#380 - 'The St. Andrews Hotel'

Where - 128 Nicholson Street. Fitzroy

Price - $27.90

Website - https://www.standrewshotel.com.au

Reviewers – Lee & Nikki

First things first - We were advised by the (super friendly and attentive) staff of the St. Andrews as we ordered that a new menu was being introduced today. Literally a day after we ate this parma for review. I can’t find details on the new menu just yet but will update as soon as I know whether or not the parma made the cut.

The last few weeks of parma reviews have definitely been interesting here at ParmaDaze. We’ve had a Pizza place, a Parma Festival, A cafe, a food truck and another Pizza place in recent weeks, yet we haven’t had a good ol’ fashioned pub parma since our visit to the Oxford Scholar back at the start of May - And as interesting and unique as this last month of parmas has been, I was really craving a good old school parma at a pub.

So I did what I always do when I’m a bit stuck for ideas. Fired up Google Maps, typed in “pub” and just scrolled around. Hovering over Fitzroy something interesting caught my eye - A pub name I didn’t recognise. The St. Andrews Hotel.

I zoomed in and realised what was up. A pub we had visited in the past has changed its name. Fitzroy’s Pumphouse Hotel has rebranded itself as the St. Andrews Hotel.

I always liked the Pumphouse. You can read about our 2012 visit here. So was curious to see how things had changed. (I also noticed on the menu that they have recently won “Burger of the Year” at the 2018 AHA Vic State Awards for Excellence, so their pub grub can’t be all that bad. We loaded up the Parma Bus and headed to Fitzroy.

The interior of the pub hasn’t changed much since the Pumphouse days. It’s had a bit of a spruce-up but the core layout is still the same - and that’s not a bad thing. The St. Andrews is a warm, cosy pub that you would be happy to call your local.

We were tempted to grab a feed in the front bar, however the call of the cracking open fire in the dining area was too good to resist. We moved through, grabbed a table and checked the menu -

$27.90 is pricey for a parma … St. Andrews better be bringing their A game.

If on the very unlikely chance you aren’t feeling like a parma when you visit the St. Andrews it’s worth noting that the rest of the menu is quite unique, with a large focus on game meats. Venison steaks & buffalo burgers both sounded super tempting, but we were there for a reason and placed the order for our parmas.

The tap list at St. Andrews is fine, Carlton, 4 Pines, Fat Yak, Good Island, Stella Artois, McCracken’s Amber Ale along with a rotating tap. It’s not the craftiest of selections and may leave some people wanting, but should do the job.

I grabbed a pint and waited for our parmas to arrive. After reviewing close to 300 parmas in Melbourne I think its safe to say the average time to put one together and get it to the table is about 20 minutes, give or take. We were the only customers in the dining area at the time we ordered so you would think 20 minutes would be about right.

20 minutes came, and 20 minutes passed. At the half hour mark I started to get concerned, and when 40 minutes ticked by since ordering and the staff, while checking if we needed more drinks, commented that “the food will be out soon” I was getting worried.

At about the 45 minute mark the parmas arrived at our table. As is tradition with visiting a pub we have visited in the past, lets first have a look at our visit to the Pumphouse before moving on to last night’s visit to St. Andrews..

The Pumphouse parma as of 2012 -

The St Andrews Hotel parma as of 2019 -

Well even though there was a wait I could not fault the schnitzel for being cold. This thing was burning hot, to the point that it needed significant cooling before being suitable to eat. Steam billowed out of the chicken breast with each cut - A definite good sign, nothing worse than a cold parma.

The chicken breast was top notch quality. Pure white, juicy, well cooked and (of course) hot chicken breast. The crumbing was sparingly applied and had the potential to be great had it been a little crispier, they were quite soggy and lacked any sort of crunch that you might be hoping for.

Now we get to the toppings, and let me tell you, this is where things get strange.

So as you can see in the photos, above the ham but below the cheese on the parma were some dark slivers. dotted all over the top, as if they had been grilled yet they remained below the layer of barely melted cheese. At first glance I thought St. Andrews were trying something unique, maybe they had dotted some sun dried tomatoes around the parma for a but of a rustic vibe.

However once I tucked in I realised they weren’t sun dried tomatoes. it was just more cheese. Crispy, hard, almost burnt flecks of cheese. Under a fresh layer of cheese.

Huh?

I looked to Reviewer Nik and she was not impressed. She had gotten it worse than I, rather than flecks of darkness she had an entire layer of bunt cheese with a fresh layer on it. Then I remembered the 45 minute wait. A 45 minute wait for a veritably empty pub. Something had gone wrong in the kitchen.

Now this is purely speculation as I can’t be sure, but it definitely looks as if the parmas were done, got put under the grill to brown off the cheese, got forgotten about, burnt (as cheese tends to do) but rather than start fresh they’ve whacked a new layer of cheese on top and hoped we wouldn’t notice.

We did notice, and to be honest it took a lot away from the dish.

The ham was tasty, the napoli was fine (although mostly soaked into the crumbs) but the weird cheese kind’ve spoiled the dish for us. Very unfortunate as things had been great leading up to that point, and with the high calibre of ingredients used this definitely had potential to be a great feed.

The chips were basically what you would find at a fish & chip shop. Needed a bit of salt but otherwise fine. Served hot like the parma. Nothing to write home about but at the same time not bad in any way.

The salad was a simple, understated garden salad with cherry tomatoes, onion and cucumber. Fresh and crisp with a liberal dollop of dressing it did it’s job well. Not trying to hard but nailing the simple elements well.

“A parma with potential to be delicious, However I think there may have been a mishap in the kitchen. Wasn’t a huge fan of the Fish & Chip Shop chips either”

— Nikki

I struggle assigning a value rating at the best of times, but this is even harder. $27.90 is getting expensive for a parma, and while I can’t fault St. Andrews on the quality of ingredients used, what we were delivered was sub-par, and paying such a premium I don’t want hurried cover-ups in the kitchen after a mistake.

I was getting impatient after waiting 45 minutes for our meal, however I would rather wait longer and get a well produced parma than get what we received last night. All of the staff members we interacted with last night were great. Attentive and friendly, can’t fault them - If they had come up to us and explained that there was an issue and there would be a slight wait on our meals I would have been happy to kick back in front of the fire with a beer and wait for a well prepared parma to be delivered.

After all that I’d recommend visiting St. Andrews. Its a parma with potential and I’m willing to chalk our visit up to a rare hiccup in the kitchen. Its a great pub with a cosy atmosphere (great for the winter). The score below will reflect the parma that we received last night, however I will definitely consider dropping in again soon to see if what happened was a once off or a continuing issue. I may not be as forgiving a second time around.

Parma - 5.50

Chips - 6.00

Salad - 7.50

Value - 4.00

Total -  5.70

The search continues...

#379 - 'Old School Pizza'

Where - 14-20 Nicholson St. Coburg

Price - $21.90 with one side. Toppings extra (see menu grab below)

Website - https://oldschoolpizza.com.au

Reviewers – Lee & Nikki

I’m getting a bit of Deja Vu writing this review. Last month we visited Albion Pizza, a pizza place at the base of an apartment block next to an IGA Express with a pink neon slice of pizza as their logo. This week we visited Old School Pizza in Coburg, a pizza place at the base of an apartment block next to an IGA Express with a pink neon slice of pizza as their logo.

Old School Pizza seems to be a restaurant designed for the “influencer” crowd, serving up larger than life, insane food products that look just great in an instagram post. Stonegrill steaks, freak shakes, “donut snack packs” and their signature giant “jawbreaker” pizza slice (which I know technically not a slice as it is made that size, not cut from a larger pizza - Don’t @ me).

Day after day I would see new bizarre creations pop up on my Instagram feed from Old School Pizza, so when I found out that they also served up a parma I figured it was definitely an interesting one to check out, so last night we loaded up the parma bus and headed to Old School Pizza in Coburg.

While Albion Pizza was relatively empty when we arrived for the review, Old School was absolutely packed when we walked in the door to the point I was worried we wouldn’t get a table. We pushed our way through the throngs of take away customers, the dine in patrons and the deliveroo drivers to find a table and check the menu for our target…

A few choices to be made here. The standard parma comes with one side included (chips, salad or veg) with an extra costing another $4. Napoli or bolognese sauce is included with the price but Mexicana toppings will cost you $3 extra.

We placed our order, two parmas, one with napoli, one with bolognese and both with chips and salad.

Those feeling like an alcoholic beverage will be disappointed as Old School does not currently hold a liquor license. The glass bottles of Coke went down a treat though (doesn’t Coke just taste better out of a glass bottle?)

about 20 minutes after placing the order the parmas arrived from the kitchen.

First up the schnitzel is real, pure chicken breast. Not the biggest in circumference but thick enough to make up for it. The double crumbing was fantastic - Giving the parma a solid crunch that lasted throughout the entire meal. It was cooked to perfection and served piping hot. A wonderful foundation to the parma.

The toppings are where we stumble a little. Both the Napoli and bolognese were fine. They were there but in the scheme of things a little flavourless. The cheese melt was great. Plenty of cheese and grilled to a perfect gooey golden brown.

The Old School parma, like the Albion, did not have ham, a decision that baffles me.

Update: It has been brought to my attention that Old School Pizza is 100% Halal, hence the lack of ham. The Mexicana does come with Sujuk, which might be worth a try! (Always love a good Mexicana), which they were kind enough to send through a photo of…

The Mexicana at Old School Pizza 

All in all I really enjoyed the schnitzel, just wish the toppings had a little more kick! Maybe the Above Mexican is the one for me.

