Ashley H.
Yelp
The Royal Oak Hotel, Sunday 10-07-16
Just another example of a good hotel gone bad from the craft work of 'ALH'
I would eat somewhere else and go arrive for the band
The hotel is was easy to find in North Adelaide along O'Connell Street where there is an accumulation of eating places with some street parking along O'Connell Street. We chose on street parking just around the corner with a short walk to the hotel.
On entering the Hotel through the narrow wooden doors we noted that this place has great charm, with an eclectic collection of 'stuff' hanging off the walls and ceiling, a great bar in the middle of the room, a great vibe in the air as the band was warming up, so there was a sense of positive things for the night.
As we were later than expected to arrive and wishing to join our friends we grabs a table close to the bar, had a look over the menu and selected items leaning toward the quicker things to prepare and cook.
So I choose the easiest .....a chicken parmigiana and my life partner choose a Grazing Plate.
Then the food came out and the positive sence for the night just went......
The chicken breast that was freshly crumbed on site (positive) and was deep fried to its enth of its life....then there was a smear of puréed tomato (not "Napoli Sauce" the traditional sauce to top a chicken parmigiana, not even something like a cooked tomato sauce with onion, garlic, basil....a bit of love.... a bit of attention... a bit of I give a "...") but just puréed tomato, probably just out of a can......may be freshly opened (I now feel special...!)
Topped with shredded ham, not ham that looks may be like ham, but the ham that is left over from the process of ham, reformed, then pressed with an accumulation of artificial everything and then shredded into a 'type of ham'.
Then this culinary delight (please note the sarcasm) topped with a shredded cheese. This product may have had the word 'mozzarella' printed on the packet...? But it did not melt, it just oozed over the crusty dried chicken breast, it was a flavourless and colorless example of something like cheese.
The chicken (who gave it's life for us the human to enjoy its essence, it's ora, to appreciate it's life) was placed into an oven to dry out even more, so the cheese could ooze, so the ham(...?) could be warmed up.
The salad was a standard, basic, simple (whatever is in your vocabulary) slices of cucumber (without the seeds, so the item will stay fresh..? for longer) wedges of tomato that should of stayed in the sun for longer to get something like some color and flavor, then this salad creation was topped with about ¼ of a sliced red onion. How much onion is just too much...? there is garnish, flavor, a bit of zing for the salad, and then there is ¼ of a red onion sitting on the salad. This salad was dressed with some type of dressing.
The chips were freshly cooked.
The Grazing Plate...Olives, sundried tomato strips, wedge of Australian styled Camembert cheese, Australian smoked salmon and Australian prosciutto, eggplant dip (Baba Ghanouj) and some pita bread wedges.
The olives were life less, flavourless standard styled olives needing some love and attention (marinating).
The sundried Tomato strips were from a packed come in dry, this is the cheapest form of preserved tomato (semi-dried or sun dried tomato) that you can obtain. Then the tomato was coated in dried rosemary leaves.....WTF! This made the sun dried tomato bitter and have little crunchy bits in it, no oil, vinegar, love and attention.
The eggplant dip was a buy in product; these products can be good, especially with the parameters of a small kitchen where time and labor is tight.
The amount of slices of the smoked salmon and prosciutto was the high light of this dish, but the rest as previously stated.
The band "Zkye & The Guyz" was fantastic and I would attend another night to see the band, but dine somewhere else.
