Description: The Horney Critter restaurant was a family-style place just a few minutes drive from Childers. You can’t miss the big crab painted on the front. Like most places in Australia, you ordered your meal from a front counter with the menu posted on the wall above the register. Then you went into the bar to purchase your drinks. We chose to eat on the porch, and although it was chilly, the heat lamps made us comfortable.
I ordered an Australian staple, fish-and-chips, which came with a slaw salad. I was definitely the best fish-and-chips of the trip, mainly because it was a secret recipe batter that was freshly cooked. My friend’s husband ordered oysters and steak. The oysters came on a huge platter; there were 13 of them, absolutely huge! They had been soaking in a Worcester sauce. My friends begged me to try them. I had tried oysters in Denver and didn’t like them much. They tasted like dirt and I didn’t like the chewy texture. However, game to try Australian seafood, I ate one. It was delicious. It was smooth and juicy and the sauce gave it a little extra kick. It was a little too much kick for my friend’s husband and his daughters, and I ended up eating most of them.
The staff was terrific. Even though Australian restaurants don’t really have "servers," the young man and woman who took our order at the register also kept our drinks refilled and even brought one of the girls a glass of milk after the spicy oysters got the better of her. On the recommendation of my friends, I drank a Middie beer, which was quite good, reminded me of Coors back home. I ate enough for two people and didn’t regret it.
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