Attempt #173 - 'Schnitz'

[info]When? - 27th of February, 2014

Where? -Everywhere (but we went to the Brunswick one)

Price? - Parma, Chips & Salad - $16.90

Website? - http://schnitz.com.au/

Reviewers –  Kylie, Lee, Nikki, Shanan, Stefo [/info]

If you haven't heard of Schnitz you must have been living under a rock for the past 12 months, although any longer and nobody would blame you (and I don't mean to be offensive, I hear interior designers are doing amazing things with rocks these days. Damn cosy). Seemingly overnight these places have popped up everywhere, I remember seeing the one on Elizabeth St and the one at Doncaster Shopping center - but looking at the Schnitz website there are now 19 locations around victoria, with another 5 'coming soon', It's hard to swing a cat without hitting a Schnitz.

However, if it has been cosy under that rock and you haven't seen a Schnitz store, I'd say the best way to describe it would be similar to "Nando's", but for schnitzels. Very similar decor and they share the same "Half dine in/half fast-food" style.

We chose the store on Sydney Road in Brunswick, mostly because it has just opened and was the easiest one for us to get to - but I think, due to the fast food nature of the business, that it's safe to assume that the quality of this parma will speak for all of the locations.

We arrived at the very busy restaurant and managed to secure a spot in front of the counter where I snapped this photo of the menu...

As you can see its a very pure schnitzel-oriented menu with only a small section set aside for the parmas (bottom right hand side, "meals and parmas" if you missed it. There is one parma in the wrap/roll section called the "parmageddon" which I thought was an odd choice - why offer a spicy mexicana style parma wrap and not a standard? Seems like a missed opportunity.

If you can't make out the parma part of the menu due to my spectacular photography skills, here is a close up I snagged from the website -

Quite a few options, which is nice to see. Not everyone likes a salad with their parma so its good form to offer it cheaper without. Not pictured was also a list of 7 different flavours of chip dip, for an extra $1 a piece.

We placed our orders and returned to the table. Everyone got a parma, chips & salad - but a couple opted for the Coleslaw in place of garden salad - Purist that I am, I stayed with the garden salad.

I won't lie - It hurt that I couldn't get a beer with my parma. In the four years we've been doing this I don't think I've ever had a parma without an accompanying cold one. I swallowed my pain as I cracked the bottle of Pepsi.

After about 6 or 7 minutes the parmas started arriving (although the last of the five didn't come out for another 10 minutes after the first one did)...

Ohhh no. The schnitzel was tiny. They tried to cover it by putting the chips on top and using an oversized bowl for the salad, but it was tiny - no bigger than a CD in circumference. I cut it open and was relieved to see pure, white chicken breast. It was thin, it was small, but at least it was real chicken.

This aerial view really highlights the size of the thing

The toppings were pretty disappointing. There was a lot of cheese and plenty of napoli but it was all as bland as a pair of beige curtains. No ham, no spices, just nothingness.

Now, one thing I heard time and time again about Schnitz - "You've got to try the chips". If I heard it once I heard it a thousand times. The chips at Schnitz are the bomb - or so they say... And I've got to admit, they were right.

Beautifully cooked, plenty of them and coated in the most succulent seasoning mixtures I've tasted - Like a mixture of chicken salt and the stuff McDonalds used to give you for their "shaker fries", not to mention its well worth shelling out the extra $1 for some chip dip to just finish off the experience - although to be honest, they're good enough that they stand up on their own, without the need for additional dippage.

I was pleasantly surprised with the salad. Maybe because I had low expectations for a fast food place, but the cucumbers, lettuce, onion and cherry tomatoes all remained crisp. It wasn't fantastic, but it was better than what I was expecting, and the option to swap it out for coleslaw is a nice touch as well.

Would I pay $16.90 again for what I got a Schnitz? Probably not. The parma was just too small to warrant the price - That's not to say I wouldn't go back for a bowl of chips - That I could definitely recommend, and with the amount of Schnitz's now in Victoria I can't imagine you'd have to travel far to find them, wherever you live.

I was disappointed with this parma. I figured a place called Schnitz would sell a good Schnitz - The foundation for a good parma, but unfortunately it just came off bland, small and unloved - I'm not sure why I expected more from a fast food place. Definitely go back for the chips though, they were outstanding.

Sorry guys...

[pros]

• Outstanding chips
• Choice of sides & sauces

[/pros][cons]

• Small, bland & boring parma

[/cons]

Parma - 3.20

Chips - 7.60

Salad - 4.60

Value - 5.70

Total - 4.86

The search continues...

Attempt #172 - 'Yacht Club Hotel'

[info]When? - 20th of February, 2014

Where? - 207 Nelson Pl, Williamstown

Price? - $22 with a $15 Monday special

Website? - http://yachtclubhotel.com.au/

Reviewers –  Cale, Lee, Nikki, Stefo,  [/info]

Every time we attempt to go to a pub in Williamstown we end up going somewhere else. I don't know what it is but pubs in Willy seem to book out well in advance, so if you do feel like checking this place out be sure to book ahead.

We intended for this week's review to be at The Stag's Head, also in Williamstown, but when I called to book a table was told that there were none available at a decent time. Luckily for us this is Williamstown, where there are almost more pubs than there are people. I quickly called around and managed to secure a spot at the Yacht Club Hotel.

I arrived at the Yacht Club not really knowing what to expect, as it was a last minute booking I didn't have a chance to do my usual pre-meal recon. We arrived at the pub and took our seats up front.

This pub is deceptively big. We sat in the front area and I thought that was pretty much it, but the room really opens up down the other end, fitting in a dance floor, stage, side lounge room and raised back area with two pool tables.

We grabbed the menu and ordered some cheesy garlic bread while we waited for the group to turn up as we were rather famished, While looking at the menu we spied our target, and something caught my eye...

Bad. Boy. Chips.

We have come across Bad Boy Chips once before, at The Mail Exchange Hotel on the corner of Bourke & Spencer St in the CBD. They rated a 9, one of the highest scores we have ever given a chip on Parma Daze - needless to say, my pants got a little tighter.

A little research into "Bad Boy Chips" delivers this info - They are a product of Edgell, and (as far as I can tell) only available to business in the food service industry, not individuals. Below is a grab from the Simplot Foodservice website -

The description there says it all really. They're amazing. Without hesitation we ordered our parmas and waited.

The cheesy garlic bread arrived, not much on presentation but definitely hit the spot. It was garlicy, it was cheesy, it was ... bread-y. Everything you could want from cheesy garlic bread.

About half a pint later our meals arrived. The first thing that hit me ... They aren't Bad Boy Chips. But more on that later.

The Schnitzel looked a little small on the plate - until I noticed its thickness. This would have to be, without doubt, one of the thickest bits of chicken breast we have come across. Scroll down a little and check out the cross-section, I put a fork in there to give it some perspective. A solid inch of chicken breast, not counting the toppings. It was conservatively crumbed and well cooked. Slightly dry in parts but thats a minor complaint. As far as schnitzels go this one was quality.

They weren't at all tight with the toppings, which was necessary with a parma of this thickness. The cheese was golden brown, the napoli was chunky and made its presence known. The slice of ham was appreciated, albeit a little lost amongst the other flavours - but a slice of ham is never a bad thing. Maybe if they had used smoked ham instead it would have had a bit more bite, but I'm not complaining, this was a quality bit of bird.

Now. The chips. On any other parma I would have praised these chips. Sure they were standard pub chips but they were well cooked, well seasoned and there were plenty of them. A tick in every box really. However we were promised Bad Boy chips - and Bad Boy chips these were not. The chips were good, and we tried to score them as best we could on their own merits - but the promise of Bad Boys left a sour taste in my mouth and the chip score definitely took a hit because of it.

I don't often say this when it comes to garden salad, but the salad was a delight. It was so chock-full of ingredients there's no way I could fault it for being boring. There was more cucumber in it than there was lettuce. Heaps of onion, and the pile of tomato I left on the plate (I'm not a raw tomato fan) could have been a salad in itself. Perfectly dressed, bursting with flavour - one of the better garden salads we've had.

For $22 I can't really complain about what we received. If I were in Williamstown I'd happily go back to the Yacht Club Hotel for their parma. The specials board listed a $15 parma night with a few novelty options, so that would definitely be worth checking out if you were in the area.

All up this was a pretty great parma that I'd have no problems recommending. If we had've been served the promised Bad Boy Chips it would have wound up much further up the ladder.

Do me a favour, if you find yourself at The Yacht Club Hotel, get a parma - I'm keen to see if the Bad Boy Chips actually exist. Shoot me a message or post something on our Facebook, Twitter or Instagram with your thoughts, I'll happily amend this review if I can confirm the Bad Boys exist.

[pros]

• Thick chicken breast
• Salad overflowing with ingredients
• There's a possibility you will get Bad Boy Chips

[/pros][cons]

• A little dry at times
• Was promised Bad Boy Chips. No Bad Boy Chips were delivered.

[/cons]

Parma - 7.38

Chips - 6.38

Salad - 7.63

Value - 7.00

Total - 7.15

The search continues...

Attempt #171 - 'Duke of Edinburgh Hotel'

[info]When? - 13th of February, 2014

Where? - 430 Sydney Road, Brunswick

Price? - Between $10 and $15 on Thursday nights, $21 regular menu

Website? - http://www.dukeofedinburghhotel.com.au/

Reviewers –  Cale, Carly, Lee, Nikki, Shanan, Stefo,  [/info]

I said a couple of weeks ago that I hate reviewing parma nights, Its too hard to get an accurate judge on what the parmas are like on the regular menu when you're getting a discounted (and probably different) version.

But guess what! Last night we visited The Duke of Edinburgh, which has a (surprise, surprise) Thursday parma night. But what the hell. Variety is the spice of life, lets do this.

Those who live in the Brunswick area would probably know the Duke of Edinburgh as "Zagame's", the pokies/TAB venue it was a few months ago. Well it has recently changed hands and looks to be attempting to get back to its classic pub roots. I can't quite attest as to what the pub will look like in a few months, as there was massive renovation work underway when we arrived - however the pokies and sports bar area is currently untouched.

We pulled up a chair in the (currently mid-construction) dining area and found the menu - now on Thursday nights The Duke runs a parma night offering a variety of novelty topping options...

Not a bad selection, and at rock bottom prices it'd be hard to go wrong. Among the group we all picked a different parma, with a couple of us (including myself) went with the original as a baseline.

After a 30 minute wait (and a damn fine garlic pizza for entree) the parmas arrived - I tried to grab a pic of them all, some are better quality than others, but this is a run down of what we received ...

The Aussie -

The Hawaiian -

The Original -

The Mushroom (with added pineapple, on request) -

The Mexican -

The moment the parmas hit the table I was hit with immediate food envy. The novelties looked quite good, but the original just looked plain. I picked up the cutlery and tucked in.

It was ... Okay. The schnitzel had a decent thickness in parts but was fairly processed, but for a processed bird it was pretty decent quality (EDIT: Since posting this review staff of the Duke have contacted me and assured that the chicken breasts are not processed - you can check out the comment at the bottom of this review), there wasn't an overdose of crumbs and carried plenty of moisture.

The toppings on the original were a bit 'meh' No ham, very little napoli, but the cheese was fine. I'm not gonna lie - The original was boring as hell. For the price (ten bucks) its hard to complain, even though the last cheap parma we had was $9.90 and much better than this one. It wasn't bad, it just didn't do anything special. It was adequate - not exceptional.

But then a weird thing happened - all the novelty getters around the table were giving positive feedback. They really seemed to enjoy it, and, as I said earlier, they looked damn good. Especially the Aussie and the Mexican, I was very tempted to get another one just to check it out, but was feeling quite full at this point.

The chips were surprisingly good. Beer battered, well seasoned and just the right amount of crunch. My only complaint is that I wish there were more of them! not many on the plate at all, a shame as they were probably the part of the dish I enjoyed the most.

The salad was bad. No bones about it, a complete afterthought. The salad on my plate consisted of a pile of undressed lettuce leaves and a single tomato wedge - I heard reports of cucumber on some of the other plates, but without visual proof I put that down to myth, like bigfoot or the chupacabras.

