Tea Tree Gully Hotel - Review

Head north of Grand Junction Rd in Adelaide and you run a big risk! The risk of attending a Tavern or a generic franchised cafe! This fate would perhaps render you useless for the remainder of the week until you recover in hospital and your personal possessions are eventually returned to you. I am always pleased to frequent venues with a better reputation than their glossy franchised cousins. The Tea Tree Gully Hotel is a unique venue as it has a monster footprint but provides less of a cafe culture and more of a hotel that knows its place. Seated on timber benches surrounded by the greenery under the cover of a massive atrium; this beer garden is possibly as large as The Edinburgh in Mitcham which takes the cake for gardens of beer. The beer selection is standard Lion Nathan fizzy amber water including their under the radar “Craft” beer James Squire’s. There are so many places to order food it is unlikely that there are actually that many kitchens, but there seems to be a kitchen for the beer garden which is a positive. The food is very standard Hotel ‘grub’ with very little fanfare or fluff – I don’t mind a pub who is not ashamed of who they are. So unashamed are they that there is no salad to fill out your catering porcelain, nifty hey?! So if you wanted rabbit food you would order a Caesar or a Garden thingy. The Steaks are char grilled and have the genuine flavour although need to be rested a further ten minutes before serving. The Schnitzels are good enough for a personally clogged artery or a leap in blood pressure! The ale battered flathead was fresh and crispy batter made it a pleasure, The Seafood basket was crumbed within an inch of its life and looked suspiciously like it came from a packet – avoid this at all cost! The ‘Homemade’ tartare sauce mentioned throughout the menu is clearly not homemade, unless your home is a food processing plant responsible for tonnes of gelatinous muck! The Tea Tree Gully Hotel does have a tendency to get extremely busy however we were treated to a leisurely afternoon in peace which was only broken by the gleeful screams of toddlers. Clearly this venue has a friendly family attitude. With some small changes to The Gully things could really move in a healthy direction, but for the time being they will continue to service the community with deep fried food and char grilled meat. Just remember that you need to order a side salad to feed your fluffy bunny!
Giles