The serve of chips with the Old School parma was quite possibly the most generous serving of chips we have ever gotten with a dine-in parma. Absolutely massive, served piping hot and dusted with chicken salt. I regret not ordering a side of aioli to help them along but they were pretty great as they were. Could not get through them all as there were so many. Very well done.

The bowl of garden salad was fresh and crisp with the surprise addition of olives. seedless olives at that, I cannot stand when pubs leave the seeds in the olives they put in salads - Luckily Old School had the foresight to not leave tooth-cracking seeds in their salad. It was a fine salad, unless you aren’t a fan of olives, then you would probably be disappointed.

“The schnitzel was tasty and great quality however the toppings let this parma down a little. Could have definitely used a bit of ham to liven things up”

— Nikki

Value is a tough one to judge here. With chips and salad our parmas came to $25.50 each, which is a wholly acceptable price, however I’m not a huge fan of places that nickel-and-dime the sides the way that Old School does. The giant serve of chips was definitely $4 worth, however the bowl of salad, while tasty, was not $4 worth of salad. If the parma was just $25.50 it would have been easier to accept however charging for the items separately draws extra scrutiny on the value of each individual element. No special parma nights as far as I’m aware.

The parma at Old School doesn’t have the outrageous flair that their other items like the Jawbreaker Slice or the Donut Snack Packs have, and I think they could benefit from it. All up it was a decent parma with a massive serve of chips and a pretty good salad but it lacked that “wow” factor that would have really driven it home.

I wouldn’t go out of my way for it, but worth a visit (would be a great one for a delivery order) if you’re a local.

Parma - 6.75

Chips - 8.00

Salad - 7.00

Value - 6.25

Total -  6.95

The search continues...

Special Attempt: 'Parmarama @ The Ascot Lot'

Where - The Ascot Lot.

Price - 448-462 Mt. Alexander Road, Ascot Vale

Website - http://www.theascotlot.com

Reviewers – Eden, Grace, James, Lee, Nikki, Shanan & Tony,

A few weeks ago, while waiting in the queue for an Espresso Martini at the Ascot Lot, I noticed an ad flash up briefly on the TV screen over the bar. It simply said “Parmarama - 18th of May”.

At the time I didn’t think much of it, pickup up my mint chocolate Espresso Martini and went on my way.

What followed was the most intense social media barrage I have ever experienced. on Facebook, on Twitter, on Discord, Reddit, Instagram and even good old fashioned email I was getting drowned in tags, shares and @ mentions about the upcoming Ascot Lot parma festival. The press this event got was insane, parmas were a hot topic all over TV, the papers and the radio and everyone was keen on the upcoming Parmarama at the Ascot Lot.

I had a problem though, As Parmarama was on the same day as GABS - The Great Australian Beer Spectapular run every year at the Royal Exhibition Buildings, and I already had my ticket for Saturday the 18th.

I wasn’t planning on going to Parmarama, GABS was locked in and I haven’t missed a Saturday session in years. But as the pressure built I cracked and found a compromise. Like the little girl in the Old El Paso ad it hit me … “Why don’t we do both?”

This is a very long intro to say - Yes, we went to Parmarama, but we came straight from a 5 hour long beer festival, so the photos may be a little blurry and I apologise in advance for that.

We arrived shortly after 5pm and the place was packed, We grabbed some beers and started working our way through the available trucks.

First up we had “The Bearded Jaffle’ sandwich truck owned by Melbourne Footballer Max Gawn and his brothers. Their offering for the festival was “The Parma” a waffle filled with dorito crusted popcorn chicken, tomato relish, mozzarella and parmesan cheese and topped off with crispy ham. Sounds delicious? I thought so too!

Unfortunately we arrived just too late, and the Bearded Jaffle had sold out of “The Parma”. Bummer. I hope they keep the parma on the menu as that sounds damn delicious and I would be keen to track it down and give it another try.

Okay, moving on.

Next up we had “Parma Bites”, offering Popcorn Chicken parmas, We had missed out on the “beefy bolognese” style, but we managed to get an order in for the Traditional: Tempura popcorn chicken, mozzarella cheese, classic napoli, crispy bacon bits on a bed of fries. Oddly enough “parma bites” wasn’t that busy, so after a 15 minute wait our first feed of the evening was up.

Ever since KFC brought the concept to the country I have been a sucker for popcorn chicken (even though KFC’s popcorn chicken has turned to crap now), and this was a fun dish. The popcorn chicken balls were crunchy, full of flavour and actually had a surprisingly decent amount of chicken in them. The sauce was rich (could have been chunkier) and it could have been a bit heavier on the parmesan, but the bacon bits really helped a lot. For the first meal of the festival I was impressed. Definitely worth a try.

I’m gonna keep these reviews short as there is a fair few to get through… Next on the docket:

Next up we have “Just Like Nonna’s” serving up the “Italian Snack Pack”, advertised as “Chips loaded with homemade napoli sauce & mozzarella”.

Didn’t get a photo of this one, but to be honest it was probably the weakest of the bunch. It was basically loaded fries with tomato sauce and cheese. I can see what they were going for but I don’t think their offering really fit into the “Parmarama” theme.

Doing a little research it appears they were planning on offering a "Parma Burger” for the day, so I’m gonna chalk this one up to us being too late and missing the main event. A shame! I would have loved to try the parma burger.

Moving on!

“Burrito Bae” were offering up either a “Parma Burrito” or a “Parma Bowl”. Amazingly neither was sold out. I was tempted to go the parma bowl, but after two meals that were basically a parma-esque item stacked on top of chips I opted for the Parma Burrito…

This one was super quick, after 10 minutes I had my burrito in hand. I unwrapped the creation from its foil container and tucked in. Apologies for the upcoming half-eaten food photo but I really don’t know how one is supposed to photograph the inside of a burrito with out it looking at least a little gross.

This one was actually damn tasty. Definitely more burrito than parma with the addition of guacamole and sour cream, but there was an attempt. If they called it a “mexi-parma burrito” it would be much more accurate, as that is what the flavours were leaning towards, but it had chicken, cheese, tomato salsa and it was damn tasty. Would recommend.

Next we have the stars of the evening.

From the time we arrived until the time we left, Jake’s Kitchen were by far the most popular stand at ParmaRama 2019. The line was absolutely massive which unfortunately meant a long wait for the parmas

The queue didn’t get any shorter than this the entire time we were there.

They were absolutely slammed, but for good reason. I did a deep dive on the Jake’s Kitchen parma a few weeks ago which you can read about by clicking here. But basically these guys have cracked the code on how to present a portable parma. A sliced pure chicken breast atop a pile of chips coated in “Jake’s special paprika seasoning”. An absolute delightful meal. My photo from the night is quite horrible (many, many beers had at this point), so here’s a repost from the last time we tried it -

Finally, we have this guy…

Good ol’ fashion Mr. Whippy, slinging soft serve ice cream since the dawn of man.

“But ParmaDaze!” I hear you ask “How can Mr Whippy join in a parma festival? You can’t make a parma Ice Cream!”

Well, dear reader … You’re half right.

Mr Whippy’s ParmaRama item was “Mr Whippy with Chicken Crimpy” Aka soft serve ice cream topped with crushed chicken crimpy Shapes…

It was … Interesting. To be honest it tasted exactly how you are currently imagining it would taste.

It was fine, crunchy, I was definitely happier once I had eaten through all the shapes and just had delicious Mr. Whippy left.

I think the concept could have been tuned a little. Yes Arnotts Shapes come in chicken flavour, but they also come in cheese flavour, cheese and bacon flavour and lets not forget everyone’s favourite - pizza flavour. Rather than just sticking to the chicken I reckon a mix of chicken, cheese & bacon and pizza shapes would have really captured that parma vibe and been a worthy addition to ParmaRama.

But in the end it was ice cream covered in crushed biscuits. I don’t think anyone was taking it too seriously.

And that’s it! We did miss “The Pickle and The Patty”, the permanent burger-slinging structure that The Ascot Lot has on the other side of the carpark, but after all of the above food and a long day of drinking we were absolutely stuffed and needed to head home for a long nap.

I would call ParmaRama a success though, The Ascot Lot and all of the participating trucks did a fantastic job of bringing their version of a parma to life. Everyone got on board and had a lot of fun with it. Was an awesomely fun evening with some great food and I really hope they bring it back for another round, definitely recommended.

The search continues…

#378 - 'Sir Duke'

Where - 99 Puckle Street. Moonee Ponds

Price - $24 ($12 on Tuesdays)

Website - https://www.sirduke.com.au

Reviewers – Lee & Nikki

Puckle Street is a weird spot. For many years it kind’ve just existed. It was a long street of various shops yet there wasn’t really any reason to actually go to Puckle Street. It was a street of niche homewares shops, out of style fashion shops and florists. Other than hitting up Sims Sports to pick up the latest pair of Air Jordans Puckle street always felt like a bit of a limbo of nothingness.

However, with the boon of apartment buildings springing up all around Moonee Ponds, Puckle Street has undergone a bit of a rennaisance … a “Pucklesance” if you will, and a weird influx of eateries has started to take over. Don’t get me wrong, they are mostly burger joints or variations on burger joints, but an interesting cafe culture has also sprung up during the pucklesance… Which brings us to Sir Duke.