For $10 its hard to complain, but I'm still gonna. A parma shouldn't rely on novelty toppings to be good - this is the major reason I really don't like novelty parmas. Restaurants use them as a crutch to prop up a poor bird. But when all is said and done it only cost me ten bucks and I walked away with a full stomach. If I were in the area on a Thursday ... actually no, I wouldn't go back. There are so many better options on Sydney Road I'd probably check one of those out. I'll rephrase. If I was forced to go back to The Duke on a Thursday I wouldn't mind terribly shelling out $12 to give one of the novelty parmas a go. I can't vouch for what the parma is like on a regular night, but if I was served what I got last night for $21 I would not be a happy camper.

All up the Duke's parma is one that really needs the extra toppings. If you are a fan of novelty parmas this is definitely one to check out (and the price isn't offensive) Thats the best recommendation I can give it. Avoid the Original, but stick to the Novelties - The Aussie in particular looked damn good.

[pros]

• Quality chips
• Cheap on Thursday
• Good selection of Novelty parmas

[/pros][cons]

• Original is bland
• Awful salad
• Uses novelty toppings to cover up sub-par bird

[/cons]

Parma - 6.33

Chips - 7.00

Salad - 3.33

Value - 8.42

Total - 6.28

The search continues...

Attempt #170 - 'Honey'

When? - 6th of February, 2014

Where? - 345 Clarendon St, South Melbourne

Price? - $20

Website? - http://honeybar.com.au/

Reviewers –  Em, Lee, Matt, Nikki, Shanan, Stefo, Tony

Clarendon street is an area we have kind've neglected when it comes to parma reviews in Melbourne - The list of places I want to try along the busy South Melbourne street is as long as my arm (The Limerick, The Golden Gate and The Clarendon to name a few) and expanding to a few of the quieter back streets makes it even longer.

I had heard many good things about Honey, It has been suggested to us many times and I've even spied a few instagram photos that looked downright scrumptious - I was in the mood for a good parma this week so we loaded up the parma bus and headed to Clarendon Street.

The pub's aesthetic is instantly impressive. Polished concrete floors, clean lines and funky decor. I wouldn't call it a "cosy" pub, as the entire interior is basically exposed grey concrete, but I liked it none the less. Pubs with this look can tend to come off as rather soulless, but Honey manages to pull it off quite well.

There are a couple of food specials available at Honey but none on the Thursday night that we attended - Instead it was "2 for 1 cocktail night" at the bar, with a menu of 8 cocktails, normally running between $16 and $19 a piece - I'm surprised the pub wasn't busier as this is an outstanding value deal. We partook in quite a few of the cocktail selection and they were all made with the utmost care and skill. The "John Dorian" appletini (named after JD from Scrubs) was particularly delicious.

But cocktails weren't what we were there for! It was time to get some chicken into us. We checked the menu, spied the bird, and placed our orders.

I have absolutely failed this year when it comes to timing how long it took for the parmas to arrive. I had a master plan when 2014 kicked off to stopwatch each pub from the moment we ordered to the time the parma hit the table - but I've only managed to set the timer once this year. It was about 25 minutes after ordering that our seven parmas arrived...

First up, the schnitzel was thick. perfectly crumbed, plump & pure chicken breast. Mine was a little overcooked, bordering on burnt on the top edge, but that seemed to be an isolated incident as the other six on the table didn't share that problem (unlucky me).

Being very well done it was a little dry around the edges, but only slightly - it was still a very high quality chicken breast, and (despite some very minor gripes) a fine foundation for the rest of the toppings.

The cheese, like the parma itself was very well done - But I wouldn't call this a negative as I like my cheese crispy, golden brown and bubbling. It may look a little overcooked but I'd call this perfection.

The slice of ham carried a great flavour and there was plenty of well spiced napoli - If you pushed me to find a criticism I would say that the napoli was a little thick and "tomato-pastey" but  overall this was a fantastic, juicy, flavourful and quality example of a chicken parma.

There is a photo on Honey's Urbanspoon page showing this parma with a pot of what looks like garlic aioli on the side. Ours didn't come with this, which was a damn shame as if it had I'd say these chips would have been perfect. Beer battered, well seasoned, perfectly cooked. The chips on the Honey parma are a prime example of what chips should be. I ached for some aioli, but they stand up perfectly well on their own - a fine accompaniment to the meal.

The salad with Honey's parma is where things fall over. A basic garden salad of lettuce, onion, cucumber, tomato and a squirt of dressing on top. The dressing was okay, but the problems arose on the second bite, as all the dressing was now gone we were left with a plate of un-dressed leaves. The first two elements of this dish were absolutely fantastic - But there's no way to sugar coat it - compared to the rest of the dish the salad was a massive let down.

Coming in at $20 even I'd be more than happy to have this parma again. I'd go out of my way to have this parma again. There is a $12 Tuesday parma night that would definitely be worth checking out if they offered up a bird of the same quality as the one we had last night - Which I have to assume they do, if the amazing 2-for-1 cocktails are any indication.

As the great Bart Simpson once said, "You don't win friends with salad" - If you can overlook the mediocre greens on the plate then this is definitely a parma you should track down. I'll be back for this parma and I have no qualms in recommending it to others.

If Honey's parma is a sign of what Clarendon St. has to offer then we are in for some great meals in the future.

Pros

• Thick, plump schnitzel

• Great quality chips

Cons

• Slightly overcooked

• Lacklustre salad

Parma - 8.53

Chips - 8.00

Salad - 4.90

Value - 7.79

Total - 7.55

The search continues...

Attempt #169 - 'The British Crown Hotel'

[info]When? - 30th of January, 2014

Where? - 14-18 Smith St, Collingwood

Price? - $9.90

Website? - http://www.britishcrown.com.au/

Reviewers –  Grace, Lee, Nikki,  Tony [/info]

*EDIT* JUST RECEIVED REPORTS THAT THE BRITISH CROWN HAS CLOSED FOR BUSINESS, THIS PARMA IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE (A SHAME, AS THIS WAS A PRETTY DECENT BIRD FOR THE PRICE).

I don't like reviewing parma nights. Don't get me wrong, there are some fantastic parma nights out there, and if you can find one you like hold on to it with all you've got - but the actual act of reviewing a parma night gives me heartburn. With a parma night you can never tell if what you are getting is the real thing or if they are just getting rid of that week's parma-dregs, and I will unfairly review a place based on sub-par parma night parma. The same goes for parmas that have a parma night on a night other than Thursdays, Sure I will mention that they do a deal on a specific night in a review, but I will very rarely put a recommendation behind it unless I have sampled the parma night version specifically.

Which puts me in a bit of a pickle, as these days in Melbourne its hard to find a parma that is value for money unless I hunt it down on a particular night (shoutout to our friends The Happiest Hour for making this all the easier), and Thursday parma nights in particular are as rare as hens teeth.

So early this week I had a hankering. A hankering for a cheap parma that was also quality. It's a sad state of affairs in our fine city when I now consider any parma under $20.00 to be "cheap", but I do. The hunt was on, and the hunt led me to The British Crown Hotel. Nestled away at the top end of Smith St. in Collingwood this joint (on paper, at least) ticked every box. So we loaded up the parma bus and headed out to find my elusive white whale - a cheap, good quality parma.

From the menu online this place looked good. $9.90 parmas all day every day (as well as steaks, $9.90 porterhouse steaks). Not to mention a lengthy menu of $3 pizzas. I'll say that again, Three dollar pizzas. They have a range of food special nights as well, if three buck pizzas didn't already get your taste buds aroused.

I walked in the door and was instantly surprised. To be honest I was expecting a bit of a dive bar, but The British Crown proved me wrong. This place was cosy, clean, an abundance of seating options, a pool table and a ton of TV's - including a big screen projecting ESPN onto the wall. Everything was spotless, looking brand new - I think it's a safe bet that they recently underwent some redecorating and the joint has come up a treat.

We walked through the pub and out the back to the spacious beer garden and pulled up a pew. I was famished by this point and (partly from hunger and partly from curiosity at what a $3 pizza would look like) we started our meal with the garlic and herb pizza, as well as placed the order for our parmas.

The food came out in a flash. Ten minutes - fifteen tops and our four parmas plus pizza were on the table.

We went basic for the pizza as we didn't want to ruin our appetite for the main event. Part of me really wanted to try the other options available (seriously, look at this menu and tell me your mouth isn't watering)

The pizza was solid! Better than some garlic pizza pregames that we have had in the past and at more than half the price. But our parmas were getting cold, so on to the main event.

For $9.90 I wasn't expecting miracles. Hell I wouldn't have been surprised if the schnitzel was a piece of crumbed kitchen sponge. Which is why I think I was so surprised at the quality of the British Crowns schnitzel. Yes it was a bit small, but it was real chicken breast, not a piece of sponge in sight (check out the cross section below if you don't believe me).

The crumbing was a little odd, looking more like a piece of KFC than a chicken schnitzel, but it was well spiced and carried a decent flavour on its own. Good crumb thickness, not overly done at all. The schnitzel was a little dry, but one thought kept running through my mind "This is under ten bucks!"

The toppings were a little sparse, but also solid. The napoli carried a decent flavour (not as "rich" as the menu pointed out, but still pretty good),  the cheese was fine and the slice of ham was appreciated - as was the sprinkling of herbs and sprig of parsely. They were trying, clearly with limited resources they were doing their darndest to get a quality meal out the door - and you've got to give them points for that.

Things were pretty sparse on the sides front. The chips were okay. There weren't a heap of them and they weren't seasoned at all - but they were cooked well, and you've gotta love the sauce pot on the plate, the sauce pot really brought these chips back from the brink.

The story with the garden salad was pretty much the same as the chips - not a lot of it, but what was there was fresh and tasty, and the separate salad bowl is always appreciated. It was well dressed with balsamic, but I think we may have been at the end of the dressing bottle as it was quite oily.

The parma wasn't massive, but for under $10 I wasn't expecting it to be. Hell if you are still hungry when you finish this one order a $3 pizza or even another parma, you'd still come out under the $20 mark. We've had parmas worse than the one at the British Crown for over twice the price, and that is no exaggeration. We judge value as "Would I be happy to come back and pay what I did again for the same meal" and I definitely would, without a doubt.

The British Crown impressed me on a lot of fronts. This would be the perfect pub to rock up to on a weekend afternoon, watch the footy on the big screen while grazing on cheap pizzas and top it off with a parma in the evening. If you pop in on Monday or Friday there are even some novelty toppings available to be thrown on for the same price. Sure it wasn't a perfect parma, but for what they are charging they're doing wonders. I'll definitely be back for another $9.90 parma, quite possibly a pizza or two - and I recommend you check it out as well.

[pros]

• It costs $9.90 and its real chicken
• Sauce pot for the chips, salad bowl for the salad
• It costs $9 friggin .90 and its real chicken! Not to mention $3 pizzas!

[/pros][cons]

• Quite small
• Not a lot of sides
• Chicken was a bit dry

[/cons]

Parma - 6.74

Chips - 6.36

Salad - 4.62

Value - 9.25

Total - 6.74

The search continues...

Attempt #168 - 'Squid Inc.'

 

[info]When? - 23rd of January, 2014

Where? - 328A Keilor Rd, Niddrie

Price? - $20.90

Website? - Squid Inc. Facebook page

Reviewers –  Cale, Grace, Lee, Nikki, Shanan, Stefo, Tony [/info]

** NOTE - This pub has closed! Parma no longer available - Review will stay up for posterity. Enjoy!

Last week, when we visited Melbourne Public, I had promised the guys that they had great looking oysters on the menu (I had come across some photos in my pre-review research), but their hopes were dashed when we arrived, realising that the good looking oysters were only served at Melbourne Public on Friday nights.

In an effort to make it up to those I had promised seafood, I picked Squid Inc. as the location of this weeks attempt. Quite the anomaly, its a seafood restaurant that I had heard on the parma-vine also served up a decent bird. I live just off Keilor Rd, a literal 60 second drive from Squid Inc. yet I had never paid them a visit. So we loaded up the Parma Bus and headed down the street to Squid Inc. (Great name by the way, gotta love a pun-based business name! I giggled for a while when the sign first went up)

It was a lovely evening in the Keilor Road cafe district, so we opted to sit outside. Great atmosphere out here, quite relaxing to kick back with a beer and watch the world go by.

Picked up the menu and spied our target and placed the order.

I'm not a seafood guy. If I do have flake from a fish & chip shop I cover it in tomato sauce and you would have to pay me to eat octopus. But when the pregame of oysters kilpatrick hit the table I've got to say I was tempted to have one...

Look at all that bacon! By far the most bacon-loaded kilpatrick I have ever seen, and (although I didn't have any) reports came back positively.

