I had no idea what to expect from this place. I thought it was just another pub. Turns out it's…read morehalf pub, half TAB, half Vietnamese restaurant. Yes, I did the maths. The restaurant part is located with all the sports TVs playing the horse and dog races. While you're tucking into a meal someone will come over to one of the touch screens and place a bet every so often. The pub section is looked after by a cool set of tenders. They are hot off the mark and good for a chat if that's what you're into. A decent range on tape. One thing I tried and fell in love with was alcoholic ginger beer. It's as sweet as it's non-alcoholic brethren but after a few of them you'll begin to feel it. The restaurant part was surprisingly amazing. The food would come up from a basement kitchen. It had the FOUR Fs - Fast, Fresh and Full of Flavour. A great selection of fried seafoods and a creamy goat curry to die for. Our host was on top of everything. If you dropped a chopstick he'd be there with a clean one before you picked the dropped one off of the floor. While your surrounds aren't authenticly Vietnamese, the food was the closest thing I've had since visiting Vietnam. While I try and avoid tacky looking Asian restaurants, eating authentic Vietnamese in a pub/TAB was just a little weird and a bit too far removed. I'd definitely be back though.

Honestly I wouldn't mark this pub as a place to base a hard night on the town around, however this…read moreplace does stick in my mind because years ago, after I had just arrived in Sydney by bus this was the first place that I came across to get a drink. I still remember walking in here and seeing the vestiges of one of those weekly poker tournaments. I actually don't mind this place, despite the fact that it is a pretty ordinary pub. It's fairly quiet, and even though it simply consists of a sports bar and a VIP lounge, it is still a nice pub to meet up in and have a drink before roaming off to other parts of the city.

Food was served quickly, not much variety but good quality ( better than bar) food. Service was…read morefriendly and attentive, even w a busy New Year's Eve crowd. Ambiance was a bit like British Pub but more bright.

A Saturday night bar hop in the city led us to the Great Southern Bar. We sat out the front on the…read moretables and had a cigarette and a round of drinks. We were promptly made to move inside at about midnight, due to lisencing issues and the need for the front area to be closed. It is a pretty blokey bar, there were screens up with sports and we could have been out in the suburbs if you didn't step a foot outside the bar, you wouldn't have known that we were in bustling George St. But all in all you felt safe and the security weren't total meatheads, they actually had personality. For a quick beer I'd say it was alright.

I have walked past this pub numerous times and honestly, I wasn't really expecting all that much…read morefrom it, but it turned out to be much better than I expected. Okay, it was coming from a pretty low base, but it still ended up being a pretty decent place to grab a beer. Actually, I suspected that it was simply going to be a pokies pub, but it ended up being much more than that, and even had some decent beers on tap as well. This place turned out to be pretty good.

Bar flys rejoice, you'll find a happy home here... with all your brethren…read more Don't be fooled by the decor, the Haymarket is a low brow sports bar styled similarly to Cheers which is a block away up the same street. There's not a great deal to like here. Where Cheers has character, they seem to have gone out of their way here to *not* have it. I literally visited the Haymarket once with a co-worker to have the $12 steak and beer lunchtime special (it's all day everyday which alone is worthy of a star and gets it out of 1 territory), and I never came back. Whilst the price is in the sweet spot, the steak is definitely the lower end of the spectrum and if you choose medium rare, expect to get medium to well. The beer tasted like how beer tastes when lines aren't clean, and you twist your neck and make that funny face as the "not quite right" flavour hits your tastebuds. The staff are too familiar and entitled, which makes things worse because it means the lazy service is ingrained in their psyche - there's no manager training them out of their bad habits. They act like they are doing you a favour, rather than their job, which is arguably the most annoying trait to be found in hospitality staff. Places like this are the reason I am glad we don't have a tipping culture, and why I almost never tip at a bar, even 10 cents. Your job is to pour beer and clean tables, if you do one badly and the other not at all, and you get paid $20-25/hour, why am I tipping you? You should be getting paid $10/hour and working your ass off to earn the tips to make up that extra $10-15/hour. When you don't finish your beer, and don't order another one, it's pretty clear that you didn't enjoy yourself. Lots of work to do double H. Lots of work. Train those staff... ASAP.

