Country Fare - The Townhouse bistro

Since yesterday was Australia Day, I thought I'd do a post on good ol' country fare. Outside pictures to come later. This is a picture of a typical bistro attached to a motel. Yes thats Richard trying to hide and become part of the furniture. The menu is basically written on the blackboard in some of these establishments and there was a large selection at this one, the Townhouse.

As I mentioned previously, country business change hands a lot. This particular motel/pub has changed hands 3 times and been refurbished twice in the 4 years that I've lived here. So meals have ranged from good to pretty ordinary. Its extremely hard to pick if a place will be good or bad in this town (with the exception of Neila, a gourmet restaurant in a class of its own, which has consistently won many awards yearly and has put Cowra on the map in the dining scene. You need to keep your ear to the ground and hear what friends recommend is the 'in' bistro at the moment and you in turn give feedback to them. Most of the dining with the exception of 2 chinese restaurants and a roast chicken and salad shop is in the pub bistros. Motels here are called "hotels" when they have a license to sell liquor. (It only took me 11 years of living here and a bachelor's degree to find this out.) Don't expect the Ritz Carlton by any means, most of these are your average 2-3 star motels. The pub area ranges from seedy and 60s looking to the slightly modern.

We had these first two dishes for dinner 3 weeks ago. This is the "fillet mignon"($19.95) dish listed under the steaks section. It is a large eye fillet topped with bacon, musroom and onion suace, served with a choice of vegetables or chips and salad. It was a large steak, done medium rare quite nicely and quite tender. The sauce was a bit rich for my liking and the veggies were a bit overdone. We had come here before the change of ownership a few months ago and the food was a bit less tired looking.

Richard had this dish, the "tropicana chicken" ($17.95) which was a chicken schnitzel topped with pineapple, bacon and cheese. He chose the option of chips and salad. The pineapple was actually quite burnt and the taste carried through to the cheese and bacon. Again the salad is better than your average lettuce and tomato salad but also a bit tired and dry.

Wanting to give our old favourite place another chance, we came back for lunch a few days later. We both had caesar salads, Richard's was chicken ($11.95)
Mine was calamari ($12.95). It was interesting having something else with a caesar salad other than prawn or chicken. However, the sauce was quite sweet and rich and hence the fried calamari rings only added to the heavyness. Richard described the chicken as "like a whole chicken chopped up, cartilage, bones and all." Sadly, unless someone tells us otherwise, we probably won't be back again here (since we're moving and all).

So here in a nutshell is basic, everyday country fare, mostly steaks and schintzel sometimes pasta with a variation of different sauces , some topped with seafood. Mostly meat and potatoes! I might do another post at another place if I get the chance, probably on a cafe since that is the standard lunchtime food. Stay tuned ...