Beer and Burger

The Astor
437 Pulteney St
Adelaide 5000
Ph: (08) 8223 2442
www.theastor.com.au

I keep thinking that we are starting to run out of pubs to visit, but then I look at how few we have done so far and realise that I’m being stupid. In any Australian capital city, there are hundreds, and so we continue our journey.
Today The Astor is our target. I’d heard of it, driven past it many times, but I had never made a visit.
We arrived at about 12:30pm right in the middle of Friday’s lunch rush. It’s a testing time for a pubs kitchen so it was going to be interesting to see if the Astor staff were up to the challenge.
The Astor’s menu is split into 2 halves and gives you a choice of a $10 meal or a $14 meal. Both sides offer similar options. But of course the $14 side offers the better choices and I’d hope larger choices?
I ordered the Astor Beef burger which happened to be on the $14 side.
Most of the other guys ordered Large pints of Becks, but as I prefer to keep my lunch tab under $20 I went for the current bar special of a bottle of Heineken for $5.

The Astor was pretty much full so we grabbed one of the few remaining tables outside. It was a little cool outside and the traffic was annoyingly loud, but it was still ok.
After about 40 minutes of waiting and seeing people who came after us served their meals, our meals finally arrived. I wasn’t too impressed at this stage, but then i tried a chip. I’m not sure if it was the fact I was cold and hungry or if this was just a damn fine chip. I had another, and another. Yep, these chips were awesome. They were hot, nicely salted, cooked in good oil, crisp, not too thick, not to thin… I think they were just about perfect. In fact as I sat there enjoying these chips I was afraid to even touch my burger. I didn’t want anything to ruin this moment.
Ok so I’ve waffled on about the chips a fair bit, maybe I just got lucky with them… But what was the burger like?
Well the burger was damn fine its self! It had great flavour with the bacon, egg, cheese, onion and tomato chutney. The meat was very good with a decent amount of flavour. The only let down was that it got a bit soft and mushy in the very centre though.

The others on my table that had burgers also gave it a high rating. One of my mates ordered the $10 T-bone steak. It came with mushroom sauce and mashed potato. He described it as average and a bit fatty, but good value. Another guy ordered the chicken schnitzel and extra chips. He didn’t get through either of them due to the size but enjoyed the meal!

Overall the Astor was a hard one to pick. They kept us waiting out in the cold for over 40 minutes for our meal, but when it did arrive it was very very good. The beer was good, and the with the option of the $10 meals the value was there. I definitely think I’ll be back, I just hope they don’t keep me waiting so long next time.

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