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Mount Erica Hotel

Where: 420 High St, Prahran

Phone: 9529 8250

Internet: www.mountericahotel.com.au

SCORE: 14.8/20

OCTOBER 3

VENUE: The Mount Erica has always enjoyed a solid reputation but since a last visit some seven years ago, this current iteration is low flying.

The pub has been decluttered in front bar, (farewell SST for the races, but still plenty of sport shown), and the vast, well appointed dining room ranks with one of the best (on a larger scale), very Australian in look and feel, replete with table service.

The pub perfectly fits the left hand side of the brain telling the right you want to be here.

The menus, both food and drink, are smart, punchy, different, but never straying from the pulse of what makes a great pub, something that the Mt Erica has strode successfully over the journey.

Tab: No
Pokies: No

Start with the smaller dishes; house Sausage rolls, (4/$17), tahini yoghurt, four thickly cut wagon wheel slices of spiced meat in light sesame seed pastry, kingfish crudo w/ gochujang dressing and coriander or gin cured salmon gravalax w/ creme fraiche, dill and rye croutons, both priced mid $20s.

All great shares to consider.

Off to the mains; anything but join the dots, e.g, rotisserie chicken w/ kipfler potatoes, garden salad and mushroom sauce (34/half//55 full), or pork scotch w/ cider braised cabbage, fennel puree, green beans and prune (interesting mix!). Yes there’s a burger, and a very special snitty to consider.

Special during the week, is their famous steak night, $25, 250g sirloin, salad, chips, bearnaise, Tuesday nights and ranks amongst Melbourne’s most popular.

Fine tap beer, Carlton D at $7/pot, with independent friends, small wine list, e.g, Mac Forbes Chardonnay ($17/pg,) and everything is set for a great experience.

HIGHLIGHT/S:

Main. Roast of the day, beef sirloin, $30. For starters, to get this beef, big slices, moist, tender, with a bit of blush was no mean feat: to then pair it with roast potatoes, carrot, cauliflower puree, broccoli, and a deep, tasty gravy completed this. Right price, right roast.

Something Different to Eat: Chicken schnitzel w/bocconcini, lemon and cabbage slaw ($32). The snitty looks fabulous, but not seen it topped with multiple blobs bocconcini. A fabulous clean slaw atop, this perennial favourite served differently and it works.

Surcharges: Cards, 1.2 per cent; 15 per cent public holidays.

Summary: A genuine stayer of the inner east, this version of the Mt Erica is the best I can remember.

The front bar (minus TAB) is still old school and popular, the dining room is now rightsized, comfortable and communal and the beer garden ranks with the best around Melbourne.

Then there is the ‘offer with a difference’ which stands one pub apart from its brethren and here it is six oysters, glass of fizz for $22 M-F, 4-6pm.

I recall this being offered by one of Melbourne’s finest pub chefs/owner, Sean Donovan, at the station hotel in Footscray, circa 2008.

Each night, dust covered hi-vis workers from nearby would descend around four and lap it up: Proof nothing’s too good for the working class!!

Another fine example of a pub (and its workers), at the top of its game. Mt. Erica has stood the test of time.