The Kentish Arms – Beef with Mushroom

The Kentish Arms - what a gorgeous little pub, a much forgotten about North Adelaide pub with a beautiful beer garden. Surely this would be a secret schnitzel heaven. We ventured into this pub to meet a friend over from Perth, staying on Melbourne Street and needed a schnitzel fix. You don’t expect speedy service on week nights at places like this, who probably only have one guy working by himself in the kitchen, but seriously on a table of eight, surely you can get all the meals out before the first person has finished theirs? (half a star off).

Starting with the salad. It was solid, plenty of tomato looked like it had been regurgitated onto the plate by a mother schnitzel, feeding its young, not appealing at all (half a star off). With the visual assault over and the smell of fried schnitzel now filling my nostrils, I took my first bite into the crunchy mushroom gravy topped schnitzel. That tastes familiar I thought. The gravy to my taste buds tasted like a powdered Gravox traditional roast gravy with mushroom stirred in. Fellow diners agreed and a sneer appeared on my face at paying an extra $2 for Gravox. Sure it is fine for home-cooked schnitzels, but at a pub? They must have excess drippings laying around required to make a real gravy! (one star off).

The gravy therefore did a very poor job of disguising the thin, crispy, stiff, cardboard like schnitzel underneath (one star off). A very poor dining experience indeed.

Summary: Sufferable with good company.
Price: $17.90
($15.90 + $2 for gravy)
Rating: 2 Stars

Where:
The Kentish Arms Hotel
23 Stanley Street
North Adelaide, SA 5006

The Bridge Hotel – Beef with Mushroom

The Bridge Hotel at Langhorne Creek certainly has a country pub feel about it inside, but sitting out the front watching tasty looking meals come from the kitchen I could have sworn I was sitting at a Bootleg or Feral micro breweries. It was therefore no surprise to me when I went to order a schnitzel and got standard city prices; $14 for a schnitzel and $1 extra for sauce.

While the pub was over-run with patrons due to a cycling event in town, the limited staff (one girl behind the bar taking orders, pulling beers, waiting tables) coped admirably and the food came out in a reasonable time. The chips were of the supermarket crinkle cut frozen variety (half a star off), but were cooked ok and not particularly seasoned to my liking. The schnitzel itself had a generous dollop of non-descript mushroom sauce on top, which was just as well because the schnitzel was over-cooked to the point of being almost a stiff, crunchy, biscuit. OK, this might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but it was definitely way too crunchy (1 star off) to melt in the mouth. The most unattractive and therefore eye-catching item on the plate was not the Coles chips or the schnitzel biscuit, but it was in-fact the salad. It was definitely a unique salad, full of all sorts of things like chunks of carrot and a solitary olive, but it looked more like a salad soup then a leafy, colourful bowl of cleansing salad that I would normally expect with a schnitzel (half a star off). Perhaps I should have ordered the salt & pepper squid, which smelt devine, or the juicy steak which looked mouth-wateringly good.

Summary: Order something else from the menu.
Price: $15
Rating: 3 stars

Where:
The Bridge Hotel
1 Main Road Langhorne Creek SA 5255

Daniel O’Connell – Beef with Mushroom

Management changes, culture changes, staff changes...the time comes when you have to re-review to make sure that quality is still being produced. Previously I went to the Dan O’Connell in North Adelaide with super high expectations of a mind altering schnitzel meal and left, well, disappointed after sampling only a 4 star meal. Admittedly back then the meal only lost 1 star due to lumping us out the back and limp salad...those things can’t be too hard to change surely...especially as this time we booked a table in the lounge bar.

The schnitzel looked gorgeous on the plate and while it was at the upper end of my size threshold, it wasn’t the over whelming, stomach cramping, dinner plate size of some of the “mega” schnitzels. It was golden, it was crispy, it wasn’t too thin and it was topped with a creamy mushroom sauce distinct from any other mushroom sauce encountered on South Australian schnitzels.

The portion of chips, though hidden for the most part under the schnitzel (which is the bane of some schnitzel lovers existence, but not this one) was plentiful, crunchy and well flavoured. Unlike their last disaster, the Dan O, pulled the rabbit out of the hat this time and delivered a fresh, colourful, well dressed salad, which added the final touches to this already perfect meal.

What can I say, at this price, at this time, this schnitzel would get my vote as the best schnitzel meal in South Australia.