After a suggestion or two on social media Sir Duke landed squarely on our radar. It was a cafe, but they were open late, they served beers and seemed to be pretty keen on their parma - Offering not only a standard every day option but a $12 parma night on Tuesdays that looked pretty solid.

Convinced it was one to check out, last night we headed to Puckle St. to see what Sir Duke had to offer.

We grabbed a seat and checked the menu. As we weren’t in on a Tuesday unfortunately we missed parma night, but the standard parma was readily available…

We placed our order and eagerly awaited the arrival of our dinner.

As Sir Duke is more of a cafe/restaurant than a pub , there aren’t any beers on tap available in house. There are, however, a decent range of bottled beers to keep your thirst quenched. Thunder Road, Sun Cat, Boatrocker, Two Birds and Urban Alley to name a few, not the biggest range but should be enough to find something you like amongst what is available - The cocktail list is pretty impressive as well.

About 25 minutes after placing our order our parmas arrived from the kitchen…

The schnitzel was good quality. Big enough, thick enough, and good quality chicken. The pan fried crumbs had an amazingly strong crunch which lasted the entirety of the meal - As far as foundations for parmas go this one was pretty solid.

The toppings were a mixed bag. It definitely looks impressive, however I’m not sure the dollops of bocconcini add much to the flavour of the parma - But that’s just a personal preference, I’m not a big bocconcini fan in general. The rest of the cheese was solid. Great coverage and good melt. Served hot and delicious.

The biggest fault of this parma, however, was the passata. There just wasn’t any. I could see remnants on the plate, indicating that they didn’t forget it entirely, however in tasting the parma we could not detect the passata at all, and as this was a parma without a slice of ham we were pretty much left with a schnitzel & cheese. It was tasty, but could have been so much better with a bit more of the red stuff.

The chips were spot on. Not too thick, not too thin, served in a seperate bowl, well seasoned, hot, with a bonus pot of aioli on the side. I mean … That’s a tick in every box isn’t it? A delightful side to the parma.

The salad was fresh and full of flavour. I enjoyed the shredded carrot and the capsicum slices throughout really beefed up the flavour profile - However the dressing that was used was a little flavourless and far too heavy handed on the oil.

“Would have been great had they had more passata on the parma. Was not detectable at all on the plate. Great chips though! ”

— Nikki

I wouldn’t run back to have this parma again at $24, However, seeing as most of my issues with this dish were with the toppings I reckon that Parmarama $12 Tuesdays is definitely worth checking out. The schnitzel was quality, and this is a parma that can only be improved by some variation in the toppings, and for twelve bucks its hard to go wrong.

All up I think Sir Duke was a mixed bag. Overall it was a pleasant experience, however there were a few elements that took me out of the experience. Ditch the bocconcini, pump up the napoli, add a slice of ham and I reckon it would be a winner. I’m curious to see how they go on a Tuesday so if you check it out be sure to tag me. Worth a crack if you’re in the immediate vicinity, but I wouldn’t travel for it.

Parma - 6.88

Chips - 8.00

Salad - 6.38

Value - 6.75

Total -  6.98

The search continues...

#377 - 'The Oxford Scholar'

Where - RMIT University Building 81 (427 Swanston St. Melbourne)

Price - $24.50

Website - http://theoxfordscholar.com.au

Reviewers – Lee, Nikki & Stefo

A lot of people reading this review right now will have fond memories of the Oxford Scholar. Either you were an RMIT student or had a mate that was an RMIT student that dragged you down on one day or another for their cheap beers, big TV screens and one of the many cheap food nights on offer to feed the starving uni student.

We visited the Scholar back in 2013, a couple of years before they closed their doors. It was cheap and nasty (Monday was $12 parma night and it was $16 usually) yet it always had a bit of charm. Always welcoming, It was a cosy dive that stressed out students could grab a beer, watch the footy and get a cheap feed if only to escape from their annoying roommate for a few hours.

Then in 2017 the Scholar closed its doors, (apparently) due to works on the Metro tunnel driving away their clientele they just couldn’t afford to keep the doors open.

But like a phoenix from the ashes, the Oxford Scholar has returned. With new owners The Mahony Group (the same group behind The Windsor Alehouse on Punt Road, another spot we need to check out soon) taking the reigns, giving the old girl a facelift and (as of the end of April 2019) opening her doors once again as a second home to Melbourne’s RMIT Students, along with anyone else who may wander down Swanston Street in need of a beverage.

As soon as I heard about the re-opening I knew we had to visit ASAP. I always had a soft spot for the Scholar, so was genuinely curious to get a feel of the new digs. So last night we loaded up the Parma Bus and headed back to school at the Oxford Scholar.

While the exterior looks pretty much the same, the interior of the scholar is entirely unrecognisable. Completely gutted and stripped back to the brick the dank has been cleared out and a bright, airy new pub with a lot of wood, greenery and an (image-changing wall at the entrance that has to be seen to be believed) has been put in its place.

We arrived at about 6pm on Thursday night to an already busy pub, Along the A’Beckett Street wall a line of pretty large booths has been installed so we snapped up one of those as quickly as we could, checked the menu and located our target for the night…

The Scholar was always known as a spot to get a cheap feed, so seeing $24.50 on the menu (not exactly a bargain) gave me pause. On one hand I’m a staunch believer of “you get what you pay for” and I’d rather spend a little bit more to get a quality feed - But on the other hand that is quite pricey for a uni pub. I know times change and you can’t live in the past (and inflation is a bitch), but I feel like having more expensive food is kind’ve going against what the Scholar used to be about. We placed our order and very eagerly awaited the arrival of our parmas

Never really being a “craft beer” sort of pub, I was impressed with the new lineup at the Oxford Scholar. 12 taps ran the gamut of a variety of beers and styles with the addition of a few more options in the fridge. To make it easier (on myself) I’m gonna grab a screenshot from the Oxford Scholar website as opposed to listing each tap individually…

While not having any super deep cuts that’s a tap list extensive enough that I’m sure everyone would be able to find something on which to wet their whistle. I will say the Miss Pinkie by Boatrocker went down an absolute treat.

After a surprisingly speedy 10 minute wait our parmas arrived at the table.

As is tradition with pubs we have visited in the past, lets take a quick look at the 2013 Oxford Scholar parma before moving on to its 2019 counterpart…

The Oxford Scholar Parma, circa 2013

The Oxford Scholar Parma, circa 2019

The schnitzel was big enough, mine was one solid piece while others around the table had a couple of smaller schnitty’s stacked together. The chicken was great quality - gone are the Coles deli window schnitzels of old and in their place a quality, chicken breast schnitzel. Everything was well cooked and the crumbs delivered an outstanding crunch. Big improvement over 2013, that is for sure.

The toppings on the Scholar parma were applied extremely liberally. First up the ham was sliced so thick it felt like Christmas lunch stacked on top of a parma. The cheese was a fine melt and full of flavour. The only stumbling block I thought was the napoli - It was quite strong and overpowered the taste of the rest of the dish, absolutely eclipsing the flavour of the super thick ham. Minor nitpicks to an enjoyable meal.

The old Scholar parma was an example of how to do a cheap, processed schnitzel parma well enough to disguise the fact that it was a cheap, processed schnitzel parma. The new Scholar parma throws that out the window and delivers a dish made from quality ingredients with a price to match. It was good, but could be outstanding if they balanced out the rich napoli with a more prominent, smokey ham (loved the thickness of the ham though). Still worth a visit.

When I first saw “Salt & Vinegar french fries” on the menu I was damn intrigued. Although I’m not huge on McDonalds style french fries, who doesn’t love salt & vinegar chips? Managing to capture the essence of a salt & vinegar chip in french fry form would be quite the achievement for the Scholar. The end result was unsatisfying. As far as fries go they were fine. Served hot, away from the parma and plenty of them, however the “Salt & Vinegar Fries” had no trace of either salt nor vinegar.

If the vinegar was lost we definitely found it in the salad. This garden salad of lettuce, cherry tomatoes & cucumber slices was absolutely soaked in balsamic. I’m not complaining, I love a heavy hand of balsamic on my salad. A bit wilted but a good palate cleanser overall.

“So close to being an amazing parma. The ham looked impressive but lacked flavour. Some house made, chunky napoli would have really helped this parma shine. Great renovations though - A really cool pub”

— Nikki

“Hey Maccas! The Oxford stole your fries! Seriously though, I like fries but I feel a parma is worthy of something more”

— Stefo

Would I be happy to pay $24.90 for this parma again? Yeah. I’d be happy with that. The ingredients used were top notch and generously applied (especially the ham), hard to say its not a value for money meal as I doubt you could walk away from this one unsatisfied. Now although I didn’t see any specific parma nights advertised anywhere yet (although I wouldn’t be surprised if they pop up - it is still early days. The Scholar does offer 15% off across the board for RMIT students and staff, which would bring the cost of the parma down to about $21 (20.825 to be exact), as well as beers - So that’s not too bad at all.

Despite being located literally on the grounds of RMIT I don’t think the Oxford Scholar is targeting students anymore (unless students have all become millennials in their mid to late 30's). Other than the student discount and the wall piece that occasionally flashes the RMIT logo I feel like they have definitely pivoted to a different crowd than the Scholar of old. Don’t get me wrong, the new look scholar is a great pub. It looks fantastic, the staff were super friendly and the parma was a tweak or two away from being great, however it has definitely lost some of the dive bar charm I used to love.