There was a bit of a wait for our mains, about 40 minutes, but considering we had entree's and a seafood restaurant probably doesn't often get a bulk order of seven parmas simultaneously I'm willing to cut them some slack there.

Just as my hunger reached its peak our meals arrived...

First impressions were good! Lovely presentation, the dusting of freshly grated parmesan over the entire dish was a presentation technique we had never seen on a parma before. I quickly rescued the chips from under the parma and tucked in.

First up is the schnitzel quality, this was the biggest (and probably only) complaint about the dish. The schnitzel itself, while being real, unprocessed chicken, was a bit thin. It fluctuated throughout, but fluctuations between "medium thickness" and "pretty thin" are nothing to write home about.

Okay. Bad bit out of the way, everything else was pretty damn good! The napoli was definitely the star of the dish. It was clearly home made, carried a fantastic flavour, was perfectly spiced, fresh and chunky! It reminded me a lot of the napoli from the parma at The Plough, which I still consider one of the better napoli's we have had.

The mix of mozzarella and parmesan cheese was also great, normally lost in a cheese mix, the flavour of the parmesan really shone through with each bite.

In last week's review of Melbourne Public I said that we don't deduct points due to lack of ham if the taste of the parma stands up on its own without it. The parma at Squid Inc. is a perfect example of a parma that didn't have ham, but more importantly didn't need ham. Between the flavourful napoli and tasty cheese mix it stood up perfectly on its own.

The chips were solid. Underneath the parma was a big serve of well cooked pub chips. Crunchy on the outside and fluffy in the middle. Nothing spectacular to report but they served their purpose just as a good chip should

The greek salad was surprisingly tasty! They didn't skimp on the expensive ingredients (the feta and the olives), it was nice to see a salad that wasn't just a boring garden salad for once. It complimented the rest of the dish very well.

For $20.90 I'm pretty happy with this parma, yes the chicken could have been thicker but overall I walked away satisfied. If you were in Keilor Road and had a hankering for a good parma I'd definitely recommend it, especially if you're a non  seafoodie like myself and are looking for a good option while you're friends are tucking into their oysters, squid and other ickies.

The Squid Inc. parma has all the elements of a great bird, but they're let down in one key area - the thickness of the schnitzel itself. A little bit plumper and this would have blown me away. That being said it was still an extremely tasty dish. We've had quite a few parmas on Keilor Rd over the years (here, here, here, here, here, here and here ... phew) and Squid Inc.'s is the best we have found so far. Worth checking out if you're in the area.

[pros]

• Great napoli & cheese mix
• Greek salad didn't skimp on the feta & olives

[/pros][cons]

• Thin schnitzel

[/cons]

Parma - 6.86

Chips - 6.64

Salad - 7.29

Value - 6.57

Total - 6.84

The search continues...

Attempt #167 - 'Melbourne Public'

[info]When? - 17th of January, 2014

Where? - 11 Dukes Walk, South Wharf

Price? - $21.50

Website? - http://www.melbournepublic.com.au/

Reviewers – Dale, Fridge, Janet, Kylie, Lee, Nikki, Stefo, Tony [/info]

In my mind Melbourne Public is a brand new spot. Pretty much everywhere down in the docklands my mind considers "new" even though it has been there for quite a few years now.

South Wharf is an area I don't get to often, Yet tucked away behind the Exhibition Center a surprising array of cafes, restaurants and pubs have popped up - one of which is Melbourne Public.

The pub looks fantastic. Light filled, spacious and fantastically decked out - its a shame there is another building in front of the massive glass windows, otherwise they would have a fantastic view of the bay ... SO close.

We arrived at Melbourne Public at the height of the January 2014 heat wave. Pure relief washed over me as I opened the door and felt the cool breeze of aircon hit me. We made our way to the bar and ordered a couple of pints while the rest of the group arrived. The Melbourne Public website currently has a printable coupon available if you sign up to their mailing list that gets you a buy one-get one free drink. We came prepared and collected our free beverages - definitely recommended.

Once everyone arrived we migrated from the front bar to the skinny (but still beautifully decked out) dining area down the back. Spied the parma on the menu...

And placed our orders.

I boasted last week that I was one-for-one in remembering to set the stop watch in 2014. Well. Now I'm one for two, as it completely slipped my mind till about ten minutes after we ordered, so I don't have a stopwatch-screenshot this week. Although if memory serves it was about a half an hour wait for 8 parmas. Not bad at all.

Points for presentation! This parma looked very impressive on the plate with all the elements separated for maximum freshness.

Without delay I ditched the bay basil leaf, picked up the cutlery and tucked in.

The schnitzel was quite thick, juicy and of decent quality, but the crumbs were very soggy and had zero crunch. There was no ham, the napoli needed some spices and just came across as bland. Great cheese coverage and plenty of it - they had used a cheese mix very heavy on tasty cheese, so it packed quite a wallop, good if you like tasty cheese, bad if you don't, as (coupled with the weak napoli and lack of ham) the flavour of the cheese pretty much dominated the entire dish.

We don't normally deduct points for the lack of ham on a parma if it stands up on its own without it. But I can't help but think a slice of smoked ham would have done this dish wonders. The ham would break up the onslaught of cheese, as well as bring out some of the flavours in the napoli. We can dream...

The chips were the absolute star of this dish. I've seen the mini deep fryer basket on so many instagram food photos, yet this is the first time we've ever found a pub that does it! Beer battered and seasoned to perfection with the perfect crunch on the outside and pillowy soft in the middle. I was full, but still at them as I didn't want them to go to waste. A pot of aioli or tomato sauce would have brought these chips up to perfection

Rather than a boring garden salad the Melbourne Public parma was accompanied by a side of freshly made coleslaw. I enjoyed it, it wasn't as overflowing with mayo as some coleslaws can be. It was a light, summery accompaniment to the meal that I enjoyed greatly.

For $21.50 I was relatively happy with what we received. The two-for-one drink voucher definitely helped the value score, and remember that if you parked in the DFO car park to validate your parking at the bar, as it brought our carpark fee down from $8 to $4

Melbourne Public is a great looking pub with a good vibe in a pretty neat location. The parma had great sides but was let down by a lacklustre main event. With a few tweaks this parma could be one of the greats, and is definitely worth giving a go in its current state if you're in the area - Although I wouldn't go too far out of my way for this one.

[pros]

• Fantastic chips
• Fresh coleslaw
• Quality chicken breast

[/pros][cons]

• Soggy crumbs
• Overpowering Cheese
• Bland napoli
• Needs ham

[/cons]

Parma - 6.19

Chips - 8.00

Salad - 6.00

Value - 6.25

Total - 6.53

The search continues...

Attempt #166 - 'The Yarra Hotel'

When? - 28th of November, 2013

Where? - 295 Johnston St. Abbotsford

Price? - $22

Website? - http://www.theyarrahotel.com.au/

Reviewers – Dale, Emma, Lee, Nikki, Matt, Tony

Aaaand we're back! Hope everyone had a great holiday season and happy New Year.

Kicking things off for the 2014 season is the Yarra Hotel in Abbotsford. This one came about through sheer lack of organisation. Being the start of the year I hadn't planned enough in advance to organise a facebook poll to tell us where to go, so at the start of the week I put out an open call for suggestions...

Screen shot 2014-01-10 at 10.31.32 AM

The first response back was the Yarra Hotel, the suggester then followed up with the cryptic statement that it was a "Retro 80's parma". My interest was piqued. I did some googling and the pub looked good to me. We set the location and when Thursday rolled around we loaded up the parma bus for the first time in 2014, and headed out to the Yarra Hotel.

Basically across the road from Victoria Park, The Yarra has undergone recent renovations to bring this old gem back to life. You could tell this was a pub that loved its live music. With a rotating calendar of live acts churning out tunes every night of the week, upon walking in to the front bar we could see the stage being set for Thursday night's gig.

Out the back the spacious beer garden is a fantastic spot. It was a perfect night for some al fresco parmas so we found a table out there and grabbed some menus. Spied the parma ($22) and placed our orders at the bar.

Time Out Melbourne

Drinks-wise I started off the night with a pint Mountain Goat Steam Ale (always a good decision) then switched over to Collingwood Draught once the parma arrived - I had never had the Collingwood before and was pleasantly surprised, a fresh, flavoursome drop that I'd definitely give another go.

Amazingly, I remembered to set the stop watch this week (1 for 1 in 2014! woo!)

24 minutes for 6 parmas isn't bad at all. Hopefully if I can remember the stopwatch enough this year we can get some sort of time-per-parma average stats to compare this against. 24 divided by 6 is four minutes per parma. Not bad in my book.

The parmas arrived at the table.

Is it just me, or does my parma look the The Millennium Falcon?

My first thought was that the schnitzel looked undercooked. It was nearly white. But on closer inspection (points to our eagle eyed reviewer Em for picking this one) the parma wasn't crumbed - it was battered. Like a piece of grilled flake. I'm guessing this is what the facebook suggester meant by a "Retro 80's parma", I was 6 and a half years old when the 80's ended so I can't recall if this is what parmas were like back then, but we've never seen this before.

We tucked in ... I didn't like it. The crunch that you normally get from crumbs was gone, I'm all for trying new things with parmas and I try to keep my mind as open as possible (hell I tried coating my own parma in crushed pork rinds once), but this one just didn't do it for me, and the rest of the table agreed.

Besides the coating the chicken was decent quality, not overly thick but not thin by any stretch of the word. Pure white and well cooked (it actually looked like a good piece of grilled flake at times).

As for the toppings they were pretty disappointing all around. There was very little cheese, leaving lots of nudity underneath (both partial and full frontal), the napoli had no spice and tasted like straight passata. The ham was fine, carried a decent flavour, but it didn't do much to save this one

I'm normally not big on french fries (or "maccas chips") with my parma, but these ones were actually pretty decent (not amazing, but decent). Well cooked and seasoned and in a pretty sizeable serving. Not to spoil how the next paragraph about the salad is gonna go, but the chips were pretty much the best part of the dish.

The salad wasn't great. A little wilted and very finely chopped garden salad of lettuce, sliced radish and cabbage with the lucky among the table getting a few slivers of what appeared to be picked onion. Like the parma it was underdressed and failed to impress.

For $22 this was a disappointing parma, if it were $15 I'd accept its shortcomings but for a pretty full priced parma this wasn't good value at all.

I really liked the vibe of the Yarra when we arrived. The casual front bar, obvious reverence for live music and fantastic beer garden appealed to me greatly - so it cut me deep when the parma was a disappointment. I wouldn't call it bad by any stretch, but there was just no love put into the dish. It needed some spice, some oomph. Points to the Yarra for trying something new with the battered chicken breast, and with a bit of tweaking to the rest of the formula it might just work - but at the moment it was a bit of a confusing addition to a loveless dish.

Parma - 4.30

Chips - 5.90

Salad - 3.70

Value - 4.00

Total - 4.44

The search continues...

2013 Parma of the year awards

Another year has passed in the search for the perfect parma, which means the time has come to hand out some golden chooks! We did things a little differently this year, rather than have just the one trophy we split the dazey up into two categories. Best New Parma and Parma of the Year.

Lets get started!

Best new parma

The "Best new parma" dazey is awarded to the best parma we have found in the last twelve months of parma reviews. We have consumed over 40 parmas since Taco Bill in January (not including special events) and this parma stands out amongst the rest as the best we tried in 2013.

The envelope, please.

This years Best new Parma award goes to...

The Duke

When we discovered The Duke back in May this year it was just a baby, having only been open for just over a month, but it managed to leave a lasting impression. Not only is The Duke an amazingly well fit out pub with a fantastic atmosphere, the food is absolutely phenomenal.

The parma is amazing. Fresh, real chicken, gorgeous crispy crumbs, the list goes on ... If you want to hear me gush about this parma some more check out the original review here.

But it gets better! I've been back to The Duke a few times since May for a meal (it has quickly become one of my favourite spots in the city to grab a beer and a good feed) and they have done a bit of tinkering with their parma. Check out this picture of the parma I snapped on a recent visit -

The garden salad is gone! replaced with a very hearty serve of coleslaw. The Salad at the Duke when we first reviewed it was it's biggest downfall, it wasn't bad at all, but it wasn't exciting - there's only so much you can do with a garden salad. The coleslaw, however, is definitely a change for the better.

Oh, and if you happen to go temporarily insane at The Duke and decide you don't want a parma (madness), the other items on the menu are damn good too. I can recommend the mexican chicken burger in particular. If you can handle a bit of spice this is bloody good.

