Bar Reviews

Hotel Royal

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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

Seven Stars Hotel

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Seven Star HotelPhoto thanks to Scenic Adelaide.

 date of visit: Tuesday 16 August 2011

Often a meal out, especially to a pub, simply involves turning up, ordering a chicken schnitzel parmigiana, eating said schnittie and then going home. There’s not a lot that’s taxing on either side of the hospitality fence. However, I recently volunteered to organise a dinner out for about 20 people with some difficult BYO requirements (everyone would be bringing a bottle and we really needed a set price per head, to make paying easy). Generally, I love organising stuff (that’s why I volunteered) and I find it really interesting seeing how different businesses deal with slightly left of centre requests.

So, I began by ringing around a couple of venues to see what could be done. The first venue, I was told flatly that they don’t ‘do’ BYO. A subsequent venue, even after I’d explained what I was after, wanted to limit BYO to 6 bottles (for 20 people, can you be serious?!) and then grudgingly decided that perhaps they could handle additional bottles … but by this point, they’d lost the customer.

And then I rang the Seven Stars. The last time I went here I would have been in uni and probably on a pub crawl of some sort. But I’ve seen the pub’s name pop up on twitter in a positive context and it rates highly on Urban Spoon so I figured it was a good next step. The first person I spoke to wasn’t sure if they would be able to accommodate my requests but, without any prompting, went off to fetch her manager. He was really helpful and said that it wouldn’t be a problem to accommodate us and he could put together a few menus, with costs, that we could choose from.

Best of all, he was happy to email me this information! When the email arrived, he’d booked us into the hotel’s Courtyard Room and provided four different menu options for us (all inclusive of the BYO charge). I opted for a choice of two entrées from the hotel’s function menu and then a cut down selection from the à la carte menu.

Because the booking experience had been so painless, I encouraged everyone in the group to turn up and have a couple of drinks before dinner. The whole evening ran smoothly – we had spittoons provided, the food was good* (well, I was happy and the people immediately around me were happy – including one person who’d ordered a steak which was cooked to order), and the hotel even provided us with extra glasses. When it came to paying, they were happy to accommodate us paying individually, to save us the hassle of trying to sort out change.

The whole experience made me realise how important service is. The fact that the food was good was just icing on the cake. Most people did turn up early and have a couple of drinks, someone in our group bought a couple of bottles of bubbly mid-way through the meal and plenty of people were ordering coffees when I left. On a quiet (and very wild and wintery) Tuesday night I imagine most pubs in Adelaide would have been quite pleased to have our group spending some money.

And I, for one, will be more than happy to return to the Seven Stars. Thumbs up for a team that obviously knows what it’s doing!

*For the record, I had herb marinated lamb skewers to start, which were nicely juicy and not remotely overcooked as is always the risk with function food, followed by beer battered fish and chips, which were definitely a cut above a standard pub fish and chip dinner.

The Seven Stars on Urbanspoon

Holdfast Hotel, Glenelg

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date of visit: Wed 2 Feb 2011

Holdfast Hotel Schnitzel

I was quite excited to be heading to the Holdy: I haven’t had a schnitzel in what seems like ages and I went through a stage of drinking (responsibly, of course) at the Holdy on a Friday after work (quite an achievement as, at the time, I worked out at Elizabeth). The last schnitzel I ate there I perched at the front bar before a gig. More than 10 years ago.

Since then, the Holdy has had a face lift, got itself a micro-brewery and generally made its way up in the world. Sometimes this is a good thing, sometimes it’s not.

We started the evening out in the beer garden which is a pleasant spot for a drink. Even though it’s smack bang on Brighton Road it’s well enough shut off from the street that you don’t notice it. There’s plenty of shade and no shortage of seating. Obviously, it’s where the smokers are going to congregate but I think it’s spacious enough to make that not an issue.

Having its own brewery was a definite draw card for me, so I was a little disappointed when I headed to the bistro’s bar to find only one of their beers on draught: Dominator. At least the barman did actually know what style the beer was (a wheat beer) and he even knew the beer’s approximate abv. Things were looking good.

The Bistro was a lot busier than I’d have expected for a Wednesday night, with a couple of large parties booked in – so it was a good thing we’d made a reservation. When I’d booked I’d been careful to advise that we were coming in with a pram so it was disappointing that our table was at situated along a wall, right on the end, next to the door through to the front bar – so no space at all for a pram. Fortunately, the waitress in charge of showing us to our table recognised instantly (before we did) that there would be a problem and suggested we sit in one of the booths at the back of the bistro. It’s a shame the person taking the booking hadn’t shown similar initiative and customer focus …

The booths at the back of the bistro are actually an excellent spot to sit even if you don’t have a pram. The area is carpeted with soft furnishings and is considerably quieter than the main area (which, of course, consists of the requisite hard surfaces). If you’re old and grumpy (like my friends and me!) this is perfect!

Mondays and Wednesdays at the Holdy are schnitzel nights – the schnitzels are $14 with parmi an additional $2.50. If you’re like me, you’re probably thinking that $14 is not a particularly cheap schnitzel on a schnitzel night (not when you consider you can head to the Rob Roy and pay $10) … so was the Holdy going to over deliver?

No.

The schnitzels were standard pub schnitzels. The schnitzel itself was quite generously sized and came with a reasonable (but not massive) portion of chips. While I’d put the chicken parmi firmly in the average-good bracket, the chips weren’t that flash. As you can see from the photo the schnitzel came with a bit of vegetable decoration but if you wanted salad or vegetables that was extra again (an extra $4.90). Since no one in their right mind goes to a pub for a schnitzel and then orders salad as well I can’t report on that …

The remainder of the Holdy’s menu suggests that the kitchen is trying to do something a bit interesting while staying firmly within a ‘pub meal’ remit. Parts of the menu are a little pedestrian (seafood basket, for example), parts are a bit odd (potato and pecan croquette … not a natural pairing) and parts sound quite good (creamy parmesan potatoes, fennel gratin). But that makes me worry the menu is attempting to be all things to all people. Still, I shouldn’t be commenting on what I haven’t tried!

However, as far as the schnitzels go, we all felt they were too expensive for what they were: a standard pub schnitzel at a slightly higher than standard price.

Schnitzels a bit pricey – even on schnitzel night
Rating:2.5 stars