Beer and Burger

Britannia Hotel Norwood
1 Kensington Rd Norwood 5067
Ph: (08) 8331 0411

It was a wet and miserable Friday in Adelaide. We found the closest pub to work that we hadn’t yet visited. It just happened to be the Britannia Hotel situated on Adelaide’s most famous and notorious Britannia Roundabout.

From the outside the Britannia is a nice looking pub, a traditional old school two storey hotel with the obligatory pokies and bistro added on when the new development was completed a few years ago. But the interior was far from upmarket; it was very sterile and the main dining area felt more like a dressy petrol station truck stop than a mid range pub bistro dining room.

We headed straight to the bar to look for a menu (I walked straight past the menu which was written on a blackboard on the wall close to the door) but as I got to the bar I saw a sign saying Chicken or Beef Schnitzel Parmigiana with a Pint of Cooper’s Pale for $12.90 - I no longer needed the menu and ordered the beef schnitta.

I took a seat on the only non-reserved double table so that we would have room for the four of us. This turned out to be a bad idea as it was quite close to the door - usedby lots of people and a resulting freezing draught. After a couple of minutes of this we decided to move away from the door onto a smaller table. The trouble being, it really wasn’t that much warmer. In fact, the whole room was very cold. The Nanas who had popped out of the Pokey Room for lunch were all rugged up in their big winter coats. I would have thought that management would have taken a hint and put some decent heating on … but no.

Onto the food … A basket of warm bread rolls was a nice touch and disappeared fast. Other orders for our table included a chicken burger and chicken schnitzel parmy. After a 20 minute wait and nearly finishing my slightly flat pale ale our meals arrived.

The schnitzel was relatively large and covered about half of the plate. There was also a small bowl of salad (does anyone eat the salad?) and a small pile of chips that were average and should have been cooked for a few minutes more; at least they were salty. The schnitzel itself wasn’t too bad, it wasn’t paper thin and had a good flavour to it. The toppings were a bit sparse and the cheese on top was a very cheap brand. In all, the meal was average, it wasn’t bad and it definitely wasn’t great - but the poor interior, the total lack of ambiance and temperature really killed it for me.

As for the other meals on the table, the chicken parmy got an average review and was said to be a bit dry and the chicken burger was a total bomb. The bun was as hard as a defrosted rock and very average. The person who ordered the chicken burger sent a message to the chef when the waitress picked up the plates “that was the worst burger I have ever eaten”.

I think it is unfortunate that pubs like the Britannia have spent a lot of money on upgrading their services and premises to service the pokies demographic instead of patrons looking for a quality outing. This was justified - the table next to us was 12 pensioners.

To summarize, you can give this one a miss unless your idea of a nice meal out is a packet of chips while you play the pokies.

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