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.

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Fish en Papillote

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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!

Rigoni’s Bistro

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date of visit:  Friday 11 November 2011

Our last visit to Rigoni’s Bistro was over a year ago.  We returned on Friday night for a very quick pre-Christmas party dinner, just the two of us.  The restaurant doesn’t start dinner service until 6pm so that’s when we arrived. There were quite a few people outside the restaurant having drinks and, indoors, a handful of tables had couples (mostly) seated at them.

This was a rather business like meal, and I’d been fantasising about the linguini di tartufo bianco con aragosta ever since I’d read the online menu. Yes, that’s white truffle linguini with marron. That was all I was going to order – and god help them if they’d run out of it! Andy had to read the menu (well, that gave me time to drink my glass of Prosecco) and decided on the lavender salted chicken with prosciutto, sage and provolone on white polenta. While we waited for our food, there was plenty of opportunity to check out what people around us were eating, finish our drinks and eat the bread, served with olive oil and a type of pesto. This alone gives Rigoni’s a massive tick from me, because I have a bit of a horror of the ubiquitous olive oil with a puddle of balsamic vinegar floating in it.

Our food arrived and the portions were really generous. The pasta dish, in particular, was large and smelly – smelly in a good, truffly way.

Finger bowl to hand, I munched my way through my marrons and the pasta and turned down the opportunity to try some of Andy’s chicken (I’m informed it was good, I just wasn’t interested in stopping motoring through my plate of food!). The dish was lovely – truffly, buttery, crunchy white asparagus, with fresh dill through it adding an aniseedy kick to the seafood. The pasta looked like it was made in house – in places it had rather clumped together (disappointing, but I was enjoying the overall dish so much it was forgivable). I thought it was cooked perfectly but I realise for some people my “perfect” is “underdone”.

The only problem with our meal on Friday night was … the price. Of course, a huge plate of anything involving truffles and marron isn’t going to be cheap and my dish was $40. Andy’s chicken was $34. Add in a couple of drinks each and the bread and the bill hit over $100 which is a lot of money to spend on a quick meal before a night out. Thanks to the Entertainment Book, we actually paid $85, which, for just one course each, is still pretty expensive. In terms of the quality of the food, it’s definitely worth it. The service is also good – I booked at the last minute (and I’d recommend booking) and I was told while on the phone that they did have a table for us but it was rebooked for 7:30pm. Much better to know that type of thing up front than be surprised on the night. And all the staff who served us on Friday night were pleasant, competent and unintrusive.

So save up your trip to Rigoni’s – go when you are feeling a little flush, and take the time to have a proper meal there (that’s at least two courses). Delicious!

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