Adega
Appleton’s Centre
Corner Malibongwe and Hill streets in Randburg
Tel:011 791 5221
Ratings:
Food:*
Drinks:* *
Service:* *
The sales pitch boasts: “Adega restaurants are upmarket Portuguese restaurants offering an upmarket fine dining experience”, but while that may have been true back in the day, there appears to be little that’s Portuguese, upmarket or fine dining, about the brand any longer – in particular, the Appleton’s Centre franchise in Randburg .
This past weekend’s craving for prawns and chicken got us in the mood for Portuguese, but our favourite spot in the south doesn’t operate on Sundays so we decided to try one of the Adegas – after all, you can’t go too wrong, can you?
Apparently, you can.
To start, the menu is confusing: bound in a magazine format, it comes full of advertising which doesn’t have any bearing on their offering. So, while there are ads for Stella Artois beer and Bos iced tea, the drinks aren’t available in the restaurant.
We probably should have left when the carafe of Spier chardonnay arrived with a slice of lemon in the wine glass, or when the stodgy, inedible sweetish bread – baked in-house, they really shouldn’t – was presented to us.
This was followed by our starter, which must amount to the polony of chouriço sausage (R65) – cheap, processed and nasty tasting. It had the texture of a lumpy, dry vienna.
The main course was only marginally better – the full “LM-style” marinated spring chicken (R129) was mild and juicy but when my partner cut the meat close to the bone, it was still pink and raw. This came with an unhealthy side of oily chips, a deliciously fiery peri-peri, and artificial-tasting lemon and garlic “butters” – not unlike the margarine-based sauces commonly served in Ocean Baskets.
The “prawns nacional” (R155), apparently cooked in cream, bay leaves, garlic, Portuguese spices and a “hint” of beer, were also not a hit.
Insipid and overcooked, the sauce was overly thickened and doused in too much cream.
The restaurant’s saving grace seems to be the Sunday buffet lunch (R175) which is a substantial spread including sushi, rissoles and stews (in this weather); and the good-natured waiters who do their best in a trying situation, which includes a non-functional air-conditioning system with two domestic-use evaporative coolers deployed to do the job, and a manager more interested in her cellphone than greeting guests or managing the floor. Adega has seen better days.
We hadn’t eaten in one of their restaurants in a number of years and while we didn’t hold strong views about them previously, we also didn’t recall the experience to be quite so dire.
And their “returns” policy leaves much to be desired. We sent our horrendous polony chouriço back but the waiter looked quite stunned by this.
When the bill came, we were still charged for it.
The sullen manager begrudgingly refunded us and probably returned to her device, not giving the poor food and unhappy annoyances of her customers a second thought.