Beer and Burger

Grumpy’s Pizza and Brewhaus
15 mins up the South Eastern freeway from Adelaide,
just take the Hahndorf freeway exit and turn left toward VERDUN, then pull into the driveway
Phone: (08) 8188 1133
Email: info@grumpys.com.au
Web: www.grumpys.com.au

Grumpy’s has been around for years, but it’s only been the last year or so that I have actually been there.

Located just off the freeway out of Adelaide on the Hahndorf turn off, Grumpy’s (don’t be scared off by the name, everyone there is very nice) is known for it’s gourmet pizzas and it’s micro brewery.

The wife and I met our friends there for lunch on a warm Sunday afternoon. We were politely greeted and sat outside on the balcony. The menu is pretty straight forward. There are some starters and then on the first page is the standard pizzas and on the other side more pizzas but with slightly more expensive toppings. There is also steak, pasta and fish available.

My mate and I decided to split a chicken and bacon pizza (or the Funky Chicken as it’s called) and a meat pizza. The wives split a large Indian style tandoori chicken one (sorry can’t remember its fancy name).
Drinks wise it was home made pilsners and pale ale for the boys and white wine for the ladies. The beer was pretty good, it just has that slight not so fizzy micro brew taste to it though. Didn’t stop me having 3 beers.

The mains arrived after about half an hour or so. I’ve had the funky chicken pizza several times before and once again it didn’t disappoint. The marinated chicken is so

tender and full of flavour and the best place for it is in your mouth!

The meat pizza was also very good. Plenty of fresh local meat combining with cheese and herbs in the big wood oven made this disappear fast. In fact we were still hungry. We should have ordered the large ones. Luckily our small stomached wives left us both a piece of the tandoori pizza. Although a little cold by the time we got to finish it off it was still great with more tender marinated chicken and yoghurt.

Over all Grumpy’s is great place to get some of Adelaide’s best tasting gourmet wood oven pizzas. Great for a lazy day with friends (and the beer isn’t too bad either).

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Belgian Beer Cafe-Oostende
27 -29 Ebenezer Pl Adelaide 5000
Ph: (08) 8359 3400
http://www.oostende.com.au/

One of the guys from my work goes on about the mussels at the Belgian Beer Cafe. He just loves them. So we took him there to keep him quiet for a few weeks.
I figured there was no point in reviewing the mussels as obviously if you’re into mussels, this is the place to be. So I opted for the budget special on the menu which was the Bratty ‘n’ Beer.

For just $12.90 you get yourself a schooner of Stella (perfectly poured of course) and a Bratty (German Sausage) in a roll with onions, special sauce, side of chips and a heap of greens. I think most of your money goes towards the beer as that is about $6 by itself.

The Beer was good, damn good, and so it should be – after all you’re in a beer cafe!
The meals didn’t take too long to come out – about 15 minutes or so. The chips were good, very crisp; in fact the outer crisp layer of the chips was very thick indeed, almost verging on too thick. The bratty was pretty much a hotdog but without the hotdog meat. The main thing was that the bratty tasted good and gives you that feeling of a back yard BBQ meal. It’s a good spicy sausage and it filled me up pretty quickly.

The other guys ordered the soup, the mussels, the meat balls and a cone of chips. All of decent quality and enjoyed by all.

The Belgian Beer Cafe, just off Rundle Street, is a great place for a quality imported beer. Of course, you do pay a premium for such a service. For most of the beers you won’t be seeing too much change from a ten dollar note, but they are not your usual beers, so treat yourself. The meals can range from bargain (Bratty ‘n’ Beer) to quite expensive with the mussels at over $20.

Overall the Belgian Beer Cafe delivers quality and service and a great spot for lunch. Just don’t get stuck there all afternoon drinking unless you have lots of cash to burn or are using the company credit card.

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Hampstead Hotel
143 North East Road, Collinswood 5081 SA
PH: (08) 8344 7200

I’ve had this review sitting in my file since December. I was hoping that my memories of this below average meal would fade so as to write a fair review, but unfortunately for the Hampstead they have not.