So congratulations to The Duke. An amazing pub with terrific atmosphere and a parma that you'd be hard pressed to walk away from disappointed. Well done guys!

Parma of the Year

This is the big one! The award we give out to the best parma we have had on our journey thus far. There's really no point in building up the suspense too much as if you click over to the "Ladder" the winner has been listed there for over a year. You know who they are, but what the hell

Drumroll please...

The Imperial Hotel

What can I say about the Impy that hasn't already been said here, here or here! ... A bit, actually! Even though they took out our Parma of the Year in 2012 the Imperial has not rested on its laurels, striving to improve what was already the best parma we have had so far.

We have a rule at Parma Daze that if a pub, once reviewed, works hard to improve what they have served us then they are eligible for a redo. After the effort that The Imperial has put in to improve their parma since we first tried it in August 2012 we figure its only fair that they are also eligible for a redo. So not only did we present The Impy with their parma of the year trophy, this post will also serve as the Redux for the Imperial Hotel (don't ask me why we call a redo a "redux" I got it from the Apocalypse Now directors cut and now it has become a thing).

So what has changed? We ordered our parmas and awaited their arrival. Shoutout to the table of 20+ blokes there last night celebrating the last parma of their work's "Parma Club" for the year - You chose a great pub to finish things off!

Our parmas arrived.

The parma itself remains pretty much the same. Mammoth hand crumbed schnitzel, lashings of ham, perfectly golden brown cheese, I've said this all before so if you want more detailed info on the parma check it out here and here.

Now, here is where we get into the big changes, first up - the chips.

The Impy's chips were never bad, but much like the old salad at the Duke there's only so much you can with regular steak fries... But they've had an upgrade.

Beer battered chips! The king of chips, these beauties have a golden crunch and are perfectly seasoned. We were brought out some sauce pots to accompany the chips but to be honest they didn't need them, these chips were just fine without dipping.

Next up, The salad. Also had a revamp since the first time, although I think we covered this in the Parma of the Year 2012 review...

How could you make a garden salad infinitely tastier, while at the same time removing any redeeming nutritional value? By covering it with cheese of course!

The Imperial salad is layered with a heap of freshly shaved parmesan cheese, which definitely takes it to another level.

The Impy's parma isn't perfect (the salad could use a bit more dressing and the parma itself has, on occasion, been a little light on the napoli) but its damn close.

Oh, Also worth mentioning, that (as it is December) the Imperial's "Christmas Parma" is on the menu for this month only, so if you head down in December you're going to have a decision to make. They're both fantastic, but in different ways.

I've said it before, but we judge a parmas "value" score on the question "Would I be happy to come back to this pub and pay what I paid for this parma again". I'd be happy to pay what this parma costs, along with airfare to get to Melbourne from wherever I was in the world. Yes its pricey compared to other parmas, but you pay for quality and I'd have absolutely zero qualms shelling out another $25 for The Imperial's parma.

They had the best, yet managed to improve on it. The well deserved updated scores for The Imperial Hotel are as follows -

Parma - 9.25

Chips - 9.25

Salad - 8.17

Value -  9.25

Total - 9.03

After dinner we headed around to the front bar and presented the Imperial Hotel with their award...

Back to back champions! Well deserved guys. Congratulations.

And that wraps it up for another year of Parma Daze parma reviews! We are taking a couple of weeks off and will be back in early January to kick things off again. There are still a lot more parmas out there (seriously. my "parmas to try" list is currently over 100 parmas long and growing daily) and we wont stop until we get to them all.

Massive thanks to the review team, I put the words on the screen but I couldn't do it without the support of you guys. Not to mention a super-awesome-mega thanks to the readers! The fact that there are people out mad enough to follow my ramblings gets me up in the morning, so again, Thanks.

And that about wraps it up for '13! Be sure to stay tuned, we've got a lot of awesome stuff on the boiler for next year, and their might even be a little non-review update on the site some time around the end of December, make sure you follow one of our social media things for a heads up.

It's been a great year and, as always, The search continues...

Attempt #165 - 'Demazzi'

[info]When? - 28th of November, 2013

Where? - 4/1142 Mount Alexander Road, Essendon

Price? - $22.50

Website? - http://www.demazzi.com.au/

Reviewers – Cale, Dale, Fridge, Lee, Nikki, Stefo, Tony [/info]

When I was a little tyke I loved going to The Grand Hotel, back in the 80's the building was a "Billabong family bistro" and they served up a bitchin' frog-in-a-pond, not to mention the indoor playground had bubble machines on the roof that filled the room with bubbles. A wall mounted bubble machine for a kid in the 80's was enough to keep me entertained for hours.

As I grew the Grand grew with me, when I was about 17 or 18 it had become a pub/club known as "The Dirty G" for reasons that you can probably surmise for yourself, I managed to find this picture of the G in its heyday on the Moonee Valley Memes facebook site -

Not long after I turned 18 the Grand Hotel closed its doors. It was gutted, demolished and a block of short-stay apartments were erected in its place leaving just the facade, a few stores and restaurants - The cornerstone of which is Demazzi Stonegrill, our target for this week's parma review.

For regular readers, Demazzi is situated directly across the road from the infamous Lincolnshire Arms Hotel - This was our view from the table last night...

For those new to the party, The Linc stands as our current worst parma yet. They still do a decent pint, but avoid that parma at all costs - We took our seats hoping that bad parmas weren't contagious by proximity.

Now Chicken Parmas aren't really Demazzi's usual "thing", The majority of the menu is comprised of different cuts of steak - Being a stonegrill restaurant (one of only a handful in Melbourne) when you order a steak at Demazzi it is served like this...

Completely uncooked but sitting on a piece of superheated stone. You basically cut a slice of steak, cook it on the stone on the table and eat it directly off the grill. It's a load of fun and I can't recommend it enough if you're after a twist on the usual dining experience.

If you hadn't worked out by now, Demazzi is very local to where I live (a short stroll away). I pop in for a steak or breakfast every month or so and I've kept my eye on the parma for some time, the only reason we haven't reviewed it sooner is that it seemed perpetually stuck on the "specials" board and not on the actual menu (it was "Todays special" for at least twelve months), I felt weird recommending a parma that could disappear at any time. Luckily the parma was recently promoted from the specials board to the main event so it was time to check her out.

Before the parma we decided to do a little pre-game. Amongst the table we ordered a chorizo and trio of dips plate, bocconcini balls, calamari rings and a serve of Saganaki. All of these were quality ways to start the meal, the saganaki (served in a sizzling frypan) was particularly fantastic, with a perfect crust on the outside cracking into a deliciously gooey center.

After we polished off the entrees there was quite a wait before our parmas arrived, I was well into my second stubby of Beez Neez before the main course finally appeared...

Being the only person at the table who had tried the Demazzi parma in the past, I was shocked... the parma was quite small.

I immediately whipped out my phone and found an instagram post I made only last month...

I posted that picture on the 19th of October, and its easily double the size of what we were served last night, just over a month later. Look at how much the parma eclipsed the chips beneath it compared to the new photo.

The conspiracy theorist in me thinks that maybe a restaurant that primarily serves raw steak on a hot stone wasn't prepared for a rush order of 7 parmas and maybe we were served half schnitzels as that's all they had in stock ... but I can't prove anything, and you should probably forget I even mentioned it.

Anyway, Like the guy that goes back in time and changes the past in every time travel movie ever made,  I was the only one that noticed anything was amiss. The rest of the group were happily tucking into their parmas - so I joined them, doing my best to forget any pre-conceived notions I had.

The schnitzel was acceptable quality, thicker in some places and thin in others. It was unprocessed but a little dry - fortunately the extreme amount of cheese helped with the dryness. Yes, this was a cheesy parma. To the point where on more than one forkful that I thought contained chicken was just pure cheese.

This was a ham free parma - not the end of the world but it was definitely missed, the napoli served its purpose but wasn't particularly noteworthy.

If you're going to serve shoestring fries with a parma as opposed to chunky chips, you had better be damn sure there are a lot of them - luckily Demazzi did not disappoint on this front. The shoestring fries were very well seasoned, hot, fresh and mountainous. I'm not a big fan of McDonalds fries with a parma, but for what they were these were pretty good - We also got individual sauce pots for dipping, a nice touch.

The garden salad was fresh and crisp, Lettuce, cucumber, capsicum, heaps of onion, tomato and balsamic served its purpose fine, my major criticism would be that the pieces are all sliced too big. The full onion rings alone all required slicing, not to mention the 2+ inch long strips of capsicum were a bit of a hassle to manoeuvre.

$22.50 for the parma in the instagram photo I posted would have been fine. Not great, but fine. $22.50 for what we were served is a bit rich for half a parma. If we hadn't have pre-gamed I would have walked out still hungry from that meal.

We finished up our meals and wandered over to The Linc for some post-parma bevvies. The Demazzi parma is fine. That's all I can really say about it. There's nothing particularly offensive about it, yet I have no praises to sing about it either. The entrees were fantastic and I would definitely recommend Demazzi for a steak on the Stonegrill (The cape-grim eye fillet is particularly delicious) - It's their signature dish and its what they do best. If you are really craving a parma then this one will get you by, but there are tastier options on the menu if you find yourself at the Dirty G.

[pros]

• Heaps of chips

[/pros][cons]

• No ham
• Quite small
• McDonalds style fries

[/cons]

Parma - 5.50

Chips - 4.36

Salad - 5.43

Value - 4.86

Total - 5.13

The search continues...

Attempt #164 - 'The Rainbow Hotel'

[info]When? - 21st of November, 2013

Where? - 27 St David Street, Fitzroy

Price? - $22.

Website? - http://therainbow.com.au/

Reviewers – Dale, Lee, Nikki, Shanan, Stefo, Tony [/info]

The Rainbow is another one of those pubs that I've heard about forever, but never actually visited. The winner of last weeks Fitzroy-Centric poll, we loaded up the parma bus and headed to this unassuming backstreets local.

To be honest I had no idea what to expect walking into the Rainbow Hotel. The bizarre paint job on the exterior was definitely enough to throw me off, however (after mis-judging how long my commute would take) I arrived at the pub a good hour before everyone else. I grabbed a pint, found a cosy booth in the corner of the beer garden and got comfortable.

"Comfortable" is a great word to describe The Rainbow Hotel. This pub is your quintessential backstreets local, complete with a friendly dog that greeted me with a wagging tail when I walked into the pub. If I lived in the area I could definitely see this place becoming a regular fixture.

The beer garden is everything you want in an outdoor drinking space. plenty of seating, combination of covered and open areas, outdoor pool table, even a window through to the main bar so you can order without going inside. The pints of Mountain Goat were going down far too well, I had to make a conscious effort to slow down otherwise I'd be smashed before the rest of the group even arrived.

Speaking of beers, I've got to take a moment to mention the range of bevvies available at The Rainbow, as I don't think I've seen a beer list like it.

Take a second to check out this beauty.

That's over 120 beers available, (combination of bottles and taps) very impressive, and the staff were very knowledgable and happy to recommend new libations to try.

The group arrived and we moved inside, we had a table booked in the dining room, but opted for the more social atmosphere of the front bar.

Grabbed the menu and took a look...

Done.

We placed our orders at the bar and awaited the food. Thursday night offers a "beer matched with main meal" night, where certain selections from the menu are matched with a pint that you get for free - Unfortunately on the week we were there the "matched" meal was the burger, which looked damn delicious, as everyone else in the pub seemed to be getting them. I'd definitely return to try the burger (and keep an eye on when the parma comes up in the drink matching night)

After about half a 500ml stubby of cider our parmas arrived...

 Yes thats a Dalek. It's the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who this weekend... I'm a little excited alright?

The first three that came out were cooked perfectly, the second three were slightly overdone (as you can see from the above photo). Luck of the draw I guess.

The schnitzel, despite the crispiness, was good quality, non-processed, hand crumbed and quite juicy. There was a bit of nude schnitz around the edges, which wasn't the best, however the bits with topping on them were phenomenal. The smoked ham was the star of the dish, packing a massive punch of flavour. The napoli was fresh and flavourful, and the abundance of cheese worked perfectly with the napoli. Taste-wise it reminded me a lot of The Duke's parma, one of our favourites.

There were good and bad notes about this parma, however I think the good definitely outweighed the bad, sure it was a little overcooked and showing a lot of skin, but it definitely made up for its shortcomings by being packed with flavour.

