I'm on a bit of a crusade preaching the virtues of pub dining rooms.
OK, the self-serve vegetables and salads usually have a depressing sameness about them: the veggies stew away in their Bain Marie and the salads can be somewhat uninspired, but even with these drawbacks there are two areas where a busy pub kitchen can beat your trendy little restaurant or cafe. This is in the quality of traditional main meal cooking, and in the quality of service.
A busy pub chef might knock out fifty steaks and half a dozen roast joints in an evening, and practice makes perfect. The staff in these places are usually full time, and have learnt the subtle art of anticipating the wants of diners, not to mention never returning to the kitchen empty handed, and wiping tables as you go.
With that preamble, I can say that my roast of the day in the packed dining room of the Seaton Hotel (lamb, $13.00 with unlimited bread and butter, vegetables and salads as mentioned) was probably as good as anyone's granny could manage. My partner's porterhouse steak was exceptionally good, a big slab of meat cooked exactly to requirements.
Some pub meals come with vegetables or salad from the kitchen, and these accompaniments usually arrive in better shape than the self-serve stuff is in.
You may also be sharing your dining space with a few noisy kids, too, rather than smart cafe diners like yourself, but in general, a busy pub offers quality and value. And beer from the tap, if that's your preference.
What they do, they consistently do very well, which is more than can be said for a small cafe on the chef's day off.
The Seaton delivers tasty, homestyle cooking, with that professional, unfussy service to boot. read more