The Daniel O'Connell Hotel

The Dan O’Connell, 4 February 2012 – 2.30pm

I could probably not conceive of a more fitting way to kick off a pub crawl than with a burger.  Protein, carbs and some token veg for the liver – perfect!

After doing the necessary reconnaissance through the Dan O’Connell website

I was bemused to find a laminated item lying about the heavily lacquered front bar describing completely different meals.  Today, when writing this review I now realise I was in fact looking at the wrong website!  Nevertheless, the menu stipulated ‘Dan’s Beef Burger’ was still there, albeit with some minor changes to the get-up, so I placed my order with the publican.

The Venue, Staff & Service

My recollections of this place are pretty good given the limited number of times I’ve visited.  The front bar has a genuine smack-you-in-t

he-face irish-ness about it – that is, stingy lighting with lots of wood.  One could genuinely be excused for feeling confused when they step back out the front door onto the streets of North Adelaide instead of Dublin.

The Dan is also home to Peppertree Restaurant (no doubt named in honour of the 160 year old heritage listed Peppertree that shadows the courtyard out the back).

The grey haired fellow behind the front bar was perfectly suited to his position. In fact he is probably what gave the place that extra Irish essence.  He was there to pull beers and he seemed to me decidedly happy about it.  After placing my order it arrived without a fuss and in a short period of time.

The Burger

Meat Patty

She be a big’un.  I couldn’t really fault this one apart from the somewhat major inconvenience of trying to eat it.  It kind of teased me in the way it was tasty and juicy but made me work hard to eat it.  It was simply too high.  This was mirrored by the fact that you ran out of patty before the rest of the burger was consumed.  If it were a fraction flatter with a bigger circumference, this would have worked wonders.  Your typical additions garnished the interior of the patty with no particular flavours overtaking any other.  It had good taste and as mentioned, just on the juicy side of the scale but definitely not ‘greasy’.

Fillings & Roll

Half way through, I found myself somewhat confused.  I recalled to myself as indicated by the menu that I was promised ‘caramelized onions’ in my burger.  Much to my disappointment I concluded these promised onions were clearly absent. At this point I’m not sure whether what was clearly some sliced onion sautéed in a tin of poorly seasoned diced tomatoes was their version of caramelized onions, but it seems they elected to use these in place of the former.  This onion/tomato combo was something I’d probably expect to find dressing some bangers and mash rather than profusely dripping out the back of my burger.

Positively, the bacon was there doing its job well, as was a well cooked egg, some beetroot and some plain lettuce.

Another thing that grabbed my attention was the gravity defying cheese (pictured).  It doesn’t take a burger scientist to figure out what went on here, but it did add a good chuckle to the table conversation.

Unfortunately the roll was less than fresh and I could probably guess it was either a Woollies or Coles procurement.

Sides

Beer Battered Chips.  I’m not sure much more can be said to glorify the awesome that you are currently imaging.  Let me clarify.  The concept, as amazing as it sounds, it truly is.  There’s a little squirt of ‘off the shelf’ tomato sauce for your dipping pleasure too, which is cool.  I would normally expect to pay anywhere up to $2.50 for the benefit of sauce anywhere else.

Value

At $16.00 for the burger and chips and sauce, you’ve got a pretty winning budget here.  It was a good size meal, I got through the burger but unfortunately had to leave some of the amazing chips.

Overall/Summary

We sat out the front of the pub and ate today.  The thing I will remember most (through no fault of the pub’s) was the absolutely disgusting smell that floated past every 10 minutes or so.  We were politely informed by a nearby homeless man that there was a busted sewer somewhere in the vicinity which placed somewhat of a big dampener on the day.  In any event, for $16 bucks it’s a fair decent meal, but the onion and tinned tomato thing was simply not cool.  It was entirely under-seasoned and entirely wrong for the burger in general.  I suspect with the proper caramelised onions, a fresh roll and a slightly more conveniently sized patty, this would have scored much, much better.

5.2

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