Worth a visit if you’re in the area.

Parma - 7.83

Chips - 5.50

Salad - 6.67

Value - 7.00

Total - 6.97

The search continues...

Special Attempt: 'Jake's Kitchen @ The Ascot Lot'

Where - It’s a food truck - Check their facebook for current location!

Price - $16

Website - Facebook, Instagram and we found them at The Ascot Lot

Reviewers – Lee & Nikki

The food truck parma is an elusive, almost mythical beast. Many have tried before however when the issue of how to actually serve a parma in portable can-eat-standing-up form most go the easy route and chuck it in a burger, wrap it in a tortilla or stick it in a pie. I have searched for them in the past, however a food truck that could crack the code of how to whip up an easy to serve, easy to eat portable parma has eluded us.

Well as the wood carving in your weird Aunt’s home office/art studio says - Miracles come when you least expect them. Last Saturday I found myself at the food truck park known as The Ascot Lot on Mt. Alexander Road in Ascot Vale, they were launching a range of 5 different flavours of $10 espresso martini in an event dubbed “The Espresso Yourself Festival”, and as Reviewer Nikki runs an espresso martini review Instagram account known as The Espresso Chronicles it was her duty to head over and try all of the five new flavours, and I tagged along because (if you hadn’t guessed) I enjoy beer and food.

If you want a further rundown of the espresso launch click here, give them a follow and earn me some brownie points for plugging my wife’s Instagram account.

The Ascot Lot is a food truck park. Basically an outdoor area where a rotating array of food trucks can park offering different foods alongside a container bar for drinks and a crapload of outdoor seating. I’ve got nothing but good things to say about the Ascot Lot, they’ve got a fun little setup and having some beers alongside wandering from truck to truck seeing what goodies are on offer is a great way to spend an afternoon.

After scoring a picnic table in prime position and starting on our first of the five flavours of espresso martini I took a lap to see what trucks was on offer. This particular Saturday at the Ascot Lot offered up a Mr. Whippy Van, A souvlaki truck, a curry truck, a dumpling van, a burger joint and tucked away in the corner was a spot curiously known only as “Jake’s Kitchen”, advertising that they served pasta alongside the quite ambiguous “Gourmet Cuisine”.

My curiosity piqued, I headed over to check the menu, and you’ll never believe what I found … Actually you probably will believe what I found. You know what website you are on and I’m not gonna surprise you and say “JK! I had a Philly cheesesteak lol”.

… Anyway, they had a parma.

The decision was made for me at that point, I placed an order and was asked to come back in 10 minutes.

Now Jake’s Kitchen doesn’t serve any drinks beyond some cans of soft drink, however The Ascot Lot had me covered. The outdoor container bar (pictured above) has a few different taps of beer (I spotted Furphy, Byron Bay, Panhead and what I believe was an in-house brew), the aforementioned range of espresso martinis with a few other options in the fridge below. There’s a second bar inside that might have some more options but to be honest I didn’t venture in to see what was available in there (competition for our table was fierce and I didn’t want to lose it).

10 minutes later I wandered back to the truck and picked up our first ever food truck parma…

I got back to the table and inspected what was served. While it may not look like it at first glance this is most definitely a chicken parma.

Now those purists who hate the parma on the chips might not be impressed but I think it was necessary in this case. What Jake’s Kitchen has done has basically made a parma, pre sliced it for one-handed consumption, and stacked it on top of a large tray of chips - Basically making what you could call a “Parma HSP”. I picked up my supplied fork and tucked in.

First up, the schnitzel quality was top notch. Pure white, freshly sliced chicken breast. well cooked and crumbed (the fresh crumbs had just the right amount of crunch to them). Size-wise the schnitzel is a bit small, but they were most likely a bit hamstrung by the size of the container, and there were plenty of chips to make up for the smaller serve of schnitzel.

The toppings were in abundance. Plenty of gooey cheese and rich napoli sauce did a surprisingly great job of holding on to the schnitzel slices as I ate. The napoli sauce was definitely a highlight. Bursting with flavour (and peas … an addition I didn’t think I would like yet works surprisingly well here). It was thick, fresh and tasty.

No ham on this parma I’m afraid, but other than that the toppings were outstanding.

Holy crap the chips were good. If this were a scored review these would definitely be close to a perfect score. Well cooked, crunchy, piping hot and liberally coated in a spicy seasoning (which I have discovered they refer to as “Jake’s special paprika seasoning”) that really gave them a kick and finished off the dish nicely.

It’s pretty clear that when you’re working towards a portable parma that isn’t some form of schnitzel burger or wrap then the salad is going to be the first casualty. As much as I would have loved to see some sort of salad incorporated into this parma (and no, the peas don’t count) I can see why they left it out. Maybe they could squeeze some coleslaw in there somehow if they were going for top marks, but to be honest I was fine without salad this time around!

Prices for food truck food is always a little bit inflated from the norm, but to be honest I’d pay another $16 for this parma any day of the week. Yeah the schnitzel was a bit small compared to what I’d get at a pub, but, as I keep saying, it has to be portable to work out of a truck, and a smaller schnitzel just has be expected when trying something new like this.

LAST MINUTE UPDATE: A little birdy now tells me that the Saturday we tried the Jake’s Kitchen parma was actually the first time it had been on the menu, and that they have plans to expand the menu to include some more “loaded parma” options … So definitely keep an eye out!

When heading out for some espresso martinis that afternoon I was not expecting to stumble on our first ever food truck parma, but I was glad I did. The “Parma HSP” style that Jake’s Kitchen have come up with is a unique and novel take on a parma that I enjoyed more than I expected I would. It wouldn’t be fair to compare this parma to a regular pub parma, but if you find yourself near Jake’s Kitchen (or Jake’s Kitchen finds itself near you) it is definitely one worth giving a crack.

The search continues...

#376 - 'The Ballcourt Hotel'

Where - 60 Macedon Street, Sunbury

Price - $17.50 (Sports Bar)

Website - https://www.ballcourthotel.com.au

Reviewers – Lee & Nikki

Hello everyone! After a short break to gorge on Easter eggs and Anzac Biscuits we are back with a fresh parma review.

Last week I had the pleasure of spending Good Friday up at Daylesford. Abstaining from meat that day my meals consisted of fish tacos and margarita pizza, so when Saturday rolled around I was keen to get some chicken into me on the drive back to Melbourne. Rather than bee-line down the Western Freeway like we normally would we instead took the scenic route, through Musk, Trentham, Woodend and Mount Macedon.

We passed a lot of great looking pubs along the way but settled for the Mount Macedon Hotel. Now I’m not going to go into detail beyond my angry outburst on Twitter, but long story short we were unable to get a parma there on the day. Dejected we drove south, heading back to Melbourne, however it was now getting into the afternoon and I was still to have my parma fix. Knowing that the Calder Highway between Mt. Macedon and Melbourne has very little to offer in the way of pubs (other than the surprisingly tasty Houdini’s) we got off at the Sunbury exit in search of a parma to try… Which is the very convoluted story of how we came to be at the Ballcourt Hotel.

There are a few different rooms at the Ballcourt so for the record we reviewed the parma in the Sports Bar. We grabbed a seat and checked the menu for our target…

Perfect (and surprisingly cheap!) We placed our order at the bar and awaited the arrival of our now very late lunch.

If you’re in the Sports Bar of the Ballcourt the tap list is pretty dismal. Carlton, VB, Great Northern and … Well that is pretty much it. However, If you duck over to the attached “Wine Bar” there is a much more comprehensive selection, with 12 taps of rotating craft beer, along with the claim on their website that there are “100+ beers and ciders available”, the wine bar at the Ballcourt is an unexpected gem of craft beer in Sunbury … I just wish they had’ve rolled a couple of kegs of the good stuff over to the Sports Bar side of the pub.

Our parmas arrived about 20 minutes after we placed our order and to be honest I was pleasantly surprised. For $17.50 my expectations were low, I was expecting a supermarket deli window heart shaped schnitzel with toppings straight from a tin - However the chicken used for the Ballcourt’s schnitzel was unprocessed, pure chicken breast. Well cooked, juicy and surprisingly thick.

The toppings were mostly fine. Great cheese coverage grilled to a lovely golden brown. The napoli sauce was acceptable… nothing to write home about but nothing offensive. For the first time in literal weeks worth of reviews the parma at the Ballcourt does have ham, however the flavour was mostly lost behind the other elements of the dish.

The beer battered chips were very enjoyable. Well cooked, well seasoned and served (mostly) out from underneath the parma. We might like a fancier chip on occasion but to be honest its hard to go wrong with classic beer battered chips alongside a parma. Some dipping sauce would have been a nice addition however even without these chips did the job well.

The salad was fine. Felt like a bit of an afterthought but the dressing was flavoursome and it did a good job of breaking up the dish a little. Nothing terrible but nothing great … Not much to say about the salad at all to be honest!

“A surprisingly good feed for the price. For $17.50 I was expecting processed heart shaped schnitzel for sure but the Ballcourt surprised me. Not bad at all. ”

— Nikki

Like I said above for $17.50 I was expecting a bargain basement quality parma, so the fact that the Ballcourt put up a quality feed for such a low price is outstanding, and with Wednesday offering up a $15 parma & pot night its hard to go wrong.

After a shitty start to the day the Ballcourt got us out of a jam and served up a surprisingly decent parma in the process. If you live in Sunbury you probably already know about the Ballcourt, but if for some reason you have yet to I’d recommend going down to give it a crack. It’s a no frills, honest, down to earth feed that I think you’d struggle to walk away from disappointed.

