What's on the menu that makes Hard Rock Cafe worth visiting for its food?

If you're looking for good old American fare with huge portions at reasonable prices, just head down to Hard Rock Café (HRC) for a hearty meal.

Once you enter the door, you can't help but be distracted by the attractive HRC souvenir gifts selling at the entrance. Of course, the memorabilia by rock stars that decorate the place is also an interesting attraction. And the resident band Jive Talking still draws a good party crowd every night. Stripped off all these, what's on the menu that makes HRC worth visiting for its food?

Armed with a few recommendations, we started with the Homemade HRC Nachos, that is not surprisingly, a huge American serving of fresh corn tortillas with melted cheddar cheese, pinto beans and sour cream served with homemade salsa. We would have liked more melted cheese as well as a spicier salsa. But we also figured that not everyone would be able to stomach spicier salsa which may explain this mild version.

The Caesar Salad was a hit with us and we felt that it was one of the best Caesar salads that we've ever tried. The homemade Caesar dressing was the star in this dish --light and yet giving an added taste to the tossed Romaine lettuce. The grilled and tender chicken breast slices were a perfect complement as they added more bite to the greens.

As the main dishes were served, we were overwhelmed by the huge portions. So, if you're not a big eater, you may like to share your order with someone else.

Contrary to what we heard that HRC doesn't serve good steaks, the Ribeye steak that we ordered was good. Maybe we had a good cut that day with a fair amount of fat that made the steak succulent and chewy to the bite. The price of $25.00 for a 10oz steak was also value-for-money. Don't skip the onion rings that accompanied the steak-- fresh and juicy.

 

 

The Pork Ribs were a little disappointing. Though the meat was quite tender, they were a little too dry with an overwhelming taste of the barbecued gravy. The popular Fajitas was served with a tasty chicken accompaniment but we found the skins of the fajitas a little too thick for our liking.

 

 

 

 

The bacon cheeseburger was a perennial favourite and we voted it one of the best burgers in town. A 1/3 pound burger served with melted cheese and crisp bacon. The first bite was juicy-with the fat in the beef patty and the bacon! A word of caution-eat it straightaway when served as the patty is cooked to a medium. If you take too long to eat it, it may taste a bit drier as the patty would have turned medium well by then.

 

No visit to HRC would be complete without ending your meal with the decadently sinful brownie served with haagen daz ice cream. It was simply rich and sweet. But, we also discovered an alternative lighter dessert --the apple tart. Freshly sliced apples on a thin layer of puff pastry and served with ice cream -- light, crispy, not so sweet, and the apples added a slightly sourish taste. We would recommend this to end your meal here if you prefer something lighter to the brownie.