Review #6 - Elaia

Saturday December 15, 2007
Cos Salad at Elaia
Launceston, Tasmania

On the way to visit my step-sister Michelle in George Town, we met up with her in Launceston for lunch.

Unfortunately we didn't take any notes, but then we really didn't need to. We'd previously been noting things that were wrong with caesar salads, and with this one there just wasn't anything bad to say.

The salad was so good and so nice that it lost only half a point, and that was because of the pepper on it. Julianne was quite willing to give this one a perfect score if it came without pepper.

While there were no optional anchovies - only anchovy dressing - we can't mark it down for that.

Elaia's Cos Salad is easily the best caesar salad yet. Very highly recommended.

Score Summary

Taste:
Ingredients:
Presentation:
Service:
Value for Money:
Total:		9½/10

Review #5 - New Sydney Hotel

Wednesday November 28, 2007
Chicken Caesar Salad at the New Sydney Hotel
Hobart, Tasmania

Julianne and I went along to Big Laughs in the Little Pub at the New Sydney to see some local comedians strut their funny stuff.

We decided to get there early and have a meal before the show. Once again, I recorded the review (in a very dodgy Irish accent to mark the fact we were in an Irish pub) on Julianne's mobile phone. Here's a tasty exerpt of what was said on the night:

We're in the New Sydney Hotel. Julianne's just had a chicken caesar salad and it wasn't very good, and we're about to find out just exactly why.

We’re gonna start out with a mark out of 4 for taste. Now, the big problem we have with it is that the taste wasn’t a caesar salad taste because of the ingredients – we’ll get to the ingredients shortly. But, as far as taste goes, it did taste quite reasonable – it just wasn’t the right taste. So...because it just wasn’t the right taste...she can’t mark it up at all. So it’s 2½ out of 4 for the taste.

Moving on to the ingredients...the ingredients were all wrong. The sauce was completely wrong. It was wrong sauce. There was no egg at all...The lettuce was wrong...There was extra spinach that shouldn’t have been there...[The cheese] was mozzarella not parmesan, so it was the wrong cheese. Cor blimey, was there anything that was alright in this thing? The anchovies – how were the anchovies?...The anchovies was [sic] too small – she couldn’t find that. The bacon was good though wasn’t it?...OK – good bacon. Anything else good about it?...The chicken was good but it had weird spices on it so marked down for that...I’m thinkin’ here that the ingredients score is not going to be very high...[Julianne: ½ a point]...½ a point out of 3 for ingredients, oh my goodness. That’s for the bacon right, the ½ a point? OK.

Alright, so we’re currently sitting at 3 out of 7. It’s not looking good for the New Sydney here at all.

Next, we’re going on to presentation. The presentation from me looking at it – it looks very symmetrical. You had the four chicken pieces pointing in towards the middle there [if memory serves correctly, this was accompanied by hand gestures]. Presentation was good...1 out of 1 for presentation.

...Now we’ve got value for money...Good value for money. The cost of it was...[here I turned and looked at the menu board behind me]...$14.50, and quite a big bowl...so 1 out of 1 for that.

...What’s the last one? Service. Excellent service. 1 out of 1.

There we go – 6 out of 10 for the chicken caesar salad...no bonus point for croutons.

Score Summary

Taste:
Ingredients:
Presentation:
Service:
Value for Money:
Total:		6/10

Review #4 - Berwick Inn

Saturday November 4, 2007
Chicken Caesar Salad at the Berwick Inn
Berwick, Victoria

This time around Julianne and I were visiting her sister in Melbourne. We went to their local - the Berwick Inn - for dinner.

Once again, comments are minimal.

The bacon came in strips/rashers rather than the usual crispy diced pieces, and it was hard to cut in the bowl.

The anchovies on the other hand were sliced into small pieces and hard to find.

The chicken was on skewers and hard to eat.

The dressing was watery and tasteless.

To prevent this entry from devolving into one big negative review, there were positives. The lettuce and the egg were good, and it did taste pretty nice.

Score Summary

Taste:
Ingredients:
Presentation:
Service:
Value for Money:
Total:		7/10

Review #3 - C Bar

Wednesday November 14, 2007
Caesar salad at C Bar
Bellerive, Tasmania

Julianne and I were out with my soon-to-be step-brother-in-law Michal (he's marrying my step-sister Michelle this coming May) who was visiting Hobart for a few days.

The three of us went to C Bar at the Waterfront Hotel in Bellerive for a drink and a counter meal.

Unfortunately, the notes jotted down afterwards are relatively scant of details, but there really wasn't much to say about the caesar salad that Julianne had.

The dressing was completely tasteless, as was everything else except the prosciutto which was "brilliant".

She did have to mark the salad down on the ingredients score as there was prosciutto instead of bacon, but it was still an inspired choice. It's a pity she couldn't say the same for the rest of the salad.

Presentation was unremarkable, as was the service, so both scored only half a point.

As for value for money, there was hardly anything on the plate, and Julianne was still hungry afterwards. As a result, she has awarded her first 0.

Overall, a rather unimpressive effort, even for a counter meal.

Score Summary

Taste:
Ingredients:
Presentation:
Service:
Value for Money:
Total:		6/10

Review #2 - Liveat

Tuesday August 28, 2007 (and many many times since then)
Chicken caesar salad at Liveat
Hobart, Tasmania

Julianne and I meet for lunch at Liveat almost every Thursday. Julianne usually visits at least one other time each week. She always has the chicken caesar, and I usually do as well.

