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Press, 29 August 1984, Page 43

(By

HANS PETROVIC)

A welcome addition has Sing up on Riccarton’s ted lunchtime scene: the Birdcage storefront restaurant in the new Straven Road development, just off Riccarton Road. Julie Adams, one half of the successful Leinster House partnership, has expanded her interests into the new lunchtime restaurant, and brought with her an assistant chef from Merivale, Robin Quinn, as the chef in charge. The Birdcage works on the same simple principle as many of the city area’s lunch places, offering a counter service of a variety of top class soups, pates, quiches and salads. On what turned out to be rather longer than the usual

The Birdcage 23 Straven Road Riccarton Phone 487-387 8.Y.0.

one-hour lunch break, my friend and I started off with the soups (both $2.20). My friend ordered the cream of pumpkin, which he declared the nicest he had tasted. On enquiring about the Soup Du Barry, the chef, Robin, explained to me that it was cauliflower, and complimented me on being brave enough to order it without knowing what I was going to get It also was lovely. A variety of biscuits and bread — plus plenty of butter, if you are not backward in gong forward to replenish your supplies — is available with the pates, of which we tried the seafood ($2.40) and pork ($2.50). We found the seafood pate a little too salty, but together finished off the pork in very quick time.

By the time we got to the main dishes, the day’s spaghetti had run out, and I settled for the roast pork salad ($4.90), while my friend had the Quiche Lorraine ($2.40). He enjoyed the heated quiche, which he approvingly reckoned to be a thicker slice than the usual offering. I found the pork salad, with two hard slices of meat and a little crackling, somewhat uninteresting and small, particularly considering the price.

Robin later proudly told us that he has a continuously changing menu, and does the baking of cakes and bread himself. The other beverages available were cocoa and marshmallow, pots of tea ($1.20), apple and orange juice, and tomato juice (90c). The various items ordered can be taken to the table by the customer, or brought by one of the waitresses or Robin, and are paid for individually at the time. Our total reckoning, for almost two hours of eating, came to $26.60. This is far more than most people would ever expect to spend during a shorter lunch, and I believe it would cost them much less than $lO for a filling meal.

Other main courses included baked potato and salad ($2.40), steak and kidney pie ($225); a bowl of salad cost $1.50, and 60c for garlic bread. With all the dishes, we kept coming a steady flow of unadulterated boysenberry juice (90c a glass). As usual in such places, the presentation of the desserts always looks very tempting. In this case, four cakes were offered: Black Forest gateau, tropical banana cake, carrot cake and apple strudel (all $2.30). My friend ordered the banana cake, which he ate with obvious enjoyment; I found the strudel somewhat a The accompanying perted coffee cost 90c.