Royal Albert Hotel is a very local, very chill spot in Surry Hills. It's the kind of place you…read morewander into without much planning and grab a drink because... it's there. We were doing luandry accross the street so we just dropped in. Service is fine -- nothing to rave about, nothing to complain about. The vibe is casual and unpretentious, which works if you're in the neighborhood and not looking for anything fancy. That said, the name definitely does some heavy lifting here. "Royal Albert" sounds grand; the experience is more "friendly local pub." Still, it's an easygoing place that does the job.

Stopped into the Royal Albert Hotel bar in Surry Hills and it was clearly a local favorite--busy…read morewith regulars and a fun, energetic atmosphere. They were running trivia games while we were there, which added to the overall vibe and made it feel like a true neighborhood spot. The ambiance is great: a cool, old-school bar with friendly local staff, and you definitely get the sense that people know each other here. Solid selection of beer, wine, and cocktails/mixed drinks. My husband ordered a Guinness, which was a good choice. Unfortunately, my margarita was underwhelming and honestly wasn't that great, which knocked the experience down a bit. Overall, it's a good place to hang out for the atmosphere--just keep your cocktail expectations reasonable

The Criterion, post PJs renos, is a standard faux-Irish pub slap bang in the middle of the city…read more(close to Town Hall). Being close to where I used to work, I'd frequent this place quite a bit, and before it was a PJs it was a mates fave city pub so we'd catch up over a few here from time to time. There's a pretty good mix of people in the street-level bar, and PJs have converted it into more of a sports bar so there are plenty of screens for the sports nuts to check out their favourite teams prospects. PJs typically have pretty good fare. In winter they have two absolute cracking dishes. The Guiness Pie with mushy peas, and their signature lamb shanks which is totally unctuous. Why such a modest score? Price kills the place. It's not one of the cheaper places to get a beer as someone incorrectly states in their tips, it's easily one of the most expensive places to get a beer. You're paying over the top prices for domestic tap beer. A cheap beer is $5 for a Coopers Pale Ale, which you can get on the same street about 200m up the road... Also... As much as I enjoy a good pokie section, this one ain't good. And by that I mean the clientelle. It brings in the undesireable types, and sours what is otherwise a sweet pub. The snug, the downstairs den, has a great looking bar, and "snug" seating, but it's kinda pointless down there. It doesn't feel snug, it feels stuffy and claustrophobic - and the bar has never been manned when I've been down there. Now, if they moved the pokies to the snug, and then opened up the entire bar at the street-level to include the room vacated by the pokie section, you'd have something. But why would they do that when they can get by with what they have.

I went for lunch here not too long ago and it was a great Irish pub. Rich Mahogany wood and a wide…read moreselection of beer on tap, with food selections that you'd find in most other Irish pubs. Being in the city, it can get quite busy very quickly and is a decently sized basement multi-storied pub. TV screens are usually are usually playing Fox sports or something similar. I order the Parmy, just to be on the the safe side. I wasn't too game to try the Pie which is supposed to be one of the best (as judged by Irish people I work with) around. The food is carefully prepared and you can tell the produce is quality and they've cooked it properly which some pubs sometimes struggle to do consistently... The chips were the standout side, crisp and crunchy! Definitely will be trying the stew or pie, that is if I'm brave enough to.

Feel the burn. FEEL IT!…read moreKEEP FEELING IT UNTIL YOUR FACE MELTS INTO YOUR EMPTY BEER GLASS THEN DRINK THAT FACEY GOODNESS! DRINK IT! POUR IT INTO YOUR MOUTH HOLE! Okay that went a little over the top but those are the emotions you experience at the Ghost Pepper Chilli Chicken Wing Challenge, which Palace Hotel originally did just on Wednesdays but now does every day of the week because it proved so popular. Here's how it works: pay $10, get 6 chicken wings slathered in either Ghost Pepper (easier) or California Reaper (harder) chilli, then eat them in 10 minutes and sit for 5mins afterwards with no drinks and you get a refund and your photo on the Wall of Flame. Sounds easy, right? Ohhhh lawdy no, no, no, it ain't. We lined up full of beans and hope. I love chilli so I thought it would be a cake-walk. They get you to sign a waiver. And give you gloves to eat with because if you touch your face with chilli on your fingers your eyes will explode and your hair will catch fire. We started to get nervous right about now. The wings arrived. They glowed like red uranium. One minute in and my entire head went nuclear. My nose started tingling, then throbbing, then quaking. The numbness spread into my cheeks. Tears were streaming down my face and I started coughing. Lights popped behind my eyes. And I wasn't even halfway through. Next to me James was sweating like a criminal in a courtroom. I tapped out three wings in and focused on trying to staying alive. The bargirl made me pour sugar on my tongue to cut through the acidity and slug milk. It helped, but ye cats, the burn. The deep burn. The staff were awesome, they made it super fun. Half an hour later when we'd cooled down I was ready to go again. I think I will. Just need to find some more victims to do it with. Hilarious experience, highly recommend.