Liveat is a salad bar in the mall in Hobart. As such, it's not a fine dining experience. The salad is thrown together in seconds and shoved in a plastic container so it does score lower on presentation because of this. However, it is a take-away salad bar so the same expectations as a proper restaurant should not be applied.

Ingredient wise, chicken is an optional extra, though while it adds to the taste, it's debateable whether it's worth the extra two dollars. it comes in very thin slices of the sort you would have in a sandwich rather than a salad.

The egg is boiled, and sometimes they use iceberg lettuce instead of cos lettuce. There is no option for anchovies, and the dressing is more like mayonnaise.

Having said that, for what it is, it's very tasty. I can vouch for that as well.

As mentioned above, presentation isn't great, but you don't expect take-aways to look fantastic. The service, however, is excellent. The staff are all very friendly and most of them now know Julianne well enough to make her a chicken caesar (no croutons) without prompting.

As far as caesars go, this one is not supremely expensive but it is on the dearer side for a lunch - though with the loyalty card, Julianne gets one free salad out of every twelve. Bonus.

Overall, my vote is: yummy.

Score Summary

Taste:
Ingredients:
Presentation:
Service:
Value for Money:
Total:		7/10

Review #1 - Blue Skies

Saturday August 25, 2007
Caesar salad (entrée) at Blue Skies
Hobart, Tasmania

We kick off the reviews with a caesar from one of our favourite restaurants - Blue Skies, on the water front in Hobart.

The dinner was our six monthiversary from when we had our first date, so it was an auspicious occasion all around.

I will also preface the review by saying that as this was six months ago, and our first foray into the world of culinary reviews, not to mention the fact that this blog wasn't even conceived back then, the review may be a little light on. We hope to correct this with future reviews.

Anyway, after Julianne had finished her entrée caesar salad, I recorded the review on my mobile phone, and while I have the full transcript of the review, I'll just provide the pertinent points here.

Taste: Unfortunately, no comments were recorded for taste - only the score of 2½/4. We'll rectify that if we stop by Blue Skies for a caesar salad again.

Ingredients: The salad only achieved half marks (1½/3) for ingredients because it was unfortunately eggless. It was also marked down for unadvertised chicken and the wrong dressing. It did, however have anchovies which improved the taste. As you can tell, Julianne likes anchovies. I, on the other hand, can't stand the things.

Presentation, Service and Value for Money were all given 1/1. No issues with any of them.

I mentioned earlier that the salad was had as an entrée. Unfortunately it wasn't offered as a main course, but that did not detract from the overall impression.

Score Summary

Taste:
Ingredients:
Presentation:
Service:
Value for Money:
Total:		7/10

Scoring System

After deciding we needed a scoring system for the caesar salad reviews, we had an in-depth brain storm, and after much toing and froing we came up with the following somewhat arbitrary scoring system:

	Taste, being the most important factor will be given the biggest weight in the score. Taste will be scored out of 4.
	Ingredients are also important. If something is missing, or added inappropriately then expect a lower score. Ingredients will be scored out of 3.
	We believe a meal has to look appetising. Presentation will be scored out of 1.
	A meal can be great, but if the service sucks it detracts from the whole experience. Service will be scored out of 1.
	Good food is one thing, but we want it to be reasonably priced. Value for money will be scored out of 1.

Oh would you look at that - the maximum score is a convenient 10. It makes things nice and easy. We debated having a different total as it was initially difficult to fit the weighted scores we wanted into 10, but in the end we settled with what you see above.

Having said that, we have also allowed for the holy grail of gluten-free caesar salads:

1 bonus point will be given if ever gluten-free croutons are on offer.

The theoretical maximum is therefore 11. If a caesar salad achieves that score, then it will truly be the emperor of all salads.

Why Caesar Salads?

When your life is ruled by the limited food choices you can make, eating out can be a problem. Eating the wrong thing can result in certain unpleasant or damaging reactions in your body.

Julianne is ruled by such issues. She is gluten intolerant, lactose intolerant, and has nasty reactions to salicylates and amines. What are these things that have such a high disregard for Julianne's body?

Gluten is a composite of proteins found in grass-related grains such as wheat, rye and barley. Nearly all breads contain gluten.

Lactose is a sugar that occurs in milk.

Salicylates are radicals of salicylic acid, an organic acid that functions as a plant hormone. Salicylic acid is also used in the manufacture of aspirin.

Amine is a compound formed from ammonia.

Salicylates are found in high amounts in foods such as berries, most citrus fruits, pineapples, avocados, tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, and spinach.

Amines are found in high amounts in foods such as avocados, most citrus fruits, kiwi fruits, pineapples, raspberries, tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, bacon, oysters, pork, anchovies, and some fish.

Small amounts of these foods are OK for Julianne, or at least the effects are less extreme. For example, a caesar salad with a few anchovies and some bacon is generally OK if her amine and salicylate intake for the rest of the day is low, but any croutons at all will make her very sorry later.

What this all means is that the safest option on a menu is often the caesar salad. A traditional caesar salad consists of cos lettuce, croutons, parmesan cheese, egg (usually poached), and bacon pieces. Anchovies and chicken are common extras.

With the exception of croutons, the caesar salad is safe for Julianne. Some cafes and restaurants add their own little bits and pieces that make it somewhat dodgy, but most places are agreeable to modifying the ingredients. This usually comes down to simply not including croutons. If Julianne ever finds a caesar salad with gluten-free croutons, she's going to be one happy lass.

This blog was created with the intention of recording Julianne's impressions of the caesar salads of which she has partaken. The views expressed in the reviews are hers (and occasionally Jeremy's) and have no affiliation with anyone else.

Enjoy.