu request.We all enjoyed our meals and appreciate that the kitchen was run by one lovely lady,so didn't expect our meals to be as quick as they were.Price,size and service was all outstanding .

Had dinner here on a hot day with my nan 84 years old spent 74 dollars on food and drink either of us had a phone on us so kindly asked the people to call a cab the manager blonde hair blatantly refused while a younger worker pulled out her phone said she'd call a cab to pick us up and to sit at the taxi bay so we did waited 30 minutes for nothing to come in other words no one called a cab for us it was 32 degrees outside my poor nan had to sit in the heat while I ran home in the heat to get my phone and call a cab just to go back and pick her up absolutely ridiculous nice venue run by horrible people not going back that's for sure

Walked into bistro and immediately smelt a smell similar to urine. It wasn't a nice odour in a dining room before a planned meal. I would have left immediately but I had two young hungry children.

We sat at our table and used the QR code on the table to order 3 drinks and 3 meals. Ten minutes later no drinks even though the bar was about 2 metres from our table and a near empty dining room. In fact, the food arrived before our drinks🤷‍♂️

Before the meal, I removed the fork from the cutlery sleeve to find the fork end covered in hardened red sauce like Tomato sauce which also soaked into the napkin. Absolutely disgusting🤢 I showed the waitress who couldn't believe it and was apologetic. Also, remember some person has eaten with that fork prior to me.

It's a shame because the waitress was polite and apologetic and offered some cake for the kids for our unfortunate experience, but we left asap after eating.

As for the meals, they were okay with no issues.