Buy a beer, take a seat, and let the hours drift on by. This place always looked busy on a…read moreFriday/Saturday night. However Sunday lunchtime calls for a different type of mood. Its the type of mood that believes Summer afternoons can last forever and the clouds just drift on by without the need to rain. The staff are friendly and polite. The glasses have a cloudiness to them, making you realise just how many hands have handled them over the years. When I sat down I had this feeling inside of me, it was hard to put my finger on what it was about this place. I was in the front room, whose doors face the corner of George St and Hay St. How could it look dirty but clean at the same time? So many years, so weathered. It just gives character to a place. Like an old homeless man who just had a bath. You know they are clean, but the deep grooves tell of tales long forgotten and buried in the sands of time. A schooner of James Squire, a pint of Quinness (I know, I know - why stout?) and a basket of shoestring fires - $25. For $8.5 you'd be hoping the fries to be decent, covered in gravy, something... nope, just disappointment. Save you're coins and just get McDonalds chips. These chips at the Palace tasted like they had given up on life. This place you can really settle in and feel comfortable here. Let an hour slip by, let ten. Heck grab a sleeping bag. No, scratch that. No sleeping bags, it's against rules and regulations. Darn OH&S.

I'm a big fan of Quarryman's. Not only do they have a delicious burger and a great drink selection,…read morethey also have an adorable cat who hangs out inside! They serve up your food quickly, making it a perfect spot for lunch while at work, and they also have wifi so you can even treat yourself to a working lunch. Pro-tip: happy hour is 5-7 On their walls they advertise trivia and comedy nights - hope to get to try those soon.

Three sheets to the wind, three stars to the Quarry!…read more I only ever come here when there is a farewell for someone leaving the company; You can find me here most Fridays. This place has a very definitive after work atmosphere. You come here for a few, get your night kickstarted then move somewhere else. They do have a great selection of beers; cluey + friendly staff; great vibe because everyones just knocked off for the week; Also the infamous Kraken rum resides here! Downsides? No three sheets pale ale even though it's on the menu. The Q tends to be a bit on the pricey side. It's one of those not enough staff too many patrons places so lines are lengthy and spills tend to linger... longer... I've done the upstairs gig a couple of times. Rooftoppy, nice view, and good amount of intimacy. Downsides there is very limited bar (unless you want to haul yo fat ass up and down the stairs all night) and it's even pricier (ultra kick in the guts when that work tab runs out!) Never done the food here, wouldn't know where to get it, or whether it's worth getting.

A very quant place that can be a challenge to find. To get in you need to go down an alley, past…read morethe rubbish bins and then up some stairs. The place reminds me of an English pub. We sat at the bar and had pulled bitters and an apple cider. Both were excellent. Food on a Sunday was a bit limited but what we saw looked good. Our bartender was from the U.S. and was very helpful. My only complaint is there is no AC and on a hot day it was needed.

What a hidden gem. Great atmosphere. Food was great. Service amazing. Enjoy a pub that's hidden…read moreaway.

This is basically one of those pubs that you go to if there really isn't any place else to go it,…read morewhich isn't really saying much when you consider that in Sydney there are plenty of other places to go, unless of course the bouncers won't let you in for one reason or another (which hasn't got anything to do with you being intoxicated). Yeah, this pub really doesn't really stand out and while I would suggest that it is rather unassuming, it isn't even that. Still, it certainly isn't as bad as some I have been to.

This is a nice place to get good quality pub style meals…read more And the new menu is delicious It's always full on Friday night but staff are friendly and efficient. The kitchen is efficient but the food is really nicely made and presented for the reasonable prices. The pizzas are around $14 and there is a range of meals to suit different budgets.