Parma - 7.00

Chips - 7.00

Salad - 6.00

Value - 8.5

Total -  7.10

The search continues...

Crossing the Road #7 - 'Eat Pizza'

Where - Glenroy, Footscray, North Melbourne and CBD

Price - $15

Website - https://www.eatpizza-glenroy.com.au

Reviewers - Lee & Nikki

First things first - I know that doing another parma from a take away pizza place right on the heels of our visit to Albion Pizza is a bit of a cop out, however some stuff has come up this week meaning we weren’t able to get out and do a regular review, so I’ve had to upload this banked review from last week in its place

Back to our regularly scheduled programming next week. Catch you then!

For the newcomers, “Crossing the Road” is our attempt to sample some of the lesser known home delivered chicken parmas, that wouldn’t normally get a chance to shine if we only stuck to pubs and dine-in restaurants.

Eat Pizza is a take away pizza franchise that I never really gave much time. Their whole shtick of “Healthy Pizza” never really sat right with me, feeling like more of an oxymoron than anything - And who wants to eat an oxymoronic pizza? Nobody, that’s who.

Flicking through Uber Eats last night none of my usual spots were looking that appealing. I noticed Eat Pizza sitting in the “New” section and decided to check it out. As expected the range of pizzas didn’t really jump out at me, however one item on the menu did…

$15 for a parma sounded like a fine deal to me! The tartare sauce and lemon threw me a little but it turns out that was just a typo - I’m guessing they just CTRL+C and CTRL+V’ed their description for a plain chicken schnitzel when making the listing and the extras went across as well.

I placed the order at the Glenroy store, however there are also Eat Pizza locations in North Melbourne, Footscray & Melbourne CBD. (Update - It looks like the Glenroy and CBD locations are the only ones offering a parma at the time of writing. Sorry Footscray and North Melbourne!)

Order was placed and about 35 minutes later there was a ring at my doorbell and a parma in my hand.

I have issues with Uber Eats, its not the best service by a long shot, but in this particular case I can’t really fault them. Food was picked up and dropped off in a timely manner, with no unexpected detours along the way.

Parma and Salad from Eat Pizza, beer supplied by my fridge.

My first thought on unpacking my Uber Eats bag was “holy crap this is a lot of food”. The schnitzel was downright massive and stacked high on a gargantuan serving of chips with an equally massive garden salad in a seperate container to the side.

The massive stack of chips had to be saved, so before proceeding I did my best to plate up the parma. I’d normally plate up the chips as well but there were just so many of them that I decided they were fine in the styrofoam they came in.

Talk about a big feed. I wouldn’t blame you for thinking I had plated up a small pizza instead of a parma

With everything plated and photographed we tucked in.

The schnitzel was huge in circumference and thick enough, I’d say about a pinky finger’s width of chicken. The crumbs padded it out a little, but it’s not like they were trying to smuggle a credit card or anything. After a 15 or so minute drive in a styrofoam box the schnitzel had gone a little soggy but had managed to keep its heat surprisingly well.

The cheese was flavoursome and well cooked, the napoli was rich albeit quite tomato-pastey (to be honest I think they just used the tomato sauce they would normally use on pizzas on the parma).

No ham on this one, and I am just realising now that with Eat Pizza it now makes four consecutive weeks of ham-less parmas (The Peppertree, Houdini’s and Albion Pizza before this one). What is happening Melbourne?! Bring on the pork!

Like I said, the parma from Eat Pizza came with a lot of chips. To be honest I got through about half of them before throwing in the towel. As far as chips go they were pretty standard fish & chip shop style fare. Decently seasoned and only a little bit soggy after their trip in the styrofoam hot box.

The garden salad was pretty standard, store bought stuff, right down to the sachet of Heinz dressing thrown in on top. It was a little dry but to be honest I appreciated the effort of the seperate containers of both salad and dressing to be constructed, it felt almost like putting together your meal kit on a long haul plane flight.

We don’t give a final score for Crossing the Road parmas as they are treated more as a “special edition” than anything else. It wouldn’t be fair to compare a delivery parma to one from a sit down restaurant - However if we did score the parma from Eat Pizza its Value score would be through the roof. Everything was huge, and for just $15 this is one massive feed that I think anyone would struggle to get through.

The Eat Pizza parma is definitely one of quantity over quality - Everything was good, but nothing was great, yet if you feel like a no-nonsense meal that could almost feed two people for just $15 without even needing to get off the couch, then this is definitely one to consider!

The search continues...

#375 - 'Albion Pizza'

Where - 488 Albion St. Brunswick West

Price - $18

Website - https://www.albionpizza.com.au

Reviewers – Adam T, Grace, Lee, Nikki, Shanan, Stefo

Earlier this week I learned that ParmaDaze favourite, the Hotel Albion has recently rebranded and now goes by The North Port Hotel. A bit of a shame, I thought, but as Melbourne already has The Albion Hotel and The Albion Rooftop to contend with, one less Albion in this city will probably make things a little less confusing.

Then about 3 hours later I found out about the newly opened Albion Pizza in Brunswick West.

Well that didn’t last long.

You may be forgiven for thinking that Albion Pizza is just your standard take away pizza joint, because from the outside that’s pretty much what it looks like (and even on this inside that is essentially what it is), however rather than just go the take out route they have also put in some tables, and you have the option to tuck into their menu on plates in the store as well as in cardboard take away containers.

It’s a cosy spot for a feed, decked out with care and its a bit of fun to kick back and watch the take-away pizza construction line in action.

We grabbed a table and checked the menu…

Not the most robust parma menu we’ve seen, but always nice to have a choice. The table was pretty split, half going for the bolognese and half going for the traditional parma.

Now I have some bad news. Are you sitting down? You should sit down.

As it stands, Albion Pizza does not serve alcohol.

Are you okay? Can I get you anything?

We asked as we were ordering and they are working on their liquor license, but as they are still relatively new it’s not quite ready yet. At the moment Albion Pizza’s fridge contains naught but soft drink, San Pellegrino, juice and water. A beer would have been lovely, however there is an IGA Express with a bottle-o next door, so if you are taking away you can grab a six pack there to enjoy with your parma while you sit at home on the couch.

I mentioned earlier that, being a pizza place, we had a front row seat to the pizza oven and all of the pizzas being made as we ate - What surprised me was seeing our cooked schnitzels emerge from the kitchen, get sauced and cheesed and sent straight through on the pizza oven conveyer belt to get browned off before being plated and served. It’s kind’ve obvious that they would do this but it’s just something I’d never considered before… Is that interesting? I found that interesting.

About 30 minutes after ordering our parmas arrived at the table…

The Traditional Parma

The Bolognese parma (apologies for the pink hue, the giant neon slice of pizza behind us did a number on our photos)

For an $18 parma I was surprised at the quality of the schnitzel. We were greeted by a thick, chunky schnitzel. Unprocessed chicken breast and not over-crumbed. There was some slight burn on the bottom of the schnitz, but nothing too bad. Internally the chicken was well cooked, plump, juicy and overall a solid foundation to the toppings above.

Now as I said I went for the bolognese parma, but also did a bit of a tradeoff with one of the review team who got the traditional so we could all get an idea of what both topping options tasted like.

Both had fantastic coverage of cheese, quality melt with a good stretch and grilled to a lovely golden brown.

I think of the two I preferred the bolognese, the napoli sauce was fine but the bol gave it that extra burst of flavour that the other was lacking - To be honest I’m surprised (being a pizza place) that the traditional didn’t have some shredded ham thrown in the mix to differentiate it from the bolognese a little. I think that would have given it that little extra something (perhaps inspiration for a future novelty option? Hawaiian parma with shredded ham and pineapple? … You’ve got all of the stuff there, might as well chuck them on a parma!).

Our love of Bad Boy Chips is well documented at this point. Bad boys on their own are top tier, but when they are cooked as well as they were last night and topped with a liberal dose of spicy seasoning (possibly barbecue or even a Mexican spice?) it brings them to the next level. Absolutely outstanding.

The salad was okay. Standard garden salad with a healthy dollop of French dressing. It was fine, fresh and inoffensive, but didn’t really wow us in any way. A good palate cleanser from the parma but not too much more.

“Good sized chicken with crunchy crumbs. The addition of a nice slice of ham would have lifted it even higher. Chips are delicious!! Will definitely be back”

— Grace

“$18 is a brilliant price for a parma these days and whilst there was nothing about the actual parma that particularly blew me away I walked away completely satisfied. Also - Bad Boy chips are always welcome! Now consider that this is essentially a local take away pizza place and they put many pubs and full blown restaurants to shame!”

— Stefo

“Great Value, would have loved some ham on the parma and a little more flavour through the napoli sauce, but otherwise a great dish for the price”

— Nikki

“Good feed for $18. Bad Boy chips are a plus”

— Shanan

“I was pleasantly surprised with this parma, turning up to the venue and it was obviously a takeaway pizza place I really wasn’t expecting too much so when the meal arrived I was quite surprised. I was well presented on the plate, a generous sized piece of chicken with a healthy serve of sauce & cheese. Ham would have made it better (and being a pizza shop I’m sure they had ham to spare) Maybe not shredded though, sliced ham would be the way to go. Awesome chips, Well seasoning and a good sized portion. The salad wasn’t bad, well dressed but not amazing. Overall I was very satisfied. I finished my meal and well and truly had my fill. Great price, great taste, a beer would have gone down a treat but they are still working on the license. Would recommend”

— Adam T

As far as value is concerned the parma at Albion Pizza is outstanding. $18 is bargain basement prices these days and to get a high quality feed with some of the best Bad Boy chips we’ve come across in a long time is a fantastic surprise. You’d be hard pressed to walk away hungry from this one and at just $18 it won’t break the bank either.

