Astor Hotel – Beef Field Mushroom

The Astor Hotel has, at least enough for me to hear about it, a small reputation for relatively cheap decent food. I’d heard about a magical Field Mushroom sauce that was a must try, so being a lover of mushroom sauce I ordered a beef schnitzel with field mushrooms. Before I go any further I must clear up the confusion that I faced when presented with my meal. The Field Mushroom selection from the menu is not a sauce but a topping. Therefore when the meals were presented a schnitzel topped with a pile of sliced “field” mushrooms was placed in front of me. No sauce.
While the topping was visually pleasing to see and plentiful, I was disappointed that there was no sauce or liquid component and the taste was pleasant though hardly a party in the mouth like the meat lovers topping of Schnitzel Encounters or Aussie Pizza House’s Dangerous Mushroom pizza.
The beef schnitzel itself had the distinct dark brown colour and taste of an overcooked schnitzel (1/2 star off) and was on the thin side (1/2 star off) of a juicy piece of meat. While they were overzealous with the serving of crunchy and tasty chips, the whole meal only left me with a slight ‘carb’ fuelled belly ache. On the lighter side of the meal, the salad had all the usual suspects, lettuce, cucumber, tomato, but they looked like they were chopped by an eight year old and there was some uncertainty about their freshness, which is never good (1/2 star off). Looking around the table, most people cleaned their plates, so the food can’t have been all that bad and there were plenty of smiles so the bill can’t have been that large.

Summary: Lots of potential for a great schnitzel meal – maybe I just caught them on a bad night.

Price: $15.50
($12.50 schnitzel + $3 topping)

Rating: 3.5 Stars 

Where:
The Astor Hotel
437 Pulteney Street, Adelaide