Restaurant Reviews

Great River Korean BBQ Restaurant, Gouger Street

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment
kim chi fried rice
kim chi fried rice – no one was allowed to touch Master 6’s egg!

date of visit: Thursday 12 October 2017

School holidays might have been wrapping up but the onslaught of activities certainly wasn’t. Master 6 had a Come’n’Try Kung Fu session in the late afternoon in the city. A perfect opportunity to meet Andy after work and head for an early meal.

As an aside – if you have school-age children, the Come’n’Try program, which runs most holidays, is excellent. There’s a range of sports on offer for children to try out and the sessions usually cost around $5.

Anyway, during the afternoon, I asked Master 6 what he’d like for dinner (and frankly, if he’d answered sushi I probably would have gone crazy!). He had a little think and came up with Korean. This did rather surprise me, but as I love Korean I was going to roll with it.

A bit of research suggested that Great River would provide us with Korean BBQ but not force us into a buffet (quite possibly my single most loathed way of serving food). I scored a fantastic park on Gouger Street and we headed in.

As Great River is Korean BBQ, the tables are set up with the tabletop grills and above every one, an extractor fan. This gives the restaurant a slightly odd look – as you have the brown wooden tables and generally muted decor, with the silver tubing of the extractor fans and the bright individual table lights.

There is an à la carte menu at Great River but there are also ‘sets’, which serve various numbers of people. We opted for ‘Set A’ which comes in at $60. Our waiter tried to up-sell us to ‘Set B’ which she said served 3-4 people but I’m glad we went for the smaller set as we had a TON of food (and given that Master 6 can more than hold his own, I’d be recommending you err on the side of caution).

Set A came with pork belly, chicken and two types of beef, as well as a green salad, Korean fried chicken and cos lettuce for wrapping the meats in. We also ordered the kim chi fried rice (a very generous portion, topped with a fried egg) and, of course, we were served a range of pickles.

Drink ordering was a bit of a farce. Andy wisely chose a Boags, whereas I went for the Korean beer. I started by ordering a Hite. Our waiter came back – sorry, they are out of Hite. So I asked for an OB. Our waiter came back … and I ended up with a Cass. Maybe I’m unreasonable, but this is a Korean restaurant – if you’re going to list Korean beers on your drinks menu then expect that people might order them and either have them in stock or know your stock levels.

Korean BBQ grill
cook your own – an opportunity to incinerate some food!

My grizzle over and our grill plate heating up, food started arriving. Our waiter started us off with our BBQing before leaving us to it. We weren’t as expert as we might have been and a couple of the thinner pieces of beef in particular we rather overcooked (but burnt crispy edges are good!). The pork was my favourite, while Andy’s was the chicken. Although initially a bit scared of the fire from the BBQ, Master 6 quickly got into the spirit of the meal and ploughed his way through egg and rice, the cucumber pickle, and at least his fair share of the meats.

The green salad was lovely – quite simple and with a sweetish dressing but at least it wasn’t drowned in it. The highlight for me was the Korean fried chicken – small drumsticks that were a combination of sweet, salty, spicy, crispy and saucy. Despite eschewing the beef that had bone it (‘ewww, no bones!’) Master 6 enthusiastically chomped his way through the chicken, stripping the bones bare of meat … so if you have a child in tow, take baby wipes!

We thought that value for money wise, Great River wasn’t too bad. We had a ton of food, doggy-bagged our leftover rice and came out spending under $100. You can easily spend a similar amount of money on a pub dinner. The service is friendly but not particularly professional or efficient. Cooking your own food does make for a much slower meal than usual, so if you are in a rush, this is probably not the venue for you.

Also – the toilets are not the most glamorous in the neighbourhood … just keep that in mind!

Would we go again? Hmmm, not sure. I think I’d be making the effort to try out some of Adelaide’s other Korean BBQ.

Great River Korean BBQ Restaurant
103 Gouger Street
Adelaide SA 5000
phone: 08 8221 6866

Great River Korean BBQ Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato

Marcellina’s Turns 50

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment
Fresh pizza toppings
Spread ready to go!

date of visit: Tuesday 30 May 2017
disclaimer: I was invited to the dinner

THE MOST IMPORTANT PART: On Monday 5 June, to celebrate 50 years of pizza in SA, Marcellina’s in Hindley Street (and note, the Hindley Street store only), from 11am – 4pm, will be selling the original Marcellina special (9″) for just … EIGHTY CENTS. Limit of two pizzas per person.

I grew up in Pizza Hut’s heyday. In fact, before Pizza Hut even did the all-you-can-eat thing. And even then, my parents would talk about Marcellina’s and how it was a revelation when it opened on Hindley Street. I was amazed that there was a time when there was so little Italian food in Adelaide, let alone that that time was within living memory.

So finding out that this year Marcellina’s celebrates 50 years as a proud South Australian business kind of made me feel … old.

The recent gelid weather is perfect red wine and pizza weather, so on Tuesday night, I collected a friend and we headed to Hindley Street to help the Marcellina’s team celebrate. We had no idea what to expect and when we arrived we were a little concerned to see the shop looking quiet and empty. Of course, the great thing about a pizza shop is that there is always pizza.

Marcellina’s original store on Hindley Street is also home to a large function room (Bebe’s Room) at the back of the store … and there, across the length of the room, the most beautiful table had been set up.