We arrived at the Hampstead on a Thursday lunch time before Christmas for our work luncheon. The place was pretty full, but had the feel of Pensioner Day as we looked around. The room was very noisy and we sat next to the water features in the front windows that also made it very hard to hear the person next to you.
$39 a head (prepaid) each was the cost for our lunch – so we were expecting a decent meal.
It took them at about 20 minutes to start taking everyone’s choices.
From the set menu I selected the prawns for entree, the porterhouse steak for mains and the friendly waiter allowed me to change my dessert to my childhood favourite, ice cream with chocolate topping. Of course, once I changed mine suddenly half of my table wanted ice cream!
Beer wise, they had pints of Pale Ale on special for $4 so I grabbed one of those. It took them over 20 minutes more before any food started coming out, by then I was well into my second beer. The food was bread rolls for the table, not the entrees.
Another 10 minutes or so later and my prawns arrived; not straight from the ocean but they were okay.
20 minutes or so later my steak arrived. I had asked for it to be medium. Of course, it was not medium, but closer to well done. The steak came with what seemed like one of last week’s roast potatoes. It was so over cooked and dried out, it was inedible. The steak wasn’t much better. In fact it was the worst steak I have ever eaten; it was completely tasteless. I only ate about half of it – as did many of the others on my table.
About half an hour later my ice cream arrived. It was cheap bulk buy ice cream but it was okay so I ate it.

Now remember, this was just my experience and opinion of this place. You may have been there before and had a good meal; but I found the Hampstead to be well below average. The time it took to get served and the time between courses was much too slow. The meal quality for the price we paid was awful. Of the 40 or so of us that went, every person I spoke to about the meal was very disappointed.

Overall that meal was enough to make sure I never go back and our work Christmas Lunch will definitely be elsewhere this year.
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Earl Of Leicester Hotel
85 Leicester St
Parkside SA 5063

Finally after all this time I’ve got around to reviewing the famous Earl of Leicester Schnitzel. It was Josh’s 30th birthday so we thought it appropriate to go and eat something large and tasty. We arrived at about 12:15pm on a Thursday. There were quite a few people around, but the place wasn’t full. We pushed a couple of tables together in the front bar and grabbed some menus. I already knew what I was getting: the Monica Lewinsky – Goes down well, large size (liar size) – Beef Parmy and Chips ($15.90). For a beer I grabbed the special which was a South African beer by the name of Windhoek Lager ($6). Quite a nice drop.

We then took a seat in the Liars Bar, enjoyed our beers and waited.
After about 25 minutes a few of us were starting to get impatient. On looking around the bar no one had any food at all. The staff must have arrived late. About 10 minutes later and half way through my second beer (a 333 from Saigon – nice but $7.50 though!) our meals started to come out.

On arrival I was glad to see that they have given up trying to feed people the big schnitzel with a bowl of salad. They still keep the piece of garlic bread though which is hard to resist and is so tasty. Now the secret to finishing one of these big schnitzels is not to get suckered into the bread or the chips until you’ve finished the meat. As I was reviewing though I did have to taste both. The schnitzels here are so big that on first viewing you would never have known that there were even chips on the plate.

The chips are pretty much just filler and can easily be ignored. They are of course underneath the schnitzel as there is nowhere else for them to fit on the plate. We all know what happens to chips under schnitzels – yep! they go soggy. This is fine if you don’t mind a soggy chip but otherwise give them a miss and get to the reason you came to this pub – the schnitzel.
The schnitzels here are pretty much up there with the best you will get in Adelaide. They are large width wise and thickness wise have a great tasting batter; and most importantly they are tender. The topping is grilled to perfection and there’s always enough to go around. In the end I had more topping than meat left which isn’t a bad of a situation to be in.

The other guys around the table tried different things. There was the grilled fish and chips which I was told was very good. There was the steak, which was also very good and cooked to perfection. The other schnitzel eaters, of course loved theirs.

The Earl of Leicester offers all round great food in the front bar that is definitely worth the wait. They have a huge range of international bottled beers and a large range on tap. Some of the bottled beers are not very cheap, but the meal value more than makes up for it.

Overall the Leicester is a great place to grab a quality pub meal and is a big schnitzel specialist.

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