Tasmania – eating in Hobart

In Hobart (my Google map here.) I stayed at the Prince of Wales Hotel www.princeofwaleshotel.net.au in Battery Point. It was an unremarkable 3 star pub hotel but it had parking and was very well located for the excellent Salamanca Market www.salamancamarket.com.au (every Saturday).

The hotel was also just around the corner from Jackman & McRoss www.facebook.com (Battery Point location, there’s another in town), which is a great place for breakfast.

Tasmania is famous for its salmon so I definitely recommend any of their dishes that include it, like their Potato Rosti with Salmon, Avocado, Poached Egg and Horseradish Cream…

… or their Smoked Salmon, Pickled Onion and Cream Cheese on their own Housemade Bagel.

Being a bakery as well they have a good range of cakes and pastries. The Lamington Cake (traditional Australian cake square dipped in chocolate icing and sprinkled with desiccated coconut) was a new one on me so I had to give it a try (very nice).

In terms of eating out for lunch and dinner, my favourite dining experience was at MONA art museum which I’ve given its own post, coming next.

After that, I really appreciated the philosophy at Tom McHugo’s Hobart Hotel www.instagram.com/tmchugos, a vintage pub that’s a favourite hangout for many people working in Hobart’s hospitality industry.

The menu is very experimental and uses seasonal vegetables from local farms, and has an exciting list of local beers and wines.

I was intrigued to try the Haggis Bao, expecting a nice fluffy white steamed bun, so was slightly disappointed to get a deep-fried version that was a little dry. However it had good flavour and the sauce and chilli oil made up for the dryness.

Wanting to stick with Tassie wines I went for their 2022 ‘Future Perfect’ Pinot Noir from Kinvarra Vineyard in the Upper Derwent Valley which was good value.

For the main I had the Tasmanian Rumpsteak with Grilled Zucchini Puree, Jus, Treviso Radicchio, and a round of fries on the side. It was satisfying and much better value than my later steak experience at Frank below.

My next favourite place was Templo templo.com.au, a small 20-seater Italian-influenced restaurant off the beaten tourist track.

Although I didn’t have one (I was on a cocktail-free diet), anywhere that ages their own Negroni is alright by me.

Instead I began with a sparkling rose from Hughes & Hughes www.mewstonewines.com.au, another lovely Tasmanian wine.

Their pillowy Gnocco Fritto, a fried dough puff draped with prosciutto and shavings of cheese, was even lighter than the ones I had in the Po Valley in Emilia Romagna (my posts here and here).

Next a pleasant Beef Crudo with Anchovy.

It would have been great to have another local wine but instead we went with a wonderful Etna Bianco called Ante by I Custodi, which was my favourite wine of the night, and a personal favourite of the manageress from her visit to the volcanic wine region.

Although I love Stracciatella cheese (see my post on Andria), I found the peanuts to be a bit too overbearing in this dish, and the zucchini too chunky and raw. Stracciatella is perhaps best by itself with a flatbread. This was still okay though.

My favourite dish was the Mafaldine Nero with Prawn and Ndjua, a Neopolitan squid ink ribbon-shaped pasta with some lovely prawns and spreadable Calabrian chilli sausage.

I went back to Tasmania with the next wine called Two Tonne, but I can’t find out anything about it. I think I recall the manageress saying it was particular to their restaurant.

Anyway it went well with the Lamb Rump with Potato and Romesco Sauce. I thought the lamb might have come from Flinders Island but actually came from the north coast of Tasmania, and so was also salt-grass fed no doubt.

Then to finish, the Blueberries with ‘Curdy’ Ice Cream wasn’t particularly exciting but wasn’t too sweet a finish either, so just what I needed.

I didn’t have a dessert wine but was excited to finish with a shot of San Simone, a favourite amaro of mine from Turin which I hadn’t had for many years.

So a nice little spot I’d happily visit again, unlike this next place…

Frank frankrestaurant.com.au at Franklin Wharf near the harbour, is an Argentinian/Australian fusion restaurant, a genre which seem to be in vogue in Australia at the moment. I’d had a fantastic experience at Porteño www.porteno.com.au in Surry Hills in Sydney (my post here) and was hoping to repeat it. However, as my review shows below, this was sadly not to be.

For the record I had; a pisco sour (fine, but passion fruit ones are better), the grilled chorizo with chimichurri (very nice, the best thing I had), fried potatoes with chipotle vinegar, red onion and aioli (good) and the 300g
hanger steak with chimichurri and salsa picante (not worth the money I paid).

I only very occasionally write negative Google and Tripadvisor reviews, but this was one of those times…

“I had high hopes of this restaurant in Hobart harbour. Sadly it failed on many counts. I’ll list just three for brevity’s sake.

The service: they’re understaffed, and the stress levels are immediately apparent as soon as you enter, from the greeter to the server. Nobody has any time to spend with you, unlike Porteño, and most other good restaurants I’ve been to in Oz, where the servers will take time to build some rapport by having a chat. I wasn’t even offered any water and had to ask for it after my first course had arrived. The young inexperienced server went through the motions when made to, but her impatience was tangible. Getting her attention was hard as she seemed to have blinkers on and didn’t look around her tables, most likely due to the stress levels caused by being overworked by management. Towards the end of the meal, she asked me three times if I’d finished, when I clearly hadn’t.

The hanger steak: it arrived virtually cold, on a cold plate, as others have commented in other reviews. I appreciate steaks need to rest a while after being cooked but the kitchen needs to invest in a plate warmer, and cover the steak while it’s resting. Seasoning was also sub par. To their credit, they replaced it when I was asked if it was okay, but the substitute wasn’t much different.

The cutlery: in terms of shape, the steak knives are imitations of what you’d get in Argentina but they are serrated, rather than clean edged, so they tear the meat rather than slicing it, another complaint in the Google comments that hasn’t been acted on.

My conclusion from this is, don’t eat in the harbour area. Due to the location and the high rents involved, the owners are cutting their overheads by understaffing and cutting corners wherever they can. I could go on, but being negative really isn’t my thing, unless driven to it.

Hope the management will finally listen to the repeated criticisims from myelf and many others, but I think that’s very unlikely as they’re obviously all about the money and couldn’t give a fig about their customers.

Hope that you have a better experience than me :} Rx”

Anyway, that’s enough bile spilled. Lets go for a nice meal at MONA next…