Located 18 minutes south east of Adelaide, the holdfast hotel or ‘the holdy’ as it is known is an upscale restaurant even though it calls itself a pub. You are first greeted with a spacious area that shows you class and a familiar feel that is comfortable. The holdy is also located a few minutes away from the beach such as The Broadway that provides a relaxed atmosphere. Anyway, none of this matters as we are here for one thing, the schnitty.
The price of the schnitty is on the cheaper side with a total cost of $20 and no additional costs for the gravy which is a bonus. Why should gravy cost additional $$ I will never know. The schnitty is served with coleslaw salad rather than garden salad which is a first, a fair heaping of chips compared to most places and a larger sized schnitty so you won’t be feeling hungry afterwards. The gravy was also piping hot and had that kick that is always a bonus to every schnitty dish.
Onto the schnitty. It was the worse one yet, plain and simple. My ratings is that a 5 on the scale is something I can make to similar quality, however when you go out you expect food of better quality. Firstly, but was an obvious issue was that you only had butter knifes to cut with. Secondly, the schnitty was quite chewy in all parts and lacked any significant flavour or uniquness about the schnitty. The schnitty was obviously locally sourced from the closest butcher and they sure did butcher the poor schnitty. It gets worse as the batter was oily, not crunch and was not that enjoyable all round. I did finish the schnitty, but it’s no something I would agree to eat again. On the positive note, Jake who has chicken schnittys said his was pretty good so we would recommend a chicken schnitty instead. After a long absence a large heaping of chips on the plate finally occurred. They were crunchy, delicious and were an priority over the schnitty. No real kicker about the chips, but I would just happy to wash down the schnitty with anything else. The redeeming feature which seems to be case recently is the gravy, it was hot, had an amazing amount of flavour, but due to the size of the schnitty, a little more gravy would be been better.
The service was, well I did get I’D when i asked my scotch even though I have a beard and clearly look older than 18, but besides that the schnitty arrived within a short period of time (Roughly 10 minutes). The servers were professional and did check up on us to see how our food was which is something I do like as it shows care to their patrons. The atmopshere had the same issue as ‘The Avoca’ that it was quite noisy and did find it difficult hearing the others at times and both places have the worse schnitty’s so that might be a key indication if the schnitty will be terrible again.
Overall, a pretty bland experience, no care and I did not enjoy my time here. I may go for their theme nights but not for the food. However, the chicken schnitty is a recommendation from Jake
Ratings:
- Schnitty 2/10
- Chips 7/10
- Gravy 9.5/10
- Service 8/10
- Atmosphere 5/10
Total: 31.5/50
Schnitty Ranking 8/10
The Schnitty boys of Adelaide 