Beer and Burger

Hackney Hotel
95 Hackney Rd Hackney 5069
Ph: 8362 9282

The Hackney is another on Adelaide’s long list of recently renovated pubs. We arrived just before 12 on a Friday lunch time and were greeted by one of the extremely friendly staff. We traveled through the bistro / restaurant area, past the pokies and into the front bar.
It seems that the Hackney has spent most of its renovation money on LCD and plasma screens because at the bar area there was one every 2 metres. I guess they want you to be able to see every channel at once. Would hate to miss any TV while we are out socialising. Anyway, I like technology so its nothing to complain about (except maybe the setup of the TVs set for normal 4:3 TV and not 16:9 widescreen).
Onto the menu. The front bar has its own small menu or you can order anything off of the main bistro menu. Of course the front bar menu is a fair bit cheaper. Most of the options are under $10 which is pretty good value. I went for the beef schnitzel parmy, $9.90 + $3 extra for the topping. For beer I had the current special which was $4 pints of Coopers Pale Ale.
I pulled up a stool at one of the tables and took a sip of my beer. One of the best tasting Pale’s I’d had for a while; very impressed.
Coming out of the speakers near us was the Sky Channel horse racing commentary. It was very loud and a little annoying but one of the friendly staff turned it down for us which was great. They also put the cricket on for us on about half of the dozen TV’s (slight exaggeration) around the place (just to make sure we could see it).

About 15 minutes or so later the meals began to arrive. They staggered out over the next few minutes which was ok.
Firstly as usual, I removed the salad from my plate (if anyone wants a hand setting up Pub-salad-reviews.com let me know). Next I had to remove all the chips off of my plate (via my stomach) as the schnitzel was resting on them and you just can’t cut the schnitzel when its on the chips (it also makes the chips underneath soggy). One day pub chefs will realise that they need bigger plates so the schnitzel doesn’t have to share its place on the plate.
Moving on, the chips were good, nicely salted and generally crisp enough except for the under schnitzel ones.
Once my potato friends had left I got into the centre piece. The parmy was very well cheesed; in fact in some parts the cheese was thicker than the meat. The schnitzel was basically a standard pub delivery schnitzel not made on the premises. The meat was quite thin the whole way through and the crumbing had no flavour. It wasn’t bad by any means, it just wasn’t fantastic.

From the other guys reviews of their food I was thinking maybe I had ordered the wrong meal. One of the guys who had the chicken schnitzel was pretty pleased with it… “4 out of 5″ he said. Maybe the chicken schnitzels come from a different factory?
The beef burgers were pleasing all around with one comment being floated that it was only second to the great burgers of the Argentinian Bar and Grill. That statement is enough for me to come back and test it out for myself. The fish and chips were rated as good and enjoyable and the squid was given the thumbs up but could have been bigger.
Another guy also had a beef schnitzel and agreed that it was nothing fantastic.

Overall the renovation at the Hackney looks pretty good. The bar staff are extremely pleasant, there is a good atmosphere, plenty of TV to watch, great beer and some decent food. I’ll be back to test out the burger for myself shortly.

Rating: