date of visit: Tuesday 23 September 2014
Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ll know that Peel Street is the new ‘it’ place to be in Adelaide. New small food and bar businesses are popping up all over the place (I’m not even pretending to keep up) and Peel Street in particular has zoomed past its neighbour, Leigh Street, in terms of density of offerings.
Bread & Bone already has a reputation for the best burgers in Adelaide and the people who I know who have already been there have all rated it very highly. While the exterior is quite imposing, and you can’t miss it, it’s not entirely obvious that Bread & Bone is the restaurant that’s tucked away upstairs from a small courtyard (downstairs is Maybe Mae, through its hidden door). I suggested it for lunch with a friend as I didn’t feel like spending a lot of money and the burger and hot dog side of the menu keeps everything under $20. For the evening or seriously hungry, there is also a selection of wood grill dishes that sit in the $20-30 zone.
It being lunch time, I took one look at the menu and chose the Bratwurst dog. A bratwurst with … kimchi and kewpie mayonnaise. There are three things that improve pretty much any savoury dish and these are sambal oelek, hot lime pickle and kimchi. Kimchi and rice is the highest form of breakfast, in my opinion. If kimchi is on the menu, the chances are I’ll order it.
My friend had the cheeseburger and ordered a green salad. The burger was a good size (we’d already spied on another table’s order) but neither burgers nor dogs come with fries (yes, that’s chips) as standard. My position on salad dressing is that it is mostly wrong and while this salad was dressed, at least the dressing didn’t have an overpowering vinegar flavour to it – it was much more subtle.
The hot dog (which you can see above) was excellent. The sausage was meaty, the kimchi was hot and packed a good vinegar punch and the kewpie counterpointed that perfectly. The bun did a good job of holding it all together and the napkins, while not cloth, are large, solid and more than up to the task of dealing with the inevitable mucky fingers.
Service was efficient and the food came out promptly – which at lunch time is a definite plus. I didn’t suss out the drinks menu but we did wrap up our meal with a caffè latte which also gets the seal of approval.
The bill came out at just under $20 a head which is certainly not the cheapest hot dog lunch you’ll find in Adelaide. However, you do get table service and an interesting and varied menu for your money. And considering that a sandwich can easily push the $10 mark, I personally would rather invest the additional money in a slightly slicker lunch.
I’d love to pretend I’ll go back and try the remainder of the menu … but … did I mention the kimchi?
Bread & Bone Wood Grill
15 Peel Street
Adelaide SA 5000
phone: 08 8231 8535
open from 11:30am