The Emerald Hotel

Location: 415 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne
Link: theemeraldhotel.com.au
Cuisine: Modern Australian
Company: BD Tax team

Located within walking distance from Albert Park, the Emerald Hotel very much had your usual pub-like atmosphere. We were seated in the courtyard, where they had set up two long tables for us. Being a cold rainy day, I would have much appreciated being seated indoors, but what can you do with Melbourne weather?

We had our own set menu:


For entree, I chose the calamari:

Which was rather crisp, and the salad was fresh. Unfortunately, there was not enough flavouring in the calamari. Had they added a decent amount of salt & pepper, the dish would have been better off as salt & pepper calamari.

Since it was a Christmas function, I opted for the turkey breast as main course:

After tasting it, I regretted not choosing the fish. The dish was pretty much a game of stacks-on, with some turkey breast, a piece of honey ham and stuffing, with the roasted vegetables scattered around the mound of food. The vegies themselves were quite sweet and tender, and the cranberry sauce was strong and sweet. The turkey breast was the let down. There wasn't enough sauce to flavour the turkey, which was dry and a little tough. I've had better tasting turkey breast from the deli section at Safeway!

Still hungry as I didn't finish eating the turkey, I ordered the chocolate torte for dessert.

Beautiful and very very rich indeed! The ice-cream balanced the richness of the torte and ganache very well, and the freshness of berry coulis added just a slight fruity taste too.

Overall Impression: 6/10