While writing this review it finally clicked what this parma reminded me of. The long plate, the quality schnitzel, the low price and the bad boy chips - It’s very similar to the parma at Universal on Lygon Street, and in a weird turn of events they have scored almost exactly the same (Universal got a final score of 7.87)

This is a fine example of a parma that I recommend you either get delivered or head in and try if you live in the area (I think dining in would be the optimal experience) and once they get the beers flowing it will be even better. Worth a visit.

Parma -  7.67

Chips - 9.08

Salad - 5.67

Value - 9.00

Total - 7.82

The search continues...

#374 - 'Houdini's'

Where - 52-56 Old Calder Hwy, Diggers Rest

Price - $28 ($20 on Tuesday parma night)

Website - https://www.houdinis.com.au

Reviewers – Lee & Nikki

On March 18, 1910 in a lonely paddock at Diggers Rest, barely 20 miles from Melbourne, renowned escapologist Harry Houdini made what is claimed to be the first controlled powered flight in Australia.

Unsuccessful attempts to take off were made by Houdini on March 17, but on March 18, 1910, the three successful flights were made. Houdini recorded in his diary “never in any fear and never in any danger; it is a wonderful thing”.

I’m gonna take a stab and venture a guess that this is why the only restaurant in Diggers Rest is known as “Houdini’s” (and the model biplane with hanging from the ceiling of the restaurant lends even more credence to this theory).

Diggers Rest is a strange little town. Absolutely booming when it comes to real estate with urban sprawl exploding out in all directions yet strangely lacking when it comes to restaurants. Entering the town via the Old Calder Highway takes you past the burnt out remains of the Diggers Rest Pub, and I wasn’t joking when I said Houdini’s was the only restaurant in town, a Google Maps search of “restaurant” returning these results -

One restaurant and a fish & chip/burger/pizza take away joint. That’s one hell of a monopoly Houdini’s has on this town! Yet strangely enough I kept hearing about it. No less than four different people telling me that we really should check out Houdini’s in Diggers Rest, that they are a surprisingly good little spot and offer up a damn tasty parma.

I’m sure I’m going to infuriate any residents of Diggers Rest with my next sentence, but I have been meaning to get out country more (yes yes, 20 minutes out of Melbourne isn’t technically “country”) but a trip up the Calder is definitely what the doctor ordered this week, so this Wednesday we headed to the only restaurant in Diggers Rest - Houdini’s Cafe e Cucina.

There is a relaxed, inviting vibe to Houdini’s that I enjoyed. Very different to the pubs we usually frequent I knew from the get-go that this would be a different experience to our usual weekly parma night. We took our seats in the quickly filling bistro (I wasn’t kidding when I said they have a monopoly, this place gets busy. I recommend booking a table if you’re considering heading down), and checked the menu for our evening’s target…

In a bit of a change of pace this week’s parma is served with roast potatoes and vegetables in lieu of the usual chips and salad.

No tapped beer at Houdini’s, stubbies or nothing and I’m afraid the craft beer lovers may go a little wanting with Cascade, VB, Carlton Draft, Dry, Boags, Corona, Crown Lager, Birra Moretti, Peroni, Hawthorn Pale and Kronenberg on offer. I wasn’t too fussed so a couple of Crownies suited me just fine, but if you’re in the mood for something a little fancier you might want to turn your attention to the extensive (and impressive) wine list instead.

After enjoying some complimentary bread balls with olive oil & balsamic (surprisingly tasty) our parmas arrived from the kitchen…

When I first saw this plating style I immediately flashed back to our trip to Omni, our 2017 parma that held the unfortunate spot of lowest scored review ever until they went out of business a few months later.

Luckily, this schnitzel was nothing like the one at Omni, as this one was actually good. Real chicken breast, not too thick and not too thin with outstanding, flavoursome crumbs (I think they had powered parmesan cheese throughout but I can’t be too sure). Cooked to a fine crisp that was extremely pleasant. This is not your usual pub style parma, this is a traditional Italian schnitzel, just like Nonna used to make.

Normally I’m the first to say that a slice of ham would have made a ham-less parma better, but to be honest I think a slice of ham would have hindered the traditional Italian vibe that Houdini’s are going for here. This isn’t a parma, this is a Parmigiana.

The napoli sauce was absolutely fantastic. Rich, rustic, packed with flavour and with a strong home-cooked vibe. The mozzarella was lovely, I normally like a richer cheese blend but I can see why they held back.

All up if you like your parmas traditional then this is definitely one to check out.

Houdini’s chicken parmigiana - Un-stacked!

The spuds were pretty solid. I’m normally on the fence when it comes to the “should the parma be served on the chips?” debate, however I think in this case they definitely would have been better served to the side. They were flavoursome, pillowy on the inside and but almost super crispy on the outside, and I can’t help but wonder if the “almost” was due to the stacked plating style. Still, very tasty.

The butter soaked veggies were also full of flavour and a welcome change from the usual garden salad, however when I’m paying $28 for a parma I’d like a bit more than one floret of cauliflower, a slice of squash and 3 carrot slivers. They tasted great, but I was left wanting more.

“Loved the crumbs and the schnitzel was beautiful & crispy. The veggies were lovely but would have liked a slightly larger serving.”

— Nikki

As I mentioned in the previous paragraph this parma clocks in at $28, which would be outrageously priced for a pub feed, but restaurants get to play by different rules. The parma was super enjoyable so I don’t feel too burned by the price tag, however if you can’t bring yourself to shell out 28 clams, Houdini’s offers a “$20 Pizza, pasta and parma Tuesdays”, with the following varieties available for just twenty bucks…

A much better value proposition with that one, although to be honest I’d probably still stick to the traditional parma over the novelty toppings as it was a great example of a honest, home-style feed.

I’m not too sure who this review is for. If you live in Diggers Rest you no doubt already know about Houdini’s, and if you live outside of Diggers you’re probably not going to get in the car and make a bee-line up the Calder Highway. However if you do find yourself out that way I recommend the Houdini’s parma. It’s something different than what you’d find at your local pub and definitely worth checking out if a traditional Italian style parma is something you think you would enjoy.

I wanted to end this review on a Houdini pun but to be honest they’re all escaping me at the moment...

Wait.

Parma - 8.25

Chips - 6.75

Salad - 5.50

Value - 7.00

Total -  7.15

The search continues...

#373 - 'The Peppertree'

Where - 12-14 Napier St. Essendon

Price - $18

Website - https://the-pepper-tree-essendon.business.site/

Reviewers – Kim, Lee, Nikki, Pat

As much as I have enjoyed the last 9 years searching for the perfect chicken parma, every now and then a Thursday night comes along that I totally can’t be bothered heading out far for a parma night. Sure parmas are pure bliss in the form of chicken, cheese and tomato sauce, but after a long day of work loading into the car to tackle the dickheads on Melbourne CBD’s roads does not sound like an enticing proposition.

Because of this occasional fit of laziness when a new local spot opens up offering a parma I am very, very interested. When we first started back in 2010 we pretty much hit the local spots first and our options were more or less exhausted by review #15.

Enter the Peppertree (or The Pepper Tree. The sign outside says Peppertree but their facebook and instagram says Peppertree, so I’m not quite sure). Newly opened wine bar/beer garden in Essendon (a stones throw from Essendon Station) that is literally a 5 minute drive from home. We have come across the establishment in the past, in a previous life it was known as Mr. Kronk’s, another restaurant/beer garden that went out of business pretty much the moment our review of it went live.

Anyway this intro has gone on for far too long. It was close, it sounded good, so we went to the Peppertree.

You can either worm your way through the corridors inside or take a shortcut through the laneway at the side, but I assure you, the beer garden is hidden away back there, and its actually a very pleasant spot on a warm spring evening. We grabbed a seat and checked the menu…

$18 on the standard menu, already off to a good start however I did notice the lack of ham in the description. We placed our orders and waited for dinner to arrive.

If you like Colonial beers then you’re in luck, The Peppertree outdoor bar has 4 Colonial options (2 standard beers, a mid strength and a cider) on tap. I’m a fan of Colonial so this didn’t bother me at all, if you don’t like Colonial you may run into a little bit of trouble.

About 20 minutes after ordering (and after enjoying a lovely entree of garlic bread and meatballs) our parmas arrived from the kitchen.

I was first struck by the size of this parma. For only $18 we got a bird that nearly engulfed everything on the plate. Fantastic value right off the bat. The schnitzel was lovingly crumbed, real chicken and well cooked - A minor complaint, I did find my chicken to be slightly tough, however asking around the table nobody else had this issue at all so I’m thinking it was a solitary isolated hiccup.

Pure white chicken breast with a home cooked vibe. A solid foundation to the dish.

When I read the menu I had the feeling I would be disappointed that this parma didn’t have ham, and I was right. Don’t get me wrong, the cheese and napoli were spot on. Great coverage of cheese and grilled to perfection with a rich, flavoursome napoli that brought it all together - However I kept thinking to myself how much better it would be if a nice slice of smokey ham was between the two.

