The Red Hen

www.theredhen.com.au

One Sunday evening I met L after work in West End, and we ventured down to check out the stretch of restaurants located on Hardgrave Road. Amongst these are quite a few Vietnamese places, including Trang which we really want to eat at, the Tibetan Kitchen and the Red Hen which we settled on. 
Even though it was very early, it was oddly empty, there was one other table that was eating when we got there, however they left soon after, leaving us as the restaurants sole patrons! This made me a bit nervous about the food to come, however we were very surprised to be on the recieving end of some extremely delicious good Italian food. Apologies for the darkness of the photos to follow, the restaurant is not well lit.

To start we shared bruschetta done two ways ($10); L had a piece with mushrooms and provolone whilst my piece of bread was covered in crushed chickpeas, tomato, red onion and basil. They were simple flavours and whilst I found mine a little plain, L really liked his which was very cheesy and generous with the mushrooms. 

 L ordered the fish of the day ($26.50) which was salmon with a potato crust, served with brussel sprouts, carmelised onion and capsicum. The salmon was moist and the potato on top added a nice texture. Brussel sprouts aren't my favourite vegetable, but lots of people love them, including L. We noticed that Red Hen's menu seemed full of vegetables in most meals, something I liked.

My veal scaloppine ($28) came with pickled garlic, asparagus and cherry tomatoes. I could have had two serves, the veal was so moist, the sauce was amazing and I LOVED the pickled garlic, I am pretty sure there was at least 10 cloves on my plate which may make your eyes water however they were a burst of juicy flavour in your mouth, I would love a jar of them. 

After this we couldn't resist ordering dessert (both $10). L had to wait 15 minutes for his chocolate budino with vanilla bean icecream (as stated on the menu), but it was worth it. When cut into, gooey warm chocolate oozed out over the plate. There needed to be more icecream though!
My baked pear with marsala and mascapone was extremely sweet and I had to actually drain my spoon of the marsala sauce so as not to overwhelm myself, but was perfectly cooked and amazing with the thick vanilla mascarpone.

The Red Hen serves up well priced, extremely good Italian food. We would love to try their pastas out, and they have a great looking breakfast menu as well. Hopefully next time we visit, there will be more patrons as it is a shame the restaurant was not packed out with people enjoying the good food!

Love,
C