Charlie’s Place and Groupon Experience

This will be a long post. It consists of two parts – my experience with the restaurant and groupon. A few weeks ago, a representative from Groupon Australia  contacted me for collaboration with local bloggers. I was more than happy to interact with them because Groupon has got good reputations among all the group-buying sites. I’ve registered with them for ages but never bought anything from the site. In terms of the platform of the website, it is very easy to use with both registrations and login process. For most of the time, the speed for the site is pretty fast with almost no down times. Another thing I like Groupon is their interface and categories, which grouped all the deals into local deals, travel deals and so on. This has created such convenience for customers to use.

Anyway, it took me several weeks to decide which deal to purchase. This is mainly because of the arrival of my parents-in-law as well as the fact that I was busy with my other projects. Anyway,  I finally purchased a deal at Charlie’s Place for 2 burgers, chips and drinks for $18 and proceeded to  the eating stage on Saturday before heading to Semaphore Greek Festival.

Charlie’s Place is located in Adelaide’s famous Central Market Plaza between the market and Chinatown food court. It is a popular choice among locals, especially old people to relax for lunch as well as afternoon tea. The restaurant fits into a relaxed and customer friendly atmosphere. Most of the service persons were Asian students with sound understanding of the menu.

When we arrived there around 11 am, the place has already been jam packed with people and there was hardly any tables. Fortunate enough, we were able to squeeze in cos we made a reservation. I was greeted with one of the Asian girls who explained our deal with friendly attitude. However, that’s the only word she had with me. Anyway, at this type of eateries, I should not expect professional standard service, should I? While there, I had a browse of other menu items as well as their gelato on offer.

I’ll leave the value of the deal to the last to discuss. For the two burgers, we ordered their Charlie’s Burger and Chicken Schnitzel Burger with iced coffee and banana milkshake for drinks.

 

Charlie’s Burger with beef patties, bacon, fried egg, salad and their secret sauce. The beef was succulent, moist and tasty. The bacon was crispy and salty. The egg was well cooked and the salad was crisp. The sauce was a bit in between of sweet and sour. Every  components of the burger was good but the whole outcome was just okay as no special taste was emphasized in the burger. Anyway, it is our normal standard burger for lunch with no faultiness as well as no standing out features.

 

 The drink I had was the banana milkshake and it was good for a cold drink with strong banana flavour.

 

 

The chicken schnitzel burger with salad and sauce. The portion of the burger was big and the chicken schnitzel was well fried. The meat was crunchy, tender and juicy. However, the salad and the sauce tasted the same as the previous burger. Indeed, this burger again fell into the category of ordinary burger, ie a burger with good taste but nothing special.

 

The drink to accompany this was the iced coffee with creamy. It was sooooooo cool and should make a good company with the food on a warm day.

 

The chips for both of the burgers were crunchy, hot and tasty but be warned that you need to add your own salt to the chips.

 

Now, let’s talk about the value of this deal. The deal is $18 but the two burgers on their own, according to the original price on menu, cost about $18 in total. Is this simple? Yes, you can do the maths yourself.  Basically, for this deal, you get a free drink with a burger order. Although the buyers of this deal are not getting a huge reduction in price, but at least they get some free drinks, unlike some deals on other group buying sites which the buyers actually pay more for the deal than the actual value.

Then, the next question is whether I will return to this place. I say Yes for casual lunches at this stage but next time while I am there, I’ll order full priced dishes and taste their flavours. In addition, I recommend you to check Groupon Australia out to dig out some good deals to enjoy!

Food: 2.5/5
Service: 3/5
Value: 3/5
Ambience: 3/5

Total: 11.5/20

 

Charlie’s Place

Shop 53, Central Market Plaza

Adelaide SA 5000

 

P 08 8231 4697