The chips were also impressive. Not you're ordinary frozen chips from a bag, these hand cut beauties were well seasoned, perfectly cooked and in abundance (especially considering how filling chunky hand cut chips can be) also we were brought a bottle of tomato sauce without asking - always extra points for that touch

The salad is where things really fell apart on this parma. It was advertised as 'slaw' but it was a pile of shredded cabbage and nothing more. No dressing that we could discern, it was just so dry that I could barely eat it. A disappointing element to an otherwise great dish.

$22 is pretty standard these days, I'd have no qualms paying that again. If we had've gone on a night that a free pint was paired with the parma it would have been icing on the cake, but unfortunately we missed out this week.

The Rainbow is a fantastic little pub with great food coming out of the kitchen. The parma and chips were excellent but were let down by a sub-par salad. I'll be back to The Rainbow, it has a fantastic vibe, friendly staff and a beer garden to die for now that the weather is finally improving, definitely worth checking out

[pros]

• Solid parma, full of flavour
• hand cut, well seasoned chips

[/pros][cons]

• Awful salad
• A fair bit of nude schnitzel

[/cons]

Parma - 7.67

Chips - 7.42

Salad - 2.33

Value - 6.83

Total - 6.38

The search continues...

Attempt #163 - 'The Gem'

[info]When? - 14th of November, 2013

Where? - 289 Wellington St, Collingwood

Price? - $22. $2 to add prosciutto, 50c to add jalepenos

Website? - http://thegembar.com.au/

Reviewers – Dale, Lee, Nikki, Stefo, Tony [/info]

Way back in August 2012, After we did our extremely disappointing review of the Leinster Arms in Collingwood, we were on our way home and passed a decent looking pub - I remember the tables out in the street being relatively packed for a Thursday evening, chock full of patrons having what seemed to be a salubrious time knocking back a few bevvies.

That pub was The Gem, and I made a mental note to check if they had a parma - I got on the ol' Google later that night and confirmed that a parma was indeed available so I put it on the list of pubs to try, and it was pretty much forgotten about... Until last night, When after over a year of waiting, we finally got to the Gem.

As soon as we walked through the doors I knew I liked The Gem, its a Melbourne backstreets local bursting at the seams with personality and spirit. The pub was already alive with locals in high spirits getting their post-work drinks and tucker. Wooden floors, wooden tables, wooden everything gives The Gem great character, We went to the bar and grabbed a few pints (great range of beers on tap here, we went with the Mountain Goat Steam Ale ... a lovely drop)

The front bar was full and it was a bit chilly to sit out the front (even so there were plenty of people braving the weather in favour of the atmosphere of a la carte beers) so we ducked around the back to a cosy dining room. There were signs indicative of an upstairs dining room also available, but it seemed to be closed the night we were there (we figured the large, steel cactus sitting at the top of the stairs is the universal sign for "closed")

We took our seats and checked out the menu - The Gem has got your traditional pub fare with a  Spanish/American twist. You've got your classic steak, burger, fish & chips and parma, but for the adventurous there are some quite unique items such as buttermilk chicken tenderloins, soft shell crab tacos and a 14-hour pulled pork sandwich. It all looked delicious, but we found the parma and weighed up our options -

We asked before ordering and the no-frills parma does not come with ham, so we spread it out a little and 3 of us got a parma with prosciutto and 2 got parmas with "the lot" (both prosciutto and jalapenos).

I wen't against my normal judgement this week - When it comes to novelty toppings on a parma I am a staunch traditionalist and always try to opt for the "original" parma when other options are available, In saying that, prosciutto is just fancy ham - so I don't consider that a "novelty" topping, and the jalapenos... well... I'm a sucker for a good jalapeno, I don't have any excuse other than that. So I went against my better judgement was one of the two of us that ordered "the lot".

After about a 3/4's of a pint wait our meals arrived from the kitchen...

My first thought when the parma hit the table was "Woah... This is thick!" and it was, scroll down to the cross section pictures below, take a look and scroll back up. I'll wait...

I know, right!?

It'd be up there with one of the thickest parmas we've ever had, impressive on that aspect alone. We tucked in. I started on the left hand edge and my first few bites were jalapeno free, and rather disappointing. Sure the chicken was thick, but it was bland as buggery - A definite case of big parma syndrome. There was plenty of cheese but that was a little dry and tasteless, I got a mouthful with prosciutto and that helped a little but it didn't have the trademark salty kick that a parma with prosciutto normally carries. Everyone at the table grabbed the salt shaker in an attempt to liven the dish up a little. There wasn't a lot of napoli, it was detectable but subtle, with hints of red wine.

Then I got to the jalapenos. Hot damn. My complaints about lack of flavour were gone. For just fifty cents I was expecting a light sprinkling of peppers, but no - this was a full layer completely covering the dish. It was an explosion of spice that was bordering on too much, and really saved what was initially quite a bland dish for me.

But this is why I don't like novelty toppings. The peppers were such a strong flavour that for the rest of the dish that is all I could taste. the cheese, the napoli, the prosciutto and the chicken were all rendered moot as everything was lost in the jalapenos.

You can't really tell just how thick it was from this first photo, so I laid my fork beside it to give it a little perspective...

The chips were a great escape from the spicy onslaught. I would have loved a slightly bigger serving but they served their purpose fine. Well cooked, well seasoned. Nothing noteworthy but nothing bad about them either.

The garden salad had plenty of fresh ingredients - Lettuce, onion, cucumber, tomato and capsicum, No complaints about the quantity of "stuff" in this side dish - However they covered it in a very sour dressing that, to be honest, tasted like pure lemon juice. It was tolerable at first but by the end it got to be a bit much and I didn't end up finishing my salad.

Value is a dicey one this week, $22 for that parma is a bit much for a parma without ham, yes its a thick bit of schnitzel that everyone walked away from absolutely stuffed, but to make it worthwhile we had to shell out $24.50. The 50 cents for jalapenos is great value considering how liberal they are with their serving of them. However $2 for prosciutto seemed a bit much, especially when its flavour was so lost beneath the jalapeno's flavour. If I found myself back at the Gem I would save my two bucks, skip the pork and just stick to the chillis, you wouldn't notice if it wasn't there anyway.

This is a tough one to rate. The three that didn't have the jalapenos weren't happy with the dish at all, and I can see why - before I got to the peppers my parma was bland as hell. I was glad I got the peppers in the end as they truly made the dish.

This is definitely a parma for the spice lover, and I'd only recommend it as such - If you're into jalapenos then you wont be disappointed with this parma and I'd say definitely give it a go, however if you're not that brave and prefer your parmas traditional then I'd say give this one a miss, sure its thick, and I wanted to like it, but it's just too flavourless to get it over the line.

[pros]

• Astonishingly thick schnitzel
• Perfect for the spice lover

[/pros][cons]

• Without jalapenos it was very bland
• Can get expensive with all the "extras"

[/cons]

Parma - 5.30

Chips - 6.20

Salad - 5.80

Value - 4.60

Total - 5.44

The search continues...

Attempt #162 -'Limerick Castle Hotel'

[info]When? - 7th of November, 2013

Where? - 161 Errol St, North Melbourne

Price? - $18

Website? - The website seems down, here is their facebook

Reviewers – Dale, Lee, Nikki, Stefo [/info]

Long before we started our quest, the Keepers Arms in North Melbourne was considered among many circles to be one of the best parmas Melbourne had to offer. Unfortunately we never made it to The Keepers before they closed down a few years ago and we can no longer verify that claim - A fact that keeps me awake at night to this day.

A few weeks ago I was in a cab on the way home from a very salubrious night on the town and we happened to drive past The Limerick Castle. Now lets just say I'd had quite a few red cordials at this point, so my judgement was quite impaired. I spotted the Limerick and for some reason thought it was the Keepers. "The Limerick has re-opened!" I exclaimed, like Archimedes in his bathtub "I can finally have their awesome parma!"

I sobered up, yet for some reason the confusion remained in my mind. The Limerick Castle was The Keepers in my head, so we loaded up the parma bus to see if they had "returned" with a quality parma, To be fair the pubs are walking distance from each other...

Then we arrived and I realised my mistake. This place had been here for a long time... We weren't where I thought we were going but what the hell! There's a parma on the menu, $5 crown stubbies all day every day - What more could a guy ask for? (also, for the curious, The Keepers Arms has re-opened, but as "The Crimean", an Eastern European themed gastropub with no parma on the menu) We grabbed a table and checked out the menu -

The Limerick Castle feels like it should be in Creswick, or Trentham, or Ballan. Or any regional Victorian town - not North Melbourne. It gives off a major 'country pub' vibe - which I love. There's a TAB up one end, bar in the middle and Bistro down the other. The Menu (pictured above) is choc full of rural pub staples, where else in Melbourne can you order "Bangers", rissoles or my second favourite dish of all time - Chicken Kiev.

We placed our order, grabbed another round of $5 Crownies and kicked back, a few punts on the greyhounds proved quite fruitful and we wound up winning back what we paid for the food! A lovely bonus.

Shortly after ordering we were delivered a basket of mini bake-at-home rolls. I love when pubs do this, its a small touch, but I love it. Although I did have a giggle at the amount of butter we were given for four small rolls...

After the appetisers were finished off I took the opportunity to take a stroll out to the beer garden I could spy from the bistro window - I think its a rule that all pubs in North Melbourne have a surprisingly cosy beer garden out the back, and The Limerick certainly didn't disappoint. Plenty of outdoor seating, a large TV up on the wall, it'd be a great spot for a few pints and a meal in the sun (once this ridiculous Melbourne weather clears up, that is)

I was almost done with my crownie when the food started filing out of the kitchen...

First up the schnitzel was made from pure, unprocessed chicken breast - always a great start. No overcrumbing here, however the crumbs were a bit flaky and dropped off the bottom of the schnitz quite a lot.

Heaps of gooey cheese and  napoli draped over the top of the schnitzel, both carrying fantastic flavour - the cheese carried a sharp twang and the napoli retained a fresh tomato flavour (as opposed to the acidity of tomato paste). There was a thick slice of ham in there as well, but it got a bit lost amongst the strong flavours of the napoli and cheese.

Criticism-wise my main complaint would be it was quite oily, there was oil on top of the parma when it was served that was present for the whole dish. It didn't hamper my enjoyment of a quality parma much, but its worth nothing.

The chips were quite good - a massive pile of fish & chip shop style chips, they were served freshly cooked and piping hot. Other than needing to reach for the salt shaker there's little to complain about for what they were.

Despite being another standard garden salad its hard to complain about this one - chock full of crisp carrot, cucumber, lettuce, tomato & onion and plenty of dressing. Like the chips, for what it was it was done well.

Its a sad state of affairs when anything under $20 these days qualifies as "cheap" for a pub meal - but I guess that's the world we live in! I would have no qualms in shelling out another $18 for the parma at The Limerick - not to mention $5 crown lagers all day every day to sweeten the deal. There's a parma night on Tuesday ($15 if memory serves) and Quiz Meisters on Wednesday, both worth checking out.

So despite the initial confusion it turned out to be a happy accident discovering The Limerick Castle. The parma isn't perfect, it has a couple of issues and there's definitely room for improvement, but if you're after a laid back spot with a country feel and a good, honest pub meal then I'd definitely recommend checking it out.

[pros]

• $5 Crown Lager stubbies. All day Every day.
• Unprocessed, quality ingredients
• Large serving of chips
• Bake at home rolls served before meal

[/pros][cons]

• Parma was quite oily
• Crumbs fell away from chicken

[/cons]

Parma - 6.88

Chips - 6.00

Salad - 6.50

Value - 7.38

Total - 6.73

The search continues...

Attempt #161 -'Grand View Hotel'

[info]When? - 31st of October, 2013

Where? - Grand View Hotel. 47 Pearson St, Brunswick West

Price? - $20.00

Website? - http://grandviewbrunswick.com.au/

Reviewers – Dale, Kylie B, Lee, Riley, Shanan, Stephen [/info]

**UPDATE** We revisited the Grandview in 2016 for their $15 parma, $15 jugs and Free Trivia Wednesday! Check out our updated thoughts here.

Last night's parma was an interesting one.

A few weeks ago we were contacted by a group of Swinburne students who are making a documentary... about parmas! Seeing as the only thing I like more than talking about eating parmas is is actually eating them we jumped at the opportunity to have a chat with these guys, So last night we headed down to The Grand View Hotel in Brunswick West and experienced what life would be like if we turned Parma Daze into a reality TV show.

