Restaurant Review: Royal Standard Hotel

Location: 333 William Street, West Melbourne
Phone: (03) 9328 2295

Link: www.royalstandardhotel.com.au

Cuisine: Gastropub food

Overall Impression: 5/10

There is nothing royal about the food at The Royal Standard Hotel. At best it is passable, run of the mill pub fare. That said, perhaps that is exactly what it seeks to achieve and does.

As you will see from the pictures below, there is a theme that runs through every main course's plating technique. I would suggest that the the technique executed is one of 'piling up'. This technique is achieved by simply piling up one component of a dish on top of another to form the highest peak possible.  

Pork Chop served on a bed of creamy mash, spinach & apple cider sauce $24

The pork was dry. It was difficult to taste anything else apart from the generous serve of the mash that swam in the sea of cream. The apple cider sauce tasted like cream with little chunks of apple in it.

Veal Limone – tender medallions in a creamy lemon sauce. Served on a creamy mash with sautéed baby spinach $22

The veal was unfortunately tough. Sinew-riden and insipid, it was disappointing. The creamy lemon sauce tasted familiar. Almost like the aforementioned apple cider sauce, except this time, the bits of apple had been omitted and a bit of lemon juice had been added in its place.

Grain fed Porterhouse Steak with mushroom sauce, wedges & salad $26

The grain fed porterhouse steak was very good. For the purposes of this exercise, let us ignore the overly generous amounts of mushroom sauce that tasted like it came out of a packet, and concentrate on the steak. The steak itself was juicy and tender. There was obviously good marbling throughout the steak and it had very good flavour. Although it was not the best tasting beef I have had, I would dare say it is one of the better porterhouse steaks I have tried at any pub. The wedges were also very nice. Beautifully crisp on the outside and deliciously soft on the inside.

Lattice Apple Pie $7
For $7, it was very fair.

Although our dining experience this time was hardly encouraging, the thing about this pub is that the service is impeccable. The waiter who attended to us was attentive and friendly without being intrusive. The food came out promptly and the lay out was such that the tables were well spread out. It had a very casual and relaxed ambience and parking was not a problem even though we were there on a Friday night. Moreover, for what we received (especially in terms of portion sizes), the prices were very much justified. All in all, I would come back for the porterhouse steak but perhaps request for the mushroom sauce on the side.