Summary: The complete package.
Price: $15.95
Rating: 5 Stars

Where:
The Daniel O’Connell
165 Tynte Street North Adelaide

Windy Point Cafe – Beef With Lemon Butter

Decadence, pure decadence. Fancy going to Windy Point Cafe and ordering a schnitzel! Well, they don’t call it a schnitzel, it appears on the menu as “almond & marjoram crumbed beef fillet with greens, mash & lemon butter” and it was washed down with a couple of glasses the finest sparkling. In reality the dish was a schnitzel stack as there were three crumbed, thin pieces of beef stacked on top of each other served with the mash, a rather think stalk of what looked like broccolini and lemon butter. No chips or salad in site. As a side note, we did order a bowl of fries on the side which were needlessly plentiful, cooked well and seasoned sweetly.
On first inspection I thought that the lemon butter would make the schnitzel (“crumbed beef fillet”) soggy, but as I took my first bite I was in heaven. The taste explosion in my mouth from the almond and marjoram crumbing was sensational and the beef was pure molten goodness as it just melted delicately and deliciously whilst I masticated gracefully trying to stifle an audible groan of delight. Bonus star! As for the rest of the meal, I was glad that the lemon butter didn’t detract or over power the tastiness of the beef crumbing and mashed potato has always been on my last meal plate so it is hard to get that wrong for me. The green stalk however was far from satisfying or inspiring (half a star off) and was akin to an undressed salad of lettuce leaves and a solitary cherry tomato.
How much for this decadent meal you ask overlooking the fine city of Adelaide from the woody slopes of Belair? $25.50 (1 star off) At least five dollars more then I would have valued the meal at. I guess you are paying a premium for the view (which was excellent sitting next to a floor to ceiling window overlooking Adelaide) and the service (which was faultless...my glass was never empty).

Summary: The perfect place for a romantic schnitzel dinner.
Price: $25.50
Rating: 4.5 stars

Where:
Windy Point Cafe
Windy Point Lookout, Belair Rd, Belair 5052

The Astor - Chicken with Gravy

I thought after my last experience I would go with the good old traditional favourite, surely a pleaser. They didn't take all that long for our meals to arrive, after all it was a Friday night and looked to be reasonably busy. On first inspection the schnitzel was almost black in some areas and the gravy was lacking. They really need to up the anti on the amount of gravy and decrease the frying time of the schnitzel. A good schnitzel is juicy, not dry, and with enough topping to allow each mouthful of schnitzel a hit of flavour. Maybe next time I will find the perfect Schnitzel!!

Price: $12.50

Rating: 3 stars
(one for the flavour of the gravy, one for the quantity of the schnitzel and one for the salad, even though there was only a few cubes of cucumber and tomato to find amongst the lettuce).

Where:
The Astor Hotel
437 Pulteney Street, Adelaide

Schnitzel Encounters - Chicken Aussie

I had high hopes this was going to be the king of all schnitzels, after all look at the name of the place!
When it arrived all I could smell was the onions with a side of bbq sauce. I was dissapointed to find that even on the first cut the schnitzel was burnt and even so well cooked on the edges that there were solid edges of chicken in this schnitzel. On further inspection the onion was so huge that it was 'sliced' at over a cintimetre thick, still with the woody core attached. This wasn't just one of the slabs of onion, but two!! I found the bbq not to be a pleasant piece of a masterpiece, but intead an over the top ingredient to what should be a perfect topping. The chips however were of good quantity, good seasoning, and tasty.

All in all, a dissapointment, but hopefully if I was to adventure there again it would live up to expectations.

Price: $17.90

Rating: 2 stars
(one for the chips and one for size factor)

Where:
Hotel Crown
2 Ocean Street, Victor Harbour

Hackney - Beef with Mushroom

The Hackney Hotel, is one of those I feel has been renovated with Pokie money. That really is the only good thing about those damn machines, all the beautifully renovated pubs. It was rather a late dinner, just scraping in 10 minutes before the kitchen closed, sitting in the fine looking bistro between the front bar and the formal dining/function room. No time to think, so I just ordered the usual fare...beef schnitzel with mushroom sauce. While we waited for our meals we enjoyed some comic relief watching the waiters try and cope with a gentleman on the adjacent table sending his steak back three times because it wasn’t cooked to his own private medium-rare specification...just order a schnitzel man! Oh and what a schnitzel! It was thick, juicy and had a delightful thick crumbing. To top that off it was also perfectly cooked to a light brown shade. I think I have only ever tasted one better schnitzel. Unfortunately, that is where the joy ends. The chips reminded me of overcooked frozen packet chips I could cook in the oven at home. Crisp on the outside for sure, but hollow and unsatisfying on the inside (1/2 star off). The mushroom sauce, though in ample quantities, tasted like their standard gravy with small chunks of mushrooms thrown in (1/2 a star off).

Summary: With a few easy tweaks to the accompaniments, this could easily be Adelaide’s premier schnitzel meal.


Price: $17.90
($15.90 Schnitzel + $2 Sauce)

Rating: 4 Stars


Where:
The Hackney Hotel
95 Hackney Rd, Hackney 5069