Restaurant Reviews

Gaucho’s Argentinian Restaurant, Gouger Street

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment

20150820_183706Disclaimer: I was a guest at the dinner to launch the new menu

Like many people – I knew of Gaucho’s but had never actually been. I’m not entirely sure why – it has a solid and long lived reputation and I love steak. But the allure of the shiny and new always gets in the way, I guess.

So when I received an invitation to the new menu launch, I was there – like the proverbial rat up a pump.

The executive summary (TLDR) is that YOU SHOULD GO. If you haven’t been before – go.

If you haven’t been for a while – go. If you went last week – maybe give it a month or so before heading back.

As is probably quite evident, I go to a fair few blogger/media events and quite often how well they work depends a lot on the venue ‘getting it right’. This is rather broad (and vague and may be the subject of a future post) but on this occasion, Gaucho’s got everything bang on. I guess that’s 30 years of experience in the business for you.

Our group of around 20 (ish – I didn’t do an exact head count) was seated in Gaucho’s back room stretching across one wall. We had a short introduction before moving on to the serious business of both food and wine. Food wise we were treated to a spread of dishes that covered new and old on the menu.

Now – a word of warning. You may be aware that Argentina is a big beef producing (and eating) country. That would be correct and it is very fair to say that Gaucho’s menu reflects this. It is meat, meat and more meat. And then some fish and shellfish. If you’re a vegetarian be prepared for an extremely limited choice. As in – two dishes. 20150820_183407

We started with bread and olives. Gaucho’s olives are finished off in-house and marinated in chilli, paprika, lime and tequila. They are served warm. And they are delicious. You get the warmth and spiciness of the tequila softened by the richness of the olives. Good stuff.

Then the dishes really started coming. Picada con berenjenas en escabeche is a charcuterie platter, including ox tongue, prepared in house, along with pickled eggplant and pickles. I loved that this included the delicious house pressed ox tongue (in my opinion there is not enough offal on menus in Adelaide). We also had the empanadas (a vegetarian option is available) as well as the baked provolone cheese and some chorizo.

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Of course, being essentially a steak house the star of the meal was the bife de chorizo. From Riverine in NSW (hats off to Gaucho’s for including the provenance of so many of its meats) and aged for 42 days, this is described on the menu as a ‘New York strip steak’. You can see from the photo that it is a dead ringer for a sirloin (porterhouse) and when I had a google, it appears that New York strip and sirloin are indeed the same thing. It was beautifully cooked and served, as you can see, with just a wedge of lemon. As this is a mere (!) 450g you might find it a bit much to demolish on your own, but something I’d definitely recommend sharing. You can order additional sauces for your steak but it’s so good you don’t really need anything (except maybe a touch of the chimichurri that’s on the table …). 20150820_185834

We were also treated to Gaucho’s new paella. Gaucho’s is famous for its oysters and Beerenberg has now partnered with Gaucho’s so you can buy both the Diablo sauce (used for the signature ostras del diablo) and Chimichurri sauce in supermarkets around Adelaide. The paella came with plenty of oysters, squid and other seafood and did a fantastic job of showcasing that Gaucho’s does something other than a mean steak.

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It’s not surprising that all of this did a solid job of filling us up so we didn’t really need dessert. But after a little pause, out of the kitchen came churros to share. You can never go wrong with deep fried batter served with salted caramel sauce!

For me – the meats were the absolute stand out of this meal. I have recommended Gaucho’s several times since and I am planning to head back as soon as one particular friend visits from interstate. The food was great, the staff were efficient and friendly and the whole dinner just worked.

Gaucho’s might not be the newest, trendiest kid on the block but its years of experience really shows. A definite thumbs up!

Gaucho’s
91 Gouger Street
Adelaide SA 5000
phone: 08 8231 2299

The Tonsley Hotel

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment

20150207_174921fish and chips from the children’s menu – good enough to eat

date of visit: Saturday 7 February 2015

Talk about a weird summer. January started with a fierce blast of heat which subsided almost immediately and since then things were pretty mild. Then February hit …

Faced with the prospect of heating the house further by cooking we decided that dinner out would be a good idea. Always better to use someone else’s aircon!

Generally, for our early evening meals with Master 4 in tow we look to the Entertainment Book. However, we couldn’t face driving to Glenelg or Marion and wanted something close to home. Our first choice didn’t start serving dinner til 6pm, which ruled it out. There was much umming, aahing and general agonising, until eventually Andy took charge and made the decision to go to the Tonsley (for what it’s worth, not in the Entertainment Book).

We headed off with very low expectations. It’s in a less than glamorous area and it has a pretty low (63% at the time of writing) approval rating on urbanspoon.

However, the big plus for us was that on a Saturday they serve ALL day, so if you have a tired little one in tow you can turn up as early as you like, which in our case was shortly after 5pm.

The Tonsley (near the junction of South Road and Five Ash Drive) is a hotel in the proper sense of the word – offering both accommodation and food (and bars). The use of ‘hotel’ synonymously with ‘pub’ is, I think, something of an Australianism. Try asking someone in the UK for the nearest hotel and they will point you towards accommodation, not refreshing beverages …

The Tonsley is arranged so that the accommodation is set well back from both the ‘pub’ part of the hotel and South Road. We were so early we even managed to nab a park in the shade.