We arrived and met up with the crew, along with Stephen and Riley who would be joining us for our parmas...

When we visit pubs for review we do our best to remain anonymous - We want to get the same parma that everyone else does. For the most part we are pretty successful with this, we might get some strange looks when we order 15 parmas for the table, but other than that people rarely catch on. Accomplishing this with a film crew following us is a bit more difficult, especially since they needed to advise the pub we were coming beforehand to get permission to film ... We kept this in mind when it came to the meals we got served, but more on that later.

The Grand View is a local's pub through and through. As it was October 31st it was "Halloween Night" at the pub, the staff were dressed up and there were kids walking around trick-or-treating, it was a fun atmosphere and you could tell everyone involved was there to have a good time.

We started with a few games of pool and a couple of pints Brunswick Bitter while the crew set themselves up, The front bar is understated but carries a subtle charm. The bistro out the back was packed with parents and kids for the aforementioned halloween night, and (according to the website) there is a decent looking beer garden tucked away somewhere that we neglected to track down, but from this picture it looks quite cosy -

After a couple of pints we were good to go, some of the Halloweeners had cleared out by this time so we moved in, attracting inquisitive looks from those still remaining. The menu is mostly traditional pub fare (burgers, steaks, bangers & mash) but with a surprisingly impressive tapas menu that I'd be keen to go back and investigate.

But we weren't there for tapas, we were there for parmas!

We placed our orders and chatted to the lads on camera about all things parma while we waited. It's a tough life being a celebrity, stay tuned to our twitter for news of our signature fragrance releasing soon, I think 'Eau de Parma' has a nice ring to it.

There was a bit of a wait for our food, not sure whether this was from the kitchen being extremely busy when we rocked up or them putting extra effort into our parmas as they knew they were up for review - maybe a combination of the two. But after about a pint and a half our parmas arrived.

Quite an impressive stack, We quickly rescued the chips from under the pile and tucked in. The schnitzel was top quality, the crumbs carried a sharp crunch while still remaining insanely juicy. The schnitzel was big enough, but not massive - You won't walk away from this meal hungry, but you wont be stuffed either - perfect if you want to start off your meal with a few selections from the tapas menu. The chicken was pure white breast, well cooked - and (re-iterating for effect) it was so damn juicy. You can see from the cross section pic below that it was practically dripping.

The napoli on top was thick, fresh, plentiful and carried a strong flavour, there might have been a little bit too much tomato paste in it for my liking but thats a very minor complaint. A thick slice of ham sat atop the napoli that complimented the juicy chicken perfectly, its flavour not lost amongst the tomato paste. Finish that all of with a healthy dollop of gooey cheese and you've got yourself a winner of a parma from the Grand View Hotel.

Apologies for how small the cross section is, I actually forgot to take a pic until I was about to eat the final bite of the parma

I can't complain at all about the chips, after we rescued them from beneath the parma they served their purpose with gusto. Beer battered, well cooked and seasoned, with the added kicker of a pot of garlic aioli (you all know I have a weakness for aioli, if you hadn't noticed from my last post)

The garden salad was great for what it was, fresh ingredients and plenty of dressing. It worked well with the dish, however I'm getting bored of basic garden salad ... One of these days I want to be wow'ed by salad! Pubs of Melbourne - get on it!

Now I'm going to say what we were all thinking - This parma was good, a little too good! Everything was great right down to the pot of aioli - but I just couldn't shake the feeling that we got something special. I have no proof to back up these claims, and people behind the bar confirmed that we got the same parma that everyone else gets - If that is the case then this is a great parma, no doubt about it, and we scored the meal as if the pub had no prior knowledge of our arrival.

But watch this space, Some time in the next few weeks I'm gonna drop into the Grand View to see if what we got was legit, and I'll keep you updated with my findings, If you try the parma at the Grand View (and it definitely gets my recommendation) then shoot me a picture on facebook or twitter for comparison.

I'd be more than happy to shell out another $20 for the meal we received, it was a damn tasty parma that I'd be happy to try again any day (plus I'm keen to check out the beer garden once spring kicks in). On a Wednesday night they run a parma, pot & quiz meisters trivia night for $15 - definitely worth checking out for a cheap feed and a laugh, the Quiz Meisters trivia nights are always quality.

The Grand View offered up a great parma and a great experience, massive thanks to the pub for having us and to Stephen, Riley and the crew for coming down and having a chat! I'm not sure when the doco is gonna be done but hopefully the guys can put it up on YouTube or something at some point so I can share it will you all, keep an eye on the usual social media spots for updates.

Check out the Grand View if you're in the area, its a laid back backstreets Brunswick local that serves up a top notch parma in a down to earth atmosphere, worth a gander.

[pros]

• Quality, unbelievably juicy schnitzel
• Garlic aioli chip dip

[/pros][cons]

• Well made but uninspired salad

[/cons]

Parma - 7.67

Chips - 7.04

Salad - 6.25

Value - 7.58

Total - 7.24

The search continues...

Attempt #160 - 'College Lawn Hotel'

[info]When? - 24th of October, 2013

Where? - College Lawn Hotel. 36 Greville St, Prahran

Price? - $21.00

Website? - http://collegelawnhotel.com.au/

Reviewers – Ash, Cale, Dale, Em, Kylie B, Lee, Matt, Mel, Ness, Nikki, Shanan, Stefo, Tony [/info]

I've wanted to do The College Lawn forever. Long before Parma Daze was a thing I stopped in for a beer one weekend and fell in love, regular readers will know that I like pubs that have lots of hidden nooks and crannies - College Lawn is the king of this. There are so many little rooms and areas to get lost in you could visit multiple times and not realise you were in the same pub. I have been to the Lawn quite a few times in my years as a legally drinking adult yet I've never tried the parma, last night we rectified that.

College Lawn is a pub in the Melbourne Venue Company group, and the MVC has an amazing pedigree when it comes to parmas. Between The Duke, The Exchange, The Hawthorn, The Portland, The Local and our current #1 parma The Imperial we have yet to have a bad parma from an MVC pub, which means the bar had been set very high for last night's trip to College Lawn

On top of being our #160th parma night, the 24th of October was also the birthday of one of our reviewers, reviewer Nikki, So we pulled the parma bus over at The Cheesecake Shop on the way to Prahran and picked up a little something to celebrate the occasion - What's better than a parma? A parma followed by cheesecake.

We arrived in suburban Prahran and wandered up to The College Lawn. Arguably the best feature of the Lawn is its massive outdoor beer garden, however Melbourne's weather was still being a bi-polar bitch and even the massive industrial strength outdoor heater couldn't save it from being a bit nippy - we opted for a table in the dining room instead.

Once everyone was settled in we picked up the menu and spotted our target...

Top billing on the menu is a good sign, it means they're proud of their parma and don't want to bury it down the bottom of the list. It was a busy review this week, so we placed our order for thirteen parmas and awaited their arrival.

Thursday night at The Lawn is "Pie and Pint night", where you can get your choice of four different pies and a pint for $15 - we saw a lot of these coming out of the kitchen and I've gotta say they looked amazing - If I weren't busy with parmas every Thursday I'd definitely be heading back to give the pies a shot.

One note before we continue - I just wanted to compliment the staff on their attentiveness while we were at The College Lawn last night - They couldn't do enough to help, they offered to put the cheesecake in the fridge, brought out plates and cutlery, even lit the candles when it was time to sing - all without being prompted.

Its the little touches that help with places like this and the staff definitely put in the extra effort to make our experience a special one.

Anyway! before long at all a parade of parmas emerged from the kitchen...

Hmmm. First impressions weren't bad, a little on the small side but thats not a terrible sin, I'd much prefer a great tasting smaller parma than a massive one that tastes like 3 month old cardboard. We picked up our cutlery and tucked in.

Lets get the criticism out of the way first, and there's only one. It was a bit thin. As you can see from the below (blurry, sorry) cross section photo the chicken schnitzel itself was thick enough in some places, yet thinned out to borderline skinny in others.

Other than that it was amazing.

The schnitz was juicy and perfectly cooked, the crumbs were thin and maintained their crunch (and I appreciate that they didn't try to hide the thinner schnitzel under a thick layer of crumbs). The ham was fresh and full of flavour that didn't get hidden amongst the other toppings. They weren't at all tight with the napoli (thank god) it was chunky, wholesome and complimented the other toppings perfectly. The cheese mix was definitely the star of the parma, like the napoli it wasn't in short supply, cooked to a perfect golden brown. The cheese mix must have been heavy on tasty cheese as it had a sharp tang that would probably be the closest tasting cheese mix we've had to the old POW parma that started this all.

The chips were perfection in potato form. A massive pile of beer battered beauties that carried so much crunch I'd swear they were double-fried. They were piping hot and beautifully seasoned, If they had've come with a pot of dipping sauce they would have been a perfect 10, no question.

Even the salad was quite good - not the best we've had but it could definitely hold its own. Fresh ingredients, plenty of chunks of crisp cucumber and capsicum all topped off with a creamy dressing, also points for the separate bowl so I don't get salad juice all over my parma. I would've loved some onion through it though.

For $21 I was damn happy with the meal College Lawn put up, yeah its a little pricey for a parma but I would happily pay it again for a meal of this calibre. They don't have a specific "Parma Night" on the menu, but Monday night is "Locals night", with a selection of meals for $12 - They'd be crazy not to put the parma in that category.

Other than some schnitzel thickness issues the College Lawn served a damn good parma and I would have absolutely no qualms recommending it to anyone. For the best College Lawn experience wait until the weather clears up and head over on a weekend afternoon, have a pint in the sun and down some quality food - you won't be disappointed.

[pros]

• Amazing chips
• Perfect toppings on parma, great tasty cheese mix
• Fresh salad with plenty of ingredients and separate bowl

[/pros][cons]

• Thin-ish schnitzel, a little small.

[/cons]

After the meal we did the birthday thing...

Happy Birthday Knickers!

Parma - 7.85

Chips - 9.00

Salad - 7.50

Value - 7.62

Total - 7.96

The search continues...

Attempt #159 - 'Network'

[info]When? - 17th of October, 2013

Where? - Network Public Bar & Pizzeria. Southern Cross Station

Price? - $23.00

Website? - http://www.networkpublicbar.com.au/

Reviewers – Dale, Lee, Nikki, Matt [/info]

When I heard they had opened up a pub inside Spencer st station Southern Cross Station, my interest was piqued. Something about the idea of sipping on a beer while watching trains come and go instantly appealed to me, I put it to the poll and it won by a landslide - apparently I'm not the only one who liked the idea of beers with Thomas the Tank Engine.

I called on Thursday afternoon to book a table and was told that they don't take bookings, even though the guy on the phone assured me there'd be free tables alarm bells were ringing - We have been "assured" in the past that there would be a place to sit at pubs that don't take reservations and have walked away disappointed and hungry. Keeping in the spirit of the parma we were going to take the train in but Melbourne's weather was being a bi-polar bitch so we opted for the comfort of the parma bus (although if you're planning on parking at the station be prepared to pay through the ass, try your luck at one of the other nearby parking structures if you don't want to pay $16 an hour).

We arrived at Network, as promised the place was mostly cleared out - The seating area inside is a bit drab, with the train departure board on the wall it gave off a bit of an 'airport departure lounge' vibe - so we opted to pull up a chair in the adjoining beer "garden". Yes the grass floor and greenery is all plastic and you're sitting under the massive roof of the station, but the atmosphere in the beer garden is infinitely better than that inside the building.

We checked the menu, Lots of italian-inspired fare here (not surprising as they bill themselves as a "public bar & pizzeria") out of the choices of pizzas, pastas and a few burger options the chicken parma was the most expensive item on the menu by $4, with nothing else listed going above the $19 mark.

"Fior di Latte" is just a fancy word for cheap mozzarella. I googled it.

 We placed our order at the bar and got given one of those buzzer things that beeps and vibrates whenever the meal is ready to be collected from the kitchen. I am in two minds about these buzzer things. On one hand its kinda cool, its a bit of a novelty sitting and waiting for the thing to go off and when it does you feel like you've won Tattslotto a tiny bit. On the other hand collecting your own food is a pain in the ass, unless its bargain basement prices I'd think they could put on some wait staff.

Everything was self serve, after ordering at the bar and getting our buzzer we were directed to the condiment & cutlery station to gather supplies, again this was a mixed bag. There were heaps of condiment caddies (pictured below) with enough sauces to keep most people satisfied, but it would have been nice to have this brought to me, rather than struggling to carry the caddy, salt, pepper, knife, fork, napkin and pint back to the table.