The chips and salad were both fine. Nothing to write home about but at the same time nothing spectacular. The chips were well seasoned and the salad was fresh & crisp, well put together but nothing of not to report. They served their purpose.

“Great value for $18. Some more garlic in the napoli and a slice of ham would really lift this parma to the next level”

— Nikki

“Great value, big portions, chips and salad weren’t that exciting however the parma was juicy & flavoursome. Would have been better with some ham but not a bad meal for $18”

— Kim

“Good bang for your buck. Massive portion. Chips and salad just standard.”

— Pat

I said it before but $18 for this parma is an outstanding deal, that is a parma night price available 7 days a week - and if that’s not enough The Peppertree are also throwing in a pot of Colonial with your $18 parma if you head down on a Monday. Amazing deal.

If the price was higher I would probably be a little more critical, however for only $18 complaining about some lacklustre sides seems trivial. This is a huge feed in a great little beer garden, cool atmosphere, good food and it won’t break the bank. If you live nearby I definitely recommend checking it out (on Monday especially).

Parma - 7.25

Chips - 5.75

Salad - 5.75

Value - 8.75

Total -  6.95

The search continues...

#372 - 'The Gladstone Park Hotel'

Where - 196 Mickleham Rd. Gladstone Park

Price - $25

Website - https://gladstoneparkhotel.com.au

Reviewers – Lee & Nikki

Working a day job in Tullamarine has its challenges, paramount of which being a complete and utter lack of dining options that aren’t an industrial cafe complete with bain-marie filled with dim sims, spring rolls or a hot dog in batter (if you get in early).

So when I heard that combination sports bar/restaurant/pokie room/bottle shop and accommodation The Gladsone Park Hotel (which we first reviewed back in June of 2011) had recently received a revamp and an upgrade, it seemed like a fantastic idea to take a long lunch and check out what the new look Gladdy Pub has to offer.

Well I’ll be damned … They’ve actually done a good job. Apart from the Cadbury chocolate prize machine wedged into the corner the Gladdy’s bistro is virtually unrecognisable. The bar actually looks like a bar now, complete with the (getting tired at this point) copper tanks of Carlton Draught stacked on the walls.

As we visited at lunchtime on a Tuesday we pretty much had the place to ourselves, but none the less I was surprised when the friendly staff asked us what we would like - It seems that the Gladdy has ditched the “order at the counter” system for table service, a move that is greatly appreciated even though they seem to have ditched the “if we don’t ask you if you want garlic bread you get free garlic bread” promotion that was very entertaining last time round.

We grabbed a table and checked the menu…

I’ll happily overlook the spelling error of “parmigiana” if they deliver the goods, so the order for our parmagianas went in.

Surprisingly a full page of the menu at the Gladstone Park Hotel is dedicated to the tap list, unsurprisingly it seems to be entirely CUB contracted. Not that it is an entirely bad thing - 4 Pines, Goose Island, Fat Yak & Frothy (among others) are perfectly fine drops, but if you’re after anything fancier on tap you may find this tap list a little wanting.

As is tradition when we revisit a pub for review, lets first look at the 2011 Gladdy Park parma before jumping through time 8 years to the 2019 version…

Gladstone Park Hotel parma 2011. Apart from being small & messily presented it wasn’t terrible. Real chicken breast at the very least! Final score of 6.03 at the time.

We’ll its hard to say Gladstone Park hasn’t put any effort into their revamp as the parma (much like the bistro itself) was pretty much unrecognisable. We’ll get to the sides in a moment, lets start on the schnitzel.

On the plate this parma looked like a chunky boi, however on cut it revealed that most of the chunk came from the ludicrous heaping of cheese stacked on top and the schnitzel beneath was relatively thin. A minor complaint, as it was real, pure white chicken breast. Cooked well and served steaming hot.

It wasn’t without its issues though, the crumbing was quite soggy when the parma arrived and had trouble gripping the chicken breast, the bottom edge flaking away through the majority of the meal. As far as schnitzels go it was fine. Glad to see real chicken, however for the price ($25) something a little bit bigger would have been appreciated.

As I said this parma was loaded with cheese, to the point where the ham and napoli were pretty much rendered a moot point under cheese mountain. I wasn’t too impressed with the ham, seemed to me like a circular slice from a packet, didn’t carry a whole lot of flavour with it.

Remnants of the napoli sauce remained and what was there was rich and tasty (although I also suspect came from a tin). However the majority of it was absorbed into the crumbs leaving them a bit soggy.

As far as parmas go this one was pretty good. Nothing to write home about, but an adequate feed for a Tuesday work lunch.

Like the parma, the chips were served blistering hot. The individual serving basked kept them fresh, crisp and extremely enjoyable. If this parma were served with a sauce pot of some kind I’d honestly have trouble faulting them. Very well done.

Whoever designed the Gladdy’s new parma put a lot of focus on presentation. This parma just looks well put together on the plate and the side salad was no exception, right down to the meticulously carved radish slivers adorning the top of our bowls. The salad was fresh, crisp and tasty. Much like the parma it did its job with minimal fuss and I don’ really have anything to complain about, yet it didn’t blow me away either.

“This sneaky lunchtime parma hit the spot! Much prettier than last time”

— Nikki

Not gonna beat around the bush, $25 for this parma is a bit steep for me. You can put the chips and salad in fancy bowls until the cows come home but to be honest this isn’t $25 worth of parma. in 2011 we were charged $21.50, and I think that would have been a fair price for what we received. The Gladdy does love a special though, and you can get this parma with a pot for just $15 on Tuesdays.

The Gladdy’s parma was fine. Any parma that follows a shake up to our top 10 is gonna struggle to wow us unless it is really special, but to be perfectly honest that’s what this is - Fine. Definitely better than it was in 2011 and I am super impressed with the renovations and the improvements to the presentation of the dish. If you’re in the area I’d say check it out on Tuesdays with a free pot for $15, that is a bargain-and-a-half, but you wouldn’t be missing anything skipping this one at full price.

Parma - 6.50

Chips - 8.50

Salad - 6.00

Value - 6.00

Total - 6.70

The search continues...

#371 - 'Easey's @ The Bottom End'

Where - 579 Little Collins St. Melbourne

Price - $20

Website - https://www.thebottomend.com.au

Reviewers – Cale, Lee, Ness, Nikki, Stefo

If you live in Melbourne you’ve surely heard of Easey’s by now, if not by it’s name then you would know it as “that burger place with the trains on the roof”. Easey’s are the bee’s knees when it comes to burgers in Melbourne, so when I heard they had taken over the kitchen at Little Collins Street’s The Irish-pub-turned-sometimes-nightclub The Bottom End my interest was piqued. They didn’t jump straight in with a parma, however, first they introduced us to the “Parmawich”…

An interesting concept - Take everything that you would normally find on a plate when you get a parma and chuck it in a bun - chips and salad included. I was always keen to get down and try this one but as the Parmawich was (and still is) only available during Wednesday trivia night the stars just never aligned.

Then Easey’s / The Bottom End announced they were ditching the bun, plating up a traditional parma and chucking it on the every day menu, and that was something that we couldn’t ignore any longer so last night we headed down to The Bottom End at the bottom end of Little Collins St (ohhhhh I get it now) and checked out the parma on offer.

The first thing that struck me about the Bottom End is how big it actually is once you get inside. The long, main bar and room of cushioned booths that greets you when you walk in would be sufficient, however further exploration reveals another room around the corner, just as big if not bigger.

We grabbed a booth, checked the menu and didn’t have to look too far to find our target for the evening…

I’ve only seen pictures on Instagram, but Mamma looks like she serves up some damn tasty lasagne too

Top billing! Reasonably priced as well - Amazingly the parma being the most expensive thing on the menu, with everything listed below less than twenty bucks … something astonishingly rare to see these days.

We placed our order at the bar, feeling particularly saucy this Thursday evening we also grabbed a couple of bowls of mac & cheese bites to go with our parmas

The tap list at The Bottom End is lean but sufficient. When I ordered at the bar I spotted Sample, Furphy, Carlton & Coors on tap, I clocked the tap list on the menu later and I saw it also had Balter XPA listed but I didn’t see that when I ordered. $8 pints of Coors for happy hour did go down very nicely though.

About 15 minutes after placing the order our buzzer buzzed and we headed to the window to collect our meals…

To be honest when I first saw the Bottom End’s parma on the plate I was a bit trepidatious. The dark edges of the exposed schnitzel and parmesan cheese dusting didn’t make for the most aesthetically pleasing of parmas, however when I cut through the schnitzel and revealed the chicken breast beneath all of my fears were allayed.

Call Sir Mix-A-Lot because this schnitzel was thick and juicy. The schnitzel was massive - coupled with the mac & cheese bites I was in a food coma after struggling to get through this meal. Although the edges looked a bit well done at first glance that ended up being more of a result of caremalisation from the sauce than from actual burnt edges. The size did vary a little from plate to plate but they were all quite thicc so it wasn’t much of an issue. Overall a fantastic foundation for the parma.

The toppings on the Bottom End’s parma were super unique and interesting. The smoked ham packed a flavoursome punch with an almost sweet finish.

Great coverage of cheese and a very unusual blend - Powdered parmesan is not something we see often but definitely welcomed.