Closest to South Road is the front bar (named the Chrysler Bar) which also serves food, but we headed into the Bistro. The area is HUGE, with a massive bar and lounge area, complete with grand piano, several function areas and a big dining room. The bar area is really very pleasant – the industrial exterior of the pub belies a surprisingly plush and calm interior. It would be well suited for a quiet drink (probably not on a Friday night though!).

We were seated quickly and ordered smartly too. Andy chose the crispy Asian spiced squid, I opted for the half portion chicken schnitzel and Master Four decided on the fish and chips from the children’s menu.

20150207_174615half portion chicken schnitzel parmi – perfectly proportioned

Unsurprisingly, the food came out quickly but, by pub standards, it was very good. The child’s fish and chips was a nicely battered piece of gar, served with the obligatory chips but also SALAD. At the time, and even now, I could not be effusive enough about this. So many places, pubs or not, offer really sub-standard children’s food. I never understand why they cannot just offer smaller portions of the main menu and I am so often frustrated by the lack of salad or vegetable offered to children. I know that (supposedly) many children refuse to eat vegetables or salad but that seems a poor reason for venues to fail to offer the same sides to smaller diners. Children are smart … if they hear or observe too often that children don’t like or eat greens then they will live up to that expectation. So a big thank you to the Tonsley for the salad.

This alone pretty much guarantees I would return to the Tonsley. However, I was also thrilled to be able to choose a half portion of schnitzel. I love schnitzel but loathe being faced with super human portions of meat which are either left only partly eaten or I end up stuffing myself and feeling rather sleepy …

Andy really enjoyed his squid. As a change from a standard salt and pepper squid it had a Chinese five spice twist to it, and was tender, tasty and not greasy.

The service was efficient and friendly. While the staff were obviously getting ready for an evening of big functions they did not drop the ball once. It is quite obvious that this is one well oiled machine.

Another big plus is that while the Tonsley does have a small video game area to entertain children there is no massive indoor playground – thus ensuring that we could keep Master Four at the dinner table for the duration of the meal (something about which I verge on manic when we dine as a family, without other children!).

Overall, the Tonsley scored a massive tick from all of us. Yes, it is pub fare, but it is done with care and I don’t think you can ask for much more than that.

Tonsley Hotel
1274 South Road
Clovelly Park SA 5042
phone: 08 8276 8099

Tonsley Hotel on Urbanspoon

Ryo’s Noodles, Gouger Street

- Alex Prichard Leave a comment

20150317_185607a rather massive bowl of spicy noodles

Disclaimer: I was a guest at a blogger dinner at Ryo’s Noodles

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to a dinner at Ryo’s Noodles on Gouger Street. Being a die-hard carb junkie I had no choice but to attend. However, I’ll let you in on a little secret. I’ve been to Japan but once. And that ‘once’ was a lay-over at Narita Airport. I was really lucky in that I was travelling with a friend with a strong command of Japanese and we spent an excellent night out in Narita eating eel and drinking beer. But that is where my experience of Japanese food as cooked in Japan starts and ends. I love soba noodles (on that journey I flew JAL and cold soba noodles were offered at every meal – I was in heaven), I’m less keen on udon and ramen tread a happy middle ground.

Now we have my non-existent Japanese food critiquing credentials out of the way …

Ryo’s is a small restaurant on Gouger Street and while you might miss it if you were on the look out for it, you’ll find it easily enough. It is set up with both normal tables and tall benches, which run down the centre. It’s quite smart inside, although it is very snug and I imagine that if there are large groups in (such as we were!) they end up rather dominating the vibe. But you don’t head here for a romantic date night or intimacy … this is much more somewhere where you grab a big hearty bowl of noodles on your way from A to B.

Judging by the enormous bowls of noodles that were heading out of the kitchen, I decided I didn’t need an entrée. As a bonus, plenty of other people thought they did and so I was able to try the takoyaki (battered balls of octopus which I found a little bland) and the kara-age (fried chicken – which was fine but again didn’t really pack a lot of flavour).

20150317_185354kara-age – deep fried chicken with mayonnaise … not too much wrong with that …

For my noodles, I chose the one spicy option on the menu. Having done a bit of online research before heading out I knew that a lot of people find the soups at Ryo’s too salty and so I asked for no salt (I’m usually reasonably sensitive to salt and I’d had a salty lunch!). The food all came out very quickly and I was impressed that my spicy noodles were actually spicy (enough to make my nose run!) and my request for no salt had been honoured.

It was a ridiculously large bowl of soup and I ate/drank more of it than I strictly needed to. Most of the noodle dishes hovered around the $13-14 mark which is not bad considering you will not need anything else (and, if we’re talking lunch time, you can easily pay $10 for a boring old sandwich). Given how huge it was, I think that if I were to return to Ryo’s, I would be opting for a combination of entrées (because they do have gyoza!) or perhaps trying out one of the cold noodle dishes.

Ryo’s is not licensed – I was more than happy to drink the bottomless matcha green tea on offer but I know plenty of people for whom the lack of a beer with their noodles could well be a deal breaker.

My overall impression is that Ryo’s is really much more of a lunch venue – service is quick and it’s not the type of venue where you linger over several courses. If you order noodles you won’t fit in dessert! With winter approaching, it will be the perfect spot to head for a bowl of Friday lunch ramen which will warm you up and keep you full all afternoon.

Ryo’s Noodles
80 Gouger Street
Adelaide SA 5000
phone: (08) 8410 0752
(no website or menu on line)

Ryo's Noodles on Urbanspoon