Author: Alex

Chesser Cellar

- Alex 4 Comments

The Chesser Cellar

photo by Stephen Mitchell

A guest review today – my father has put together his thoughts on The Chesser Cellar. I haven’t been there since a graduation lunch well over 10 years ago so I’d be interested to know what other Adelaide diners think. Judging by the 55% on UrbanSpoon perhaps my father’s experience is not atypical.

date of visit: Friday 18 November 2011

Having dined at the Chesser Cellar in the past and found it to be an excellent venue, I decided that my interstate friends would find it charming if not a little quaint. The food had been of a high standard and the prices would be a pleasant surprise for those used to the excesses on the eastern side of the island.

Whilst most of the above is still true, our food on this occasion was close to abysmal. The meatless goat curry was just the start of the problems and the half-hearted attempts to pacify one guest were less than satisfactory. Instead of taking the dish away and offering an alternative, a small dish of meat arrived a few minutes later. By this time the goatless curry was cold, and there was an obsequious “no charge for the meal sir”. One would hope not, as he went away hungry apart from an entrée of oysters.

There were five of us on this visit and apart from the goatless curry, one had a steak and pronounced it excellent, and three steak and kidney pies were ordered. One person thought the pie “alright” and one declared his to be so dry that no amount of gravy was going to improve it. Mine was less than “alright” in as much I thought it somewhat tasteless and the pastry was pallid and wan. I suspected this pastry had been made a long time before this lunch and had dried out before being heated. Maybe the pies are made
a week in advance and wait patiently in the refrigerator for Fridays. Who knows?

A disappointing outing for all but one of us.

Not on my list of places to visit anymore.

Chesser Cellar on Urbanspoon

Hotel Royal

- Alex Leave a comment

 

 

date of visit: Saturday 19 November 2011

A recent, quickly organised, family get together saw a group of 8 of us book ourselves into the Hotel Royal, on Henley Beach Road, for a late lunch/afternoon tea. Our main requirement was that wherever we went had to be close to my grandma’s house and capable of accommodating an age range from less than 1 to more than 90. So our focus was less than gastronomic!

The hotel advised it was best to book but when we arrived at 2pm the bistro was mostly empty and our table hadn’t been set up. Only one person was manning the bar and I felt a bit sorry for him because he seemed a little bit run off his feet. He apologised for our table not being set up and rushed off to get us a high chair, then taking the time to wipe it over in front of us (it already looked spotless).

We all settled in and got down to the important business of talking, followed by deciding what to eat. While the Hotel Royal doesn’t offer coffee and cakes, as such, if you are there during service hours (lunch is 12-3pm) you are more than welcome to order from the dessert menu. So you can sort of do afternoon tea. This flexibility worked really well for us – I ordered the sticky toffee pudding, two people shared the whiting, we had serve of chips, and some people shared dips. Quite a mish-mash!

The food wasn’t perfect – but then it was exactly what you’d expect from a reasonably standard pub menu. The portion of whiting was generous, if a little too heavy on the batter. The vanilla ice cream with the sticky toffee pudding was definitely the best part of the dish – the pudding itself was a strange combination of being a little too stodgy but also a little too springy. But it was also only $6.50.

While some aspects of the service were a little slow (for example, the menus took a little while to arrive) as a rule the service was very good. The young man behind the bar, who did most of the work, was pleasant and extremely helpful. Without prompting he brought out children’s and seniors’ menus and when unable to find a cushion for my grandma he offered to bring different chairs for her to try out. That kind of attention to detail makes me feel that even commenting on the wait for the menus somewhat churlish!

If you’re looking for a pub lunch just out of the city (or perhaps dinner, before going to Thebby Theatre), you could certainly do a lot worse than the Hotel Royal.

Hotel Royal on Urbanspoon

Fish en Papillote

- Alex Leave a comment

IMG_1329

Generally when we buy fish we just pan fry it. And in many respects there’s nothing nicer than a piece of fresh fish, quickly fried off in a bit of butter.

However, aiming for something a bit different, while staying light, I decided to give fish en papillote (wrapped in paper, baked and effectively steamed in its own juices) a go. I had a flick through a few cookbooks but couldn’t really find anything in the way of recipes that was satisfactory so just had to make it up as I went along.

I had bought two rather massive fillets of mulloway. If you are going to cook fish en papillote you need to make sure you’ve chosen something meaty and firm fleshed. Whiting or garfish just aren’t going to cut it – if you have those to hand, fry them off in a bit of butter!

Take a large piece of tin foil and cover it with a similarly sized piece of baking paper. You can really put whatever you want in your parcel but the thing to remember is that the fish will cook quickly so if you use any of the harder vegetables you’ll need to make sure you cut them finely. You also don’t want to go overboard with your flavours.

In my case, I’d already decided I was heading for an Asian themed dish (mainly because there was some fresh coriander in the fridge that needed using). I started by finely slicing some onion and then very very finely slicing some carrot (I actually used the mandolin to create long thin strips which I then cut into fine threads). I placed the fish on the bed of carrot, topped with some finely chopped spring onion and finely sliced lemon (using the mandolin, again) and anointed with a dressing made of soy sauce, sesame oil and some grated ginger. The soy gives the finished fish some much needed colour!

You do need to wrap your parcels well – begin by folding up the paper parcel and then use the tin foil to create a good seal. You need to leave space for the steam which will be generated by cooking, but you don’t want it to escape!

Bake at 200°C for around 15-20 minutes. The timing here depends a lot on your fish – after 15 minutes I pulled ours out, checked the larger piece and returned them to the oven for another 5 minutes.

You can serve the fish in its parcel (we discarded the tin foil layer) or, if you’re feeling brave, you can plate it up and pour the sauce from the parcel over the fish. Top with chopped coriander. We had the spicy fried potatoes with this – perhaps a little bit of a cultural mish-mash, but effectively just fish and chips!