Restaurant Reviews

Holdfast Hotel, Glenelg

- Alex Leave a comment

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

Sugar Cane Vietnamese Restaurant

- Alex Leave a comment

THIS RESTAURANT IS NOW CLOSED.

date of visit: Friday 24 Sept 2010

Like our visit to the King’s Head Hotel, another Friday night, another unplanned restaurant visit. We settled on Vietnamese very early in the piece and toyed with heading down Gouger Street, before wandering down King William Street to check out Sugarcane. Our logic was that if it was full or didn’t appeal we could nip around to The Greek on Halifax. OK – that’s slightly weird logic, if you’re after Vietnamese food, but bear with me.

Sugarcane is a very visually appealing restaurant – when it finally warms up there’s an outdoor seating area (it’s far enough down King William Street for sitting outside to be contemplated) and the restaurant itself is large, reasonably spacious and with decor that, while perhaps not to everyone’s taste, is clean and coherent with a definite Asian theme.

The meal started in a promising manner, when the restaurant door was swept open for us and we were ushered to a table. Well, the door part is true … and we were whisked through the restaurant only for the waiter to reaslise, suddenly, that there was no table for two ready. We were instructed to wait while a table was sorted out – and of course, while waiting we managed to confuse at least one other waiter who also tried to fix us a table.

Confusion was very much the theme of the service throughout the meal. One waiter had a minor panic attack when he realised we’d been seated for a while but did not have drinks. He could have stayed calm and taken an order … but he rushed off to get us water and then forgot to take a drinks order. Another waiter eventually took the drinks order, by which point we were ready to order food … which was a mistake, because our food order ended up confused. My entrée and main arrived together, leaving Andy foodless. While quite a few waiters observed us with food at our table but not touching it, none approached us and when we did attract attention, the waiter rushed off only to rush back to find out what we had actually ordered.

As the restaurant wasn’t packed (I’m always prepared to cut some slack if I can see staff are genuinely run off their feet) I can only assume that someone at Sugarcane doesn’t take customer service seriously and certainly isn’t instilling good customer service practices in the staff.

While service is a large part of the restaurant going experience, we can’t ignore the food. Although billed as a Vietnamese restaurant we were a little disappointed by the route the menu took. While I can’t claim to be an expert on the regional cuisines of either China or Vietnam the menu has, to the untrained eye, a very definite Chinese feel. In fact, every dish has its name written out … in Chinese. Not a jot of Vietnamese roast pork in sight, although there are hot pots.

My original order was to start with pork and prawn cold rolls followed by a beef salad, while Andy was going to start with a chicken pancake and enjoy Mongolian sizzling pork for his main course. After a long period of contemplating my food, we ended up with all the food on the table at once. Of these dishes, the beef salad was definitely the stand out – very fine slices of beef, barely cooked, with a lime and chilli dressing, tossed in amongst green salad. The level of heat from the chilli was good, the salad was fresh, and the dressing was light and oil free … perfect for mopping up with a bit of rice when everything else was finished. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I came home and looked for recipes so I could make this myself (perhaps with a hint more coriander and mint though …).

I was less impressed with the cold rolls: they were too heavy on the noodles and too light on the mint. Very definitely in the OK basket rather than something to write home about.

Both of Andy’s dishes were too sweet for me although Andy didn’t have a problem with them (I am very picky about sweetness in savoury dishes). The chicken crepe was served in the same style as crispy duck pancakes – without the crispy or the duck, as the chicken was in a plum style sauce. The Mongolian sizzling pork was dished on to its sizzling plate at the table, covering the table (and, to a limited extent, us) with a fine spray of hot fat. From Andy this dish rated a ‘quite nice but nothing special’.

That does quite a good job of summing up the whole experience. Aside from the shambolic service, everything was ‘quite nice’ but certainly not special enough to warrant a return visit.

Bottom line: $66 for 2 people, 2 courses, 2 beers and green tea.

Sugar Cane on Urbanspoon

Rob Roy Hotel

- Alex Leave a comment

Chicken Parmi at the Rob Roy

date of visit:  Thurs Sept 16 2010

PUB QUIZ:  the Rob Roy runs a pub quiz every second Wednesday.  Please contact the pub for further details!

The Rob Roy Hotel is, perhaps, a little out of the way of most city centre workers. After all, you have to get all the way down Pulteney Street to Halifax Street to find it …

However, if you can manage it, it’s more than worth the detour. Continuously licensed since 1840,  restoration and extension work has been sympathetic. The interior is modern and spacious and there’s plenty of outdoor space and seating.

As a malt whisky specialist pub, there always seems to be a whisky tasting or dinner in the event calendar, as well as wine dinners, quiz nights, and members’ nights.

But we weren’t there for any of that (not even the pints). We were there for the Thursday evening $10 schnitzel. Yes – $10 for a schnitzel (add an extra $2 if you want parmigiana). So, what would it be like? Would it be a tiny portion that left us dissatisfied? Or would it be a monster that put the normal $20 pub schnitzel to shame?

It turned out that there was surprisingly keen interest in this experiment: 10 of us turned up to suss out the cheap schnitzel. One person ordered from the menu (and another would have, except her husband informed her that a schnitzel extravaganza meant she had to order schnitzel) but the rest of us opted for schnitzel with parmigianas being heavily represented.

As usual, I chose a chicken schnitzel parmigiana and I was happy. The schnitzel part was good: thick and juicy, and the topping was not too tomato sweet. While I was not thrilled with how generously salted the chips were I was pleased that it was not the usual ridiculous quantity of them (Andy, while agreeing on the salt, thought there could have been more). The salad was disappointing – far too overdressed, leaving it soggy and being all about balsamic vinegar.

That reflects the general consensus. The $10 schnitzels might not be the best schnitzels in Adelaide (to be honest, we’re still working on finding those!) but not only do they represent excellent value (let’s face it, with a schnitzel dinner you can live without a great salad), they also demonstrate just how overpriced the average pub schnitzel is.

I’d definitely head back to the Rob Roy on a Thursday … but before then, I have to try out Tuesday and the half price pizzas!