The napoli sauce was a hotly discussed issue around the table. When I first tried it I thought “oh, they’ve done a napoli and barbecue sauce mix here” yet at the same time it tasted a little bit bolognese-ey, and a little bit sweet. If was different and yet oddly familiar and then it struck us - If you are old like us you may remember the serve-yourself pasta station at the old Pizza Hut buffet? Remember the napoli sauce you used to be able to spoon over your hour-old, stuck together, rubbery penne? That is what the Bottom End’s napoli tasted like. It was a blast from the past and worked surprisingly well on their parma. Very happy with this one.

In a weird turn of events the chips and the salad both scored the exact same in the final score (7.67 each), and as I have been quite wordy to this point we might as well discuss them together. Both were very fine sides. The chips were crispy, hot, well seasoned and served almost not underneath the parma, just how I like it. Like the parma the salad didn’t look too crash hot on the plate however, like the chips, it was just how I liked my salads - Absolutely drowned in dressing. Tasty dressing too, with strong mustard notes that really hid the fact that you were eating something remotely healthy. Very nice all around.

Oh, and the mac & cheese bites were phenomenal. Definitely a worthy side.

“Unique flavours and top quality chicken breast. Chips and salad were on point and the mac & cheese bites were super tasty. Would recommend!”

— Nikki

“Do yourself a favour - Add a side of mac & cheese bites and you have yourself a delicious meal”

— Stefo

“Was a deceiving parma. Looked thin at first but once cut was actually quick chunky. The napoli sauce and smoked ham were both very tasty. Chips were excellent”

— Cale

In this day and age only $20 for a top tier parma such is this is something I would expect to find on a special parma night. only twenty bucks all day every day for the parma we received is absolutely outstanding. If that’s not good enough for you I don’t believe that the Bottom End has any particularly cheaper parma night, however as I mentioned at the start you can pick up their trademark Parmawich for only $10 on Wednesday’s during trivia. Definitely worth checking out.

I had faith that Easey’s would put out a quality product. Their burgers are top notch so it stood to reason they would put out a top notch dish when they turned their sights to parmas, but I wasn’t expecting this. It’s a unique-yet-familiar parma that absolutely blew us away and is a worthy addition to our top 10. Definitely check it out.

Oh, I know I’m sounding like a broken record lately and this is probably the last time I’ll mention it in-review but the ParmaDaze Discord is going strong, feel free to drop in for a chat whenever!

Parma - 8.13

Chips - 7.67

Salad - 7.67

Value - 9.00

Total - 8.20

The search continues...

#370 - 'The Great Northern Hotel'

Where - 644 Rathdowne St. Carlton

Price - $22

Website - http://www.gnh.net.au

Reviewers – Lee & Nikki

In years past here at ParmaDaze I have been quite regimented in what counts as an “Official” review. Review night was every Thursday night, set in stone, and if I happened sneak in a cheeky extra parma on another day of the week that was counted as an “off the books” parma, not to be considered for official review purposes.

But you know what? I’ve softened in my old age. It’s 2019. “Off the books” parmas are parmas too and deserve their chance to be counted and reviewed (and maybe with the occasional Thursday night off I’ll be able to watch an episode of Survivor on time. Holy crap I am old).

Last Sunday a few of us found ourselves at Carlton’s Great Northern Hotel. If you live anywhere nearby then the GNH needs no introduction, however if you need a bit of a refresher you can take a look at our 2012 review. The Great Northern is the perfect example of a pub that has managed to retain its old world charm while still keeping up with modern sensibilities, The inside is dimly lit with lots of dark wood, exposed brick and coat hooks - Pulling up a pew in here feels like stepping in a time machine back 30 years while still retaining the ability to buy a Rodenbach Grand Cru Flanders Red Ale over the bar.

No description of the GNH would be complete without a mention of their beer garden, which is, in my humble opinion, one of Melbourne’s best. Spacious, bright, plenty of seating, lots of TV’s for live sport, an outdoor bar for the busier times and even an Instagram account dedicated to the various dogs that wander in - As far as beer gardens go they don’t get much better than this.

As nice as the beer garden was, it was bloody hot last Sunday, the thick brick walls of the Great Northern were supplying us with some much needed respite from the heat so we grabbed a table inside instead, checked the menu and eyed off our target for the week…

The parma at the Great Northern has top billing on the menu, but (once you decide you are having the parma) if you let your eyes wander downward you’ll find some other pub classics on the list that don’t see a lot of action on most pub menus. Lasagne, Bangers & Mash, Fish & Chips, even a Pie of the Week and a good ol’ fashioned steak.

We placed our orders at the bar, throwing in a couple of sides of gravy for chip dippin’ purposes (I know what you’re thinking - things get wild on Sunday parmas).

At this point in a parma review I would normally talk about the beers available on tap at a particular pub, however when it comes to the Great Northern I feel like their reputation precedes them. When it comes to pubs that serve independently brewed beers in Melbourne the Great Northern is without peer, actively protesting against tap contracts in the past. They have more beers than I could possibly mention here and even trying to do so would be futile as they rotate brews so frequently it would no doubt be inaccurate by the time this review goes live. If you like beer you will like the Great Northern, that’s all I need to say.

About 20 minutes after placing our order, the parmas arrived from the kitchen. Its a good thing we revisited, as on sight alone a lot has changed since 2012…

The Great Northern Parma 2012

The Great Northern Parma 2019

Lets start with the schnitzel. First up I won’t judge them harshly for putting the parma on the chips - I’d say that was partly my fault as the extra side of gravy did take up a lot of plate real estate that would have otherwise been free.

The schnitzel was great quality. Thick enough to be non-offensive and pure white, juicy chicken. A pleasant light coating of crumbs could have been crunchier, but didn’t detract from the dishes quality too much. At first glance it looked a little small atop the chips but we didn’t walk away from the meal hungry so no complaints when it comes to size.

Toppings were solid all around. The cheese melt was a spectacular golden brown with practically 100% coverage and even some bonus cheese chips from the spots the cheese ran off the parma and hardened up (good n crunchy!). The ham was cut super thick and very flavoursome. The napoli was fine but probably the weakest of the three (not bad, but not particularly memorable). As far as parmas go this one was super enjoyable. It’s a down to earth, honest feed that you’d be hard pressed to find too much to take issue with.

The beer battered chips were very good. Decent sized serving, well cooked, good n’ crunchy - However the side of gravy elevated them to the next level. Gravy can be a bit of a gamble - sometimes lumpy, sometimes watery, sometimes shit overall - However the GNH gravy was on point, and I highly recommend grabbing a pot should you decide to check out this parma.

The salad was an explosion of colour on the plate. I have been talking a lot in recent reviews about my struggles with what I am right now dubbing “garden salad fatigue”, however the salad here at the GNH snapped me out of it. Super fresh, well dressed, plenty of ingredients and the addition of what I’m pretty sure was chopped fresh parsley throughout added a unique texture to the side. If you’re gonna do a garden salad then this is how you do a garden salad.

“I really enjoyed this one although I may be biased as I was super hungry. Highly recommend getting the gravy as a side for chip dip as it was surprisingly tasty. Good feed all around. ”

— Nikki

$22 (plus extra for gravy) for the parma we received is great value in my opinion, it was a well crafted parma using high quality ingredients and I’d have zero problems with paying another 22 bucks for this parma again, if that’s a little too pricey for you on Monday nights the price drops to just $14 - If you live nearby and can be bothered heading out on a Monday night (a struggle for me, as I said I’m an old man now) its definitely one worth checking out at that price.

You’ve probably already gathered from the review you just read, but I really like the Great Northern Hotel. It ticks every box for me when it comes to what I like in a pub, and knowing that the parma has improved since our first visit in 2012 is just icing on the cake. You’d be hard pressed to be disappointed with this one, definitely go check it out if you haven’t already.

Oh, and before we finish up if you haven’t popped in also check out the brand spankin’ new ParmaDaze Discord channel (yes, I’m still talking about it, shut up). Click here to drop in for a chat!

Parma - 8.00

Chips - 8.00

Salad - 7.50

Value - 7.00

Total -  7.70

The search continues...

#369 - 'Melba Social'

Where - 524 Macaulay Road, Kensington

Price - $22

Website - Facebook Page Only

Reviewers – Lee, Nikki & Stefo

ParmaDaze has a bit of a storied history with this place, and by this “place” I mean this address. 524 Macaulay Road Kensington is a building we have visited before. First in 2012 when it was known as Tonik, then again in 2015 when it became the Lost & Found Tattoo Parlour. After Lost & Found closed up (disappointing, as I quite enjoyed their parma) 524 Macaulay opened up again as Mr. Griffiths, a pub that focused on serving authentic, cheese curd laden poutine - I was sure that would be a goer, as who doesn’t love chips covered in cheese and gravy, and whenever we dropped into the nearby Hardimans or Kensington Food Hall Mr. Griffiths always seemed to be pumping.

So imagine my surprise when I find out that Mr. Griffiths has inexplicably gone the way of the Dodo, and in its place is a new bar/restaurant - One named Melba Social with a focus on good food, cocktails and craft beer, and even more importantly… They have a parma on the menu.

So for the third time, we loaded up the parma bus and headed to 524 Macaulay Road, and for the first time to Melba Social.

Of all the iterations of 524 Macaulay Rd we have seen, Melba Social has definitely undergone the most drastic change. The dark walls have been painted a bright white, the whole pub has been brightened up actually. From the wine fridges under the stairs to the art on the walls its clear that Melba Social is definitely going for a “wine bar” feel. They have breathed new lift into the space, and that