Showing posts with label Review - Hippo Creek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Review - Hippo Creek. Show all posts

Monday, July 28, 2008

Hippo Creek - Review

The first of what I hope will be a long list of food reviews!

Hippo Creek African Grill, 251 West Coast Hwy, Scarborough

I'll get the bad stuff out of the way first, as it is quite minor - and only one is food-related.
1. The menu had spelling and grammar mistakes. I'm not aware that ' cidar' is an acceptable variant spelling of ' cider'. Happy to be corrected on this one, but as you can check to see how it is spelt on the bottle, I think this one is just dumb. Also whoever wrote out the menu hasn't been told about or chooses to ignore the " read it out loud to yourself before you hit print/sent/copy" rule. I'm going to start carrying my camera with me so I can put up photos when I see stuff like this, because if you told me that someone had printed what was on the menu, I'd think you were lying, because who is that stupid? Anyway.
2. Chicken liver was overcooked and still sinewy. But kudos for having it on the menu, as not enough places use chicken liver. Also I would have thought that Peri-Peri should have been less creamy, and I'm going to insert my usual ' not hot enough' complaint. I'll put up a disclaimer about this however as I tend to like food really hot.

Good stuff!
1. This place is a steak house. You can get lots of meat. There's one or two chicken dishes on the menu but they are clearly not the point, and I like that. A person who says no to meat says no to life. A good place to go for steak! I had mine rare (and could have had it blue) and it was good. Being a food purist though, if I ran this restaurant I wouldn't let people order a well done steak as my mother did. yuck.
2. Best mixed grill ever was the call from Daniel (better half) and it looked really good. Chops are your friend.
3. The restaurant is small but they haven't jammed the tables in, so it's not too loud. However given that you have to book six weeks in advance, this no-crowding thing may be why they are moving to a 270-seater in Hillarys. Barren cultural wasteland that Hillarys is, I hope they keep the same menu and chef and don' turn it into one of the overpriced blah-fest eateries out there.
4. Service - it was actually ok, and way above Perth's norm. We had a waiter who was clearly in his section and following the sequence of service.

Things I would add/ change:
Better wine and beer list - the list is a bit dire and brand-centred, and very little is available by the glass. I'd like to see more South African wine, but I do understand probably no one would order it but me. They also used to have interesting African beers like Tusker on the list but don't anymore.

Overall - 8/10.