Overall:
My friends and I visited this old favourite of ours on Saturday, 15th March, 2008.
We'd dined at this restaurant when they were originally located at Eighth Ave, Maylands and we knew how good their hearty, simple meals were previously, so we thought we'd try their new location at Beaufort Street, Mount Lawley.
We were pleasantly surprised to see that the restaurant was near full at 7.30pm and was spacious, ambient and well decorated; a much more professional restaurant now than when it's previous existence as an affordable, family-friendly, homestyle cafe at the Maylands location.
The warm, friendly, Polish-accented greeting and professional service-style of the immaculately groomed staff who seated is something you don't see much at restaurants these days.
Although we were a large group of 9, they catered for us by giving us a private 'function' room setting at the very far end of the restaurant, conveniently close to the toilets but not distracted by other guests' visits.
Our table was laid out in crisp, white linen, although the main dining area was neatly laid out in small to larger tables dressed in burgundy.
Corkage is $3.00 per bottle, but worth it when you consider the benefit of choosing your own selection of wines.
Polish food at this restaurant is unpretentious, typically European and very simple, composed mainly of stews, schnitzels, dumplings and baked meats. Don't expect to see any fancy items, game, poor-taste garnishes, or exotic 'fusions' - this is what Poles actually eat at home.
The menu is simple and bilingual, in Polish/English with a brief description of the dish. Prices range from very low, hearty, homestyle cooking through to pricier slow-baked meats, like my delicious pork (bacon) hock, boiled then roasted simply and served with a cooked sauerkraut, waxy, tasty, yellow-flesh potatoes with a choice of either horseradish or European mustard.
The meals were served almost simultaneously after a short waiting time and later, collected simultaneously again after a comfortable time had passed by the two polite female staff.
The surprising thing was that all the dishes were returned practically scraped clean of every edible morsel of food and gravy!
We were then tempted to examine their inexpensive dessert menu, which featured Polish-style cakes, a rather expensive-but-delicious ice-cream selection, a home-made baked cheesecake (which is a rarity today), a 'babka' (some of you Jerry Seinfeld fans may remember this Polish sponge-cake from an episode of "Seinfeld") and the menu also features an unusual 'honey cake' slab that looked not unlike an unbaked modern cheesecake; but to die for!
We decided to divide the bill individually for our meals, but the total, corkage of 4 bottles of wine and 2 starters of dark rye bread slices with a bacon and crackling, pork-dripping dip, as well as coffee was $220.00 for 9 of us; so you do the mathematics!
We have now officially added Rembrandt Restaurant as one of our regular Dinner Club establishments to frequent.
I hope you will enjoy your dining experience as much as we did ours!