A quick introduction revealed that guests would be making their own pizzas from the amazing spread in front of us! The original idea had included us rolling out our own dough and while that had been shelved as being impractical (thank goodness!) balls of fresh dough were included in platters across the table, just so we didn’t forget why we were there.

There was also plenty of food for immediate grazing, along with the all-important red wine, but we didn’t have to wait long before a pizza base (in an individually numbered box) arrived and we could load it up as we wished. The Marcellina pizza ovens are capable of turning out a pizza in just SIX minutes so any delay in eating was solely on our own heads.

pizza
The finished product!

Obviously I enjoyed my pizza (although I do rather wish I’d added the char-grilled capsicum to it) and, because I managed to eat just over half of it, it meant I had a rather tasty afternoon tea the following day!

I don’t normally do this but I’d like to commend Sassafras PR and Marcellina’s on what was easily one of the best events I’ve attended. It was well planned and interactive, with a brief, but informative, introduction. The area in which we were hosted was well lit and beautifully set up (important for photos and social media!). Crucially, for a Tuesday night, it ran to time. OK – super-speedy pizza ovens and getting your guests to build-their-own undoubtedly helps in that respect – but for anyone who has to get up the next day (whether that’s for work or for loud children – or a combination of both) this is crucial.

Even if you’re not able to take advantage of the 80c pizza special, I’d recommend taking the time to make a pizza pilgrimage to Marcellina’s on Hindley Street. A slice of South Australia’s culinary and restaurant-trade history.

Marcellina
273 Hindley Street
Adelaide SA 5000
8211 7560

Sunny’s Pizza

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment
tomato salad
Mostly eaten tomato salad … YUM!


date of visit: 12 April 2017

Bad lighting – sorry for horrendous photos …

A friend of mine recently got married and before she embarked on a six-week long honeymoon a group of us bossed her into a dinner out. In hindsight, she was probably knackered from the wedding, from sorting out work before heading away and from sorting out the honeymoon … but she graciously squeezed us into what was probably a very packed schedule. Sorry Tash!

We decided on Sunny’s as our dinner venue because none of us had been there. Sunny’s is the new (well, opened in late-2016) kid on the block – in the west end but away from Peel and Leigh Streets, yet still sporting the ubiquitous Studio Gram design. It’s cool. It’s hip. 

So cool and so hip, it doesn’t take bookings. For five or six of us, on a Wednesday night, where people are sorting baby-sitting and travelling from outer suburbs this is almost a deal breaker. We were told we should be fine. In fact, we were only fine because one of us was in town an hour earlier, bagged a booth and ordered drinks while the rest of us straggled in …

Pizza
Pepperoni, olives … on a pizza. Check that crust!

The menu at Sunny’s is short – divided into pizza and not-pizza. It’s a simple menu and I’d recommend not taking your fussiest friends there. Fortunately, none of us is fussy, so after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, we decided on three pizzas and two not-pizzas between the four of us. One pizza had a gluten-free base.

Our not-pizza options were a stunning heirloom tomato salad which I would have been happy to eat over and over again. All I needed was a plate of that to myself and some good crusty, chewy bread and I would have been happy. Dressed with basil oil and scamorza (a soft, cow’s milk cheese which featured very heavily on the menu) and microherbs – it was GREAT!

We also had the green salad which was basically a big pile of mixed lettuces dressed lightly with olive oil.

Pizza
Porky fennelly goodness on a pizza

On to the pizzas … Well, bad blogger that I am, I didn’t take a photo of the menu so I can’t quite remember what we had. For our gluten-free pizza we had a cheese and mushroom pizza, while pork and fennel and pepperoni and olives appeared on the others.

I’m not an aficionado gluten-free bases but, to my gluten-oriented palate – it was horrible. Flat, dense, without the right taste or texture. The topping was dominated by cheese and this was the only pizza that didn’t get demolished.

The other two pizzas were pretty good. I preferred the porky-fennelly number (I love fennel so that was always going to happen) but enjoyed the pepperoni one too. I particularly liked the fat, chewy, charred and blistered crusts. The dough was good. It gets a big tick.

One thing that gets a big cross, however, is the service. It vacillated between friendly, helpful, jovial … to, um, not great at all.

While the wine list is to be commended (small producers, everything by the glass) but the amount of time I waited for a glass of Grenache was untrue. Not only waited, but asked about it too … Really? Pouring a glass of wine isn’t difficult and the markup on alcohol is usually pretty generous. Get that glass of wine out pronto – the customer might order a second …

When we asked about dessert we were told that they don’t do desserts because they don’t have a freezer. Eh?!

And when we asked for the bill? Well, that was the same place my glass of Grenache was …

The upshot? I hope that Sunny’s isn’t too cool for school. Relaxed, casual, laid-back – all awesome things for a venue to pursue. So relaxed your customers aren’t getting their wine (or their bill)? Not so great.

Personally, the fact I can’t book and the uneven service means that I wouldn’t put Sunny’s out there as a recommendation and I wouldn’t go out of my way to return. However, the pizzas were good enough that, if someone else suggested it (or I were nearby and there happened to be space) I’d be happy enough to go for take-two.

Sunny’s
17 Solomon Street
Adelaide SA 5000