Pub of the Week: Dorset Gardens Hotel, Croydon
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Dorset Gardens Hotel
335 Dorset Rd, Croydon
Phone: 9725 6211
30 November, 2024
And so to the final pub for 2024, and it’s out to Croydon for one of the legendary big “barns” of Melbourne; the Dorset Gardens.
Everything is big out here; the expansive car park on the corner of Mount Dandenong/Dorset Roads, into the thoroughly large in/exteriors of dining room, sports bar and beer garden.
Massive bingo hall to the rear still echoes to the sounds of legs 11, Ron Barassi 31.
A place where pub rock reigned back into the 70s/80s, where it would be The Angels one week, Chisels the next, then the Oils; now it is the tribute bands keeping alive the sounds of their antecedents in the Dorset’s nightclub. The legend Issy Dye is performing here on 18 December.
Everything offered in any pubs, such as meal deals, trivia, pool/poker comps, happy hours ($6.50/schooeys $5/housies – which is a new abbreviation of House Wine) is here on a larger scale.
Pokies: Yes
TAB: Yes
The kicker here at the Dorset Gardens is the team pulls it off very well, seven days a week, 9am-5am. Like many of the bigger suburban pubs, a real effort is made here to shrug the belief…..’they only care about pokies’ insofar as its food and drink offers are concerned.
Sports bar and bistro are the two areas to dine; latter is bright and airy with table service on tap. A trip to the past is re-lived where the basket of fresh rolls and fiddly butter sachets are there in number to supplement the meals. (No one keeping tally on how many!!).
The menu offers abundant choice. Tapas (not sure it’s applied properly). Starters number 14 including mozzarella and pine nut arancini (three for $12.90) with a rocket, olives and fennel salad, or wild mushroom and asparagus ‘Vou-le-vant’ at $15.90 filled with mushrooms, onion, garlic, herbs, cream, cheese, rocket, tomato and parmesan.
A massive plus is the sensible approach to oysters: six pacific @ $18.90, and you choose from three styles (Natural, Kilpatrick, Mornay).
The grill offers three steaks, lamb rump, pork loin chop, all fully plated. The numerous choice rolls on with pub classics, seafood, pasta, risotto.
Finally a couple of specials completes the picture with a very audacious plate of lobster risotto, onion, garlic, olive oil, herbs, white wine, tomato, peas, parmesan ($49.90). Be my guest.
Highlights: Satay chicken skewer (3 for $14.90) with orange, fennel, onion and rocket salad. Good char and flavour on the chicken sticks, little salad worked well.
Sticky pork ribs, bourbon BBQ sauce, chips and salad ($32.90). Big, big flavours, meat falling from bone, good dish, forever a pub fave.
Carlton United Brewery products dominate the taps and are presented properly with the glasses being cared for, and the tank beer fresh and of clean taste. Carlton Draught was $6.50, good shopping by any measure in 2024.
The wine list is fairly priced and some different producers are represented such as Tahbilk, Four Sisters, Trellis and Vine. Per glass is $10-12 (about right), highlighted by Little Yering Chardonnay ($12 per glass/$48 per bottle).
A number of wines per bottle fell into the $40-48 range, a rare occurrence in pubs nowadays.
The Dorset Gardens is a good pub. The young staff genuinely make an effort to extend the welcome mat and it is obvious they all get on together.
As slow as it is, all pubs that are big and have pokies have lifted their games in food and bev with a couple charging ahead.
The Dorset Gardens is one such.
SCORE: 13.7