It may be the 12 year old in me, but I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the beer garden, yes it was a little breezy but the heaters made short work of that, and watching the trains come and go was definitely soothing. Before long at all our buzzer buzzed and we went to the kitchen to pick up our parmas...

Of the four, mine was the only one to suffer from the terrible case of curly ham that afflicted my parma. The schnitzel was quite good, a decent thickness, beautifully crumbed with panko crumbs and cooked to a perfect golden crunch. It was tasty enough to enjoy without the toppings - a mark of a great piece of chicken.

The ham was flavourful, as was the spiced napoli (although it was a bit thick and pasty). The cheese was a bit bland, not really adding anything to the dish. I enjoyed the liberal shower of cracked pepper over the parma, however if you aren't a fan of pepper this is a pretty serious liberty to take - as the flavour of the cracked pepper permeated the entire dish.

I Enjoyed the parma a lot, although it was lacking that certain kick that would take it from a good parma to a great one, I think it needed some more spices through the napoli, or maybe just more napoli in general, either way these are minor complaints to a pretty solid bird.

The chips were a disappointment. When a pub serves shoestring fries (aka "Maccas chips") with their parma they are already off on the wrong foot, on top of that these tasted as if they were cooked half an hour before and left to sit in a bowl. The sauce caddy was used liberally to try and save them, but there's only so much tomato sauce can do.

A question - Can you call a salad a "salad" if it only contains one ingredient? The "house salad" accompanying this parma was nothing but a pile of roquette lettuce doused in dressing. Firstly, I cannot stand roquette salads, if I wanted my salad to taste like grass I'd just go eat the front lawn. Secondly, if you are going to do a roquette salad, put something else in it. On its own it just comes across as a lazy green lump. I will compliment their choice of salad dressing - it was tasty and would have been delicious on a salad with more ingredients.

Network seems to have a plethora of discount food nights on the calendar. Monday is 1/2 price pizza, Tuesday is 1/2 price pasta, Wednesday is 1/2 price Burgers, and Monday - Wednesday they offer a $5 snack happy hour - yet the only thing missing from the menu is a parma night! If this parma had've arrived at our table for $15 with a pot I would be shouting its praises from the rooftops, however for $23 it didn't have quite enough going for it to justify the price.

I liked the pub, I liked the parma. But Network fell short everywhere else, The chips were lacklustre and the salad was a train wreck (train wreck... get it?!) If you're at the station with time to kill then its definitely worth checking out for the quality parma alone - However I wouldn't be going out of my way to visit if I weren't going to the station for other reasons.

[pros]

• Quality parma, amazing crispy crumbing
• Plethora of sauces and seasonings readily available

[/pros][cons]

• Cold, unseasoned shoestring fries
• Salad is just roquette in dressing

[/cons]

Parma - 8.00

Chips - 4.00

Salad - 3.13

Value - 4.88

Total - 5.60

The search continues...

Attempt #158 - 'La Di Da'

[info]When? - 10th of October, 2013

Where? - La Di Da. Corner of Little Bourke & King St, Melbourne.

Price? - $12.50 Mon - Thurs, $17.50 Friday lunch, $19.50 Friday, Saturday & Sunday

Website? - http://www.ladidapeople.com/

Reviewers – Dale, Lee, Nikki, Matt, Tony [/info]

I've always considered La Di Da as a nightclub, granted my only exposure to it before yesterday was on the nights that it joins Bang and Next to become the "Plastic" mega-club. So when I heard that they also served food my interest was indeed piqued.

A few of the regulars couldn't make it this week so it was going to be a quiet night - because of this I forwent calling and booking a table. "It'll be fine" I said to myself "we'll get a table no problem". However if I had've called ahead I would have been told that the entire dining area was booked out for a private function. Smooth move right there.

We arrived and (luckily) managed to secure one of the tables in the side bar, completely walled off from the dining area. On a nice night this would be a great spot for a beer - the massive open doors at one end lent to a CBD beer-garden type feel. We settled in, the first pints were poured and we checked the menu for the dish of the evening...

Sighted! But it wasn't until we got to the bar that we realised we were in luck, as there was a note at the end of the menu...

Gotta love an unexpected bonus, Like finding a $20 in your jeans pocket after washing them. Being Thursday night our parmas came to only $12.50, and (not mentioned on the above image) when you order a cheap parma you can get either a free soft drink or a $2.50 pot of draught. If the parma was quality a $15.00 pot 'n parma deal is a great start

No more than 5 minutes later our parmas arrived (Everyone else we saw eating in the pub also had parmas, they must have quite a construction line going in the kitchen).

These teardrop shaped plates sure are popular these days, it may just  be coincidence but we seem to be seeing more and more of them lately. Anyway, crockery aside, on to the parma.

No points for presentation on this one, the large plate left a lot of white space, which also left my wondering why they insisted on stacking the parma on top of the chips - I don't really have a problem with the parma being on the chips if there is no other space on the plate - I'd rather more stuff in a big pile than less stuff just so it all fit without overlapping.

The schnitz wasnt great, as you can see by the above pic mine had a massive burnt tail poking out from under the toppings. It was pretty thin, there was one lump down the north end of the plate where the schnitzel thickened out to a respectable girth - but the majority of it was around the 1cm of thickness max.

Napoli, ham and and crumbs were all present, but none were really noteworthy, Everything tasted as if it came out of a package. The highlight of the dish would probably be the cheese, it didn't blow me away but there was plenty of it, it was well cooked and it retained a delightfully gooey consistency throughout.

It was an okay parma, bordering on "good", but I'm struggling to find anything noteworthy to actually talk about. It was cookie cutter. Everything was there but there was no panache, It didn't feel like any love was put into it at all.

The chips looked decent, there were little flecks of herbs throughout that gave me hope that they were well seasoned - but those barely added any flavour, leaving everyone reaching for the salt shakers. They were okay, my major gripe being that they were rather undercooked leaving them a bit hard and claggy. We asked a passing waitress for some tomato sauce to help rectify the situation but it never came, The function next door was in full swing and I think we were forgotten.

Probably the most disappointing part of the dish was the salad - this is pretty common with discount parmas as its probably the least cared about part of the dish and thus the first thing to go when tightening the purse strings. My salad was a couple of bits of lettuce and two wedges of tomato. That's it. A couple of reviewers had some onion as well, but that didn't make it onto everyone's plate. A massive afterthought.

Value is a tough one. for $12.50 this is an acceptable parma - sure its not great, but it doesn't sting the wallet too hard either way, and at least it'll fill a hunger hole. However I do have a problem with the other prices a person could potentially pay.

Classically a discount parma night is just one or two nights of the week, yet La Di Da sell this parma for $12.50 from Monday to Thursday - thats the majority of the week. If I paid $19.50 for what I was delivered last night I would not be happy - La Di Da are walking a fine line between offering a discount parma from Monday to Thursday, or just jacking up the price on weekends. It depends on how you're looking at it.

Overall there isn't a lot to complain about for $12.50, these days $12.50 doesn't buy you a whole lot - hell a trip to the Nando's next door would probably cost you more than this parma, and if thats all you're after then this is a pretty good deal - especially if you're the designated driver and you score a free soft drink with it. If you're after a quick bite to fill a hole and not hit the hip pocket too hard then check it out, otherwise I'd say give this one a miss.

[pros]

• If you go Monday - Thursday its cheap, with a free soft drink or discounted beer.

[/pros][cons]

• Uninspired, cookie cutter parma
• Starchy, unseasoned chips
• Not worth the price on Friday, Saturday or Sunday

[/cons]

Parma - 5.60

Chips - 4.60

Salad - 3.40

Value - 6.90

Total - 5.22

The search continues...

Attempt #157 - 'Universal'

When? - 3rd of October, 2013

Where? - Universal Italian Restaurant & Function Venue. 139-141 Lygon St. Carlton

Price? - $14

Website? - http://www.universalrestaurant.com.au/

Reviewers – Cale, Carly, Dale, Kylie, Lee, Nikki, Shanan, Stefo, Tony

Call me Ishmael, as a good parma on Lygon street has been my white whale for quite some time now. You would think that Melbourne's most prominent Italian Restaurant district would be rampant with quality parmas, yet that just doesn't seem to be the case - We have tried a few over the years (like here, here & here) with varying degrees of success but we haven't found one that we have been absolutely wrapped with.

When Universal was suggested to me, I immediately thought they were talking about The University Hotel, A pub further down the road that I had seen in the past and made a mental note to give a try (University/Universal... They sound kind've similar). It wasn't until I went on their website to get the phone number that I realised that we weren't going where I thought we were, Oh well, The location was set so I made the booking, we loaded up the parma bus and headed to Universal.

We don't normally do restaurants here at Parma Daze, there is no rule against it, it just seems we come across a lot more pubs than we do 'restaurants', so this was something a bit different. Universal is a lot more spacious on the inside than it appears from outside, at 7 o'clock there were already quite a few people both inside and out on the street, yet there was still enough room to stretch your legs.

While we're on the subject of Lygon street - especially this area of Lygon street, One thing I absolutely hate is running the gauntlet of spruikers trying to get me to go into their restaurant. Its uncomfortable and in my opinion should be banned. I have literally been walking down Lygon with two large pizzas, a garlic bread and a pasta, yet I still got hassled to go into restaurants. If I am looking for a place to eat on Lygon and they have a spruiker out the front I will actively avoid going in to that restaurant so as not to condone the practise. Luckily the Universal had no such person out the front, Unless they just hadn't started for the night - which I sincerely hope isn't the case.

Beer selection is limited, with only one tap running beer (Pure Blonde) and the other running cider (strongbow) If you want to get any fancier then set your sights on the bottled selection. Corona, Peroni, Little Creatures, White Rabbit - all costing at about $8 a stubby.

A few of the review team were stuck in traffic, so while we waited we started without them and ordered a pre-game of cheesy garlic bread. We  were all damn hungry so the majority of it went before I could snap a decent photo - I won't post it here as it isn't the best image, but if you're really curious I chucked it up on our Instagram after taking it) The garlic pizza was delicious. Plenty of garlic and so much damn cheese I thought we'd taken a road trip to Bega, a perfect way to kick off the meal.

The starter was polished off very quickly, the others arrived and we set our sights on the main menu. Parma was sighted...

Looked good! Pricing at just $14 it was very friendly on the wallet as well. We placed our orders and awaited our dinners.

Before very long at all (extremely prompt service, especially as the place was quite busy) our parmas began arriving out of the kitchen. Two by two, as if Noah himself loved parmas as much as we do.

God damn that is an impressive looking plate! Absolutely massive, I put the fork in the shot to give you some sort of perspective. This was an absolute monster.

So we've got a tick in two boxes. It's cheap, it's big ... but is it good? Completing the trifecta would be an unexpected feat for this unassuming Lygon St. cafe. I picked up the cutlery and tucked in.

The schnitzel was quite big, the sheer size of the massive plate makes the schnitz look small but this was definitely a big'un. The crumbs were crispy without the slightest hint of sogginess. The chicken itself was thinner than I would have liked, and not of the best quality, but nothing to gripe too badly about.

There was quite a bit of nude schnitz showing on top, but due to its large size that can be excused - The areas of schnitz covered by topping would be enough fill a normal man quite easily - and the crunchy topping free shnitz around the sides provided a nice palate cleanse in between bites of the flavourful toppings.

And thats about where my criticisms end! The traditional napoli was rich and full of flavour (definitely what I expected from Lygon St.) Like the garlic pizza there was an abundance of cheese, which sealed in the heat and kept the dish piping hot till the very end. Even the few basil leaves on top added a fresh tang to the dish and made it that much more visually appealing.

There was no ham, but being in the Italian district of Melbourne I wasn't expecting one. Yes it would have been nice, but we're going 'traditional' here, so it's really hard to complain about that.

The chips were fantastic. You know an establishment is proud of their chips when they put their name in front of them, and all mention of chips on Universal's menu referred to them as "Universal's beer battered chips". Massively chunky, perfectly seasoned with the spot on ratio of crunch on the outside to fluffiness on the inside. If they had've been served with some sort of dipping sauce (even a bit of heinz tomato sauce would have done the job) then we would have been looking at perfect marks.

Beside the parma laid a truly monumental mound of coleslaw, definitely not out of the supermarket deli section, this slaw was fresh and delicious, with plenty of dressing to spice it up. It's always nice to see some thought put into the salad, rather than your standard pile of green stuff with a tomato wedge.

All up this was a good meal. For only $14 this is a damn good meal.Value on this dish is well and truly off the charts, and this isn't even a special parma night, this is a $14 dish every day of the week.

Being just a quick stroll from the University makes this one to remember for all you starving students out there, for a damn reasonable price there is no way you are leaving hungry - for my money the Universal has got to be one of the best value parmas in town.

The Universal's parma isn't perfect, but for the price the  few gripes I had with it are easily forgotten. I'm gonna keep looking and try and find a better Lygon st. Parma, but the bar has been set high. Damn high.

Pros

• Delicious traditional napoli

• No shortage of cheese

• Crispy crumbs - no sogginess

• Amazing chips

• Big! You won't leave hungry

• At only $14 its a steal

Cons

• Not the best quality chicken used in the schnitzel

Parma - 7.67

Chips - 7.72

Salad - 6.72

Value - 9.56

Total - 7.87

The search continues...

#156 - 'The Ascot Vale Hotel'

When? - 26th of September, 2013

Where? - The Ascot Vale Hotel, 447 Mount Alexander Rd. Ascot Vale

Price? - $18

Website? - None

Reviewers – Cale, Dale, Fridge, Grace, Lee, Natalie, Tony, Stefo

*Update* This review is no longer valid. Check out our revisit to the Ascot Vale Hotel Here.

If you're unfamiliar with the story of why we do what we do, you'd better familiarise yourself now. Long story short we started the hunt for the perfect parma after our favourite pub meal was ripped away from us by the fire at The Prince of Wales Hotel in Ascot Vale back in 2009.

A stones throw from the Prince of Wales (known to the regulars as "Jimmies") is the Ascot Vale Hotel. Now back in 2009 The Ascot was ... how can I put this delicately?.. A hole. It was dark, sticky floors, basically a dive. I never in my wildest dreams would have considered trying a parma within its walls (it would have been particularly difficult, them not having a kitchen back then)

Jump cut to 2013. Jimmies is gone, we have been searching for a replacement for over 4 years, and now The Ascot is under new management - It's had a paint job, a few lights have gone in, most of the dank has been cleared away and - most importantly - they've put in a kitchen.

I was considering the Ascot for a couple of weeks when I was clued in to something interesting. The newly installed furniture at the Ascot is the same furniture that they had at The Prince of Wales. Now I'm not talking about the same design, I'm saying that The PoW sold their furniture to the Ascot after the fire and it now resides there. It was a sign, we had to try a parma on the very same tables that the best parmas ever to grace Melbourne were served on.

I never thought I'd sit at these tables again

The very first time I visited The Ascot was for a mate's 18th Birthday party, would have been ten years ago now. The one thing I remember more than anything was that behind the bar they had a single, unlabelled tap of "Beer". No brand, no options, just beer or nothing. I was happy to see they have improved their selection - nothing exciting, mind you (Carlton, VB, Blonde, Boags, Bulmers) but at least I know know what brand of beer I'm ordering this time around.

We took our seats, everyone was famished so we opted for an entree of garlic bread and an assorted dip plate ($10 for the dips, $5 for the GB).

The entrees were simple, understated and served their job well. Nothing to write home about but they definitely filled the void while waiting for our parmas to arrive.

Next up - The Main event...

I've seen Veal parmigiana as an option many, many times - Yet I've never seen "beef", not that It matters, we're pretty much exclusively chicken folk here at Parma Daze, we placed the order an awaited our parmas. It was a small kitchen so I excused them for taking a little longer than I normally would expect (got through most of a pint before the meals arrived) but fair enough for an order of 8 parmas out of a tiny cooking space.

Well. This is a new one.

Sure bolognaise parmas are pretty commonplace, yet I'm racking my brain and I don't think we've ever actually reviewed one for the site. Something clicked, on the Menu when it said "Chicken/Beef Parmagiana" did that mean its a Chicken and beef parma? (the bolognaise being the "beef"?) I never confirmed my suspicions, but that made a lot of sense. I've got nothing against bolognaise instead of napoli so with an open mind we tucked in.

As you can see a couple of us (myself included) had the "two smaller schnitzels stuck together with cheese" parma, which I don't particularly mind, its all the same in the end. The chicken breast itself was surprisingly thick, over an inch in places... but I'm afraid that's about where the positives end.

The whole thing was so dry. The chicken, while thick, had no moisture and was bordering on stringy. The bolognaise sauce was in the same boat, I don't mind a bit of bol, but you need to have some napoli mixed in with it otherwise all you have is tomato flavoured taco meat.

The crumbs were also a let down. I've referred to this type of crumbing before as "KFC crumbs" where the schnitzel itself resembles a KFC boneless fillet more than it does an actual schnitz - I'm not sure what these crumbs are made of, but they kind've form more of a skin over the chicken than they do individual crumbs. Not a fan.

There wasn't much cheese, and the cheese that was there was a very poor choice - I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was, but it definitely wasn't mozzarella. It tasted more like straight up melted tasty cheese - which is alright on toast, but on a parma its way too overpowering - If you want that tasty cheese zing on your parma you have to mix it in with mozzarella and make a blend. Straight up tasty cheese just killed it.

There were plenty of chips, and for the most part they were okay - other than needing a bit of salt half of them were fine. Unfortunately the other half were hard, almost raw, I tried to cut one with the edge of my fork and literally couldn't break through it. Not a good sign at all.

The salad was an afterthought, wilted lettuce leaves with a single slice of cucumber and a lone wedge of tomato. It did have plenty of dressing though, I'm a sucker for balsamic (the more the better) which saved this salad a little for me, but overall it was a disappointment.

QUOTES-PD

For $18 you won't walk away hungry - but you wont walk away happy. It filled a hole but it wasn't an enjoyable experience - I definitely wouldn't seek this one out in the future.

The Ascot has done a lot of work to fix their pub up, and they definitely get and A for effort, yet I would avoid this parma at all costs. The entrees were fine, which gives me hope that some of the other items on the menu also have potential, So if you end up there maybe give one of those a go.

I just feel bad for the tables. If they knew what kind of parma was being served on them after once being host to the best parma in Melbourne... They would be screaming.

Pros -

• Thick chicken breast

Cons -

• Both chicken and bolognaise were extremely dry
• Cheese had extremely strong, off-putting flavour
• Chips were undercooked & hard
• Salad was an afterthought

Parma - 3.00

Chips - 3.86

Salad - 3.14

Value - 4.00

Total - 3.43

The search continues...

Attempt #155 - 'Saint & Rogue'

 

[info]When? - 20th of September, 2013

Where? - Saint & Rogue, 582 Little Collins St. Melbourne

Price? - $24

Website? - http://www.saintandrogue.com.au/

Reviewers – Adam, Cale, Dale, Lee, Tony, Stefo[/info]

Saint & Rogue is one of those pubs that I loved as soon as I walked in the door. Dark stained wood, cosy dimly lit corners and an abundance of overstuffed leather couches to sink into. They bill themselves as "...a place that gets back to the roots of a quality pub", and to their credit they've got it just right.

S&R is divided into two areas, the public bar downstairs and the dining/seated area upstairs. Downstairs struck me as the lovechild of Turf Bar and The Local Taphouse - Some of my favourite pubs in Melbourne. When we arrived at 7 o'clock it was already bustling with suited professionals knocking back some post-work bevvies. While waiting for the rest of the review team to arrive it was a bit of a struggle to find somewhere to rest an elbow, but once I found a snug corner to hang my hat the beers went down a treat.

Speaking of beers, there's a pretty decent range of beers on tap, from the standard Boags to "The Grizz American Amber Ale" You're sure to find a drop that'll quench your thirst, all running at between $10 and $11 per pint.

Photo from hiddencitysecrets.com.au

Once the crew arrived we ventured up the stairs to the dining area. Compared to downstairs I was shocked at how quiet it was, We took our seats by the window and couldn't see anyone else in the room (although they could have been hiding, S&R makes great use of wooden screens to divide off different areas, creating some quite intimate, candelit spaces for romantic evenings - this would be a great pub to bring a date).

Upstairs was surprisingly spacious (possibly an illusion as it was so quiet) but the exposed beams and high roof made for a fantastic hidden space, watching the hustle and bustle of Little Collins street go by down below was a lovely way to enjoy a meal.

Photo from hiddencitysecrets.com.au

The menus arrived right on time as we were all starving, We decided on a small pre-game before moving on to the main event, checking the menu we found a couple of tantalising options...

Sounds delicious! And what pre-game in Australia would be complete without the classic...

All of the food arrived very promptly, I won't spend a whole chunk of time talking about the entrees, mostly because they went so quickly I didn't have a chance to snap a photo, But I will say this - They were fantastic.

The garlic bread was fresh, not at all tight on the garlic butter and cooked perfectly on the border of crunchy edges but still soft in the middle, the capsicum dip with crostini was delicious as was the feta & marinated olives. I don't know what they did to those button mushrooms that were on the plate but they were absolutely divine. If this was any sort of indicator of the quality of the parma then we were in for a good bit of bird.

Oh, I forgot to mention, when we ordered the pre-game we also ordered the parmas...

And just as we finished the last of the grazing plate they arrived from the kitchen. Perfect timing.

At first I thought "uh-oh". It looked tiny, especially next to the monumental mountain of salad beside it. I quickly separated the three elements - rescuing the chips from their sweaty prison, and tucked in.

Phew, relief as soon as I cut into it. Although small in circumference the schnitzel was substantially thick, scroll down slightly and take a look at the cross section, this was a thick bit of chicken. Top quality pure white chicken breast, no tricks with thick crumbs in sight. Okay. We're back on track.

There was plenty of cheese and napoli covering the top, no nude schnitz anywhere, The toppings both tasted fresh and complimented the quality chicken perfectly - It was on track to being a very highly rated parma.

Unfortunately (uh oh...) It was let down by a few factors. First of all there was no ham - now I know this is a personal choice, and its more of a Melbourne thing than a universal parma thing, but I like a bit of pork on my parma. It doesn't have to be there, and I can definitely live without it (hell the old Prince of Wales parma didn't have ham and I still consider that the best we've ever had), but this parma could have used it. It needed that kick to get it over the line.

Secondly, and most disappointing, it was cold. Warm at best. I didn't understand as it was out of the kitchen so quickly, maybe due to the thickness of the chicken it just didn't hold its heat. I don't know. I asked around the table and this only affected 4 of the 6 parmas served, but even so it was a bit of a disappointment.

Other than that - Top quality parma. I'm sure the temperature issue was just an isolated incident, and the lack of ham is more of a personal complaint than something actually wrong with the dish. All in all a quality bit of schnitz that I'd happily give another go.

Now to the chips. There were plenty of them hiding under the parma, but I could see their problem as soon as I removed the schnitzel - They were undercooked. You know when chips are almost done and the top is still slightly shiny as opposed to crispy? Like that. Other than that they were okay, I loved the open pots of rock salt and pepper on the table for pinching, they served the chips very well.

As soon as I saw "mixed leaf" salad on the menu I knew it'd be boring, I've never come across a mixed leaf salad that I've enjoyed. The did fancy it up a little with some other ingredients but for the most part it was a fairly bland garden salad. Don't get me wrong, all the elements were fresh and there was plenty of it, it's just hard to wow me with different varieties of lettuce.

When I first saw the parma I was afraid it wasn't going to fill me at all - Yet when the cutlery hit the plate I was relatively stuffed. For $24 I'd be more than happy to give it a go next time I was at the Saint & Rogue, If I was in the Spencer St end of the city and had a hankering for a parma it would definitely be considered. I only just noticed that Thursday is $6 pints of Boags, Kicking myself I didn't stick to those last night instead of downing a few pints of Heineken .

All up Saint & Rogue is a fantastic little pub that serves up quality ingredients. The entrees were spot on and the parma itself was pretty good, other than a few unfortunate (and hopefully not repeated) circumstances letting it down it's definitely one to check out if you're in the area.

[pros]

• Amazing pub, fantastic hidden gem
• Thick, fresh, high quality chicken breast
• Plenty of cheese and napoli - No nude schnitzel
• Deceptively big
• Plenty of sides, massive salad

[/pros]

[cons]

• No ham
• Parma was warm at best
• Chips were undercooked
• Salad was bland

[/cons]

Parma - 7.75

Chips - 6.17

Salad - 5.50

Value - 5.67

Total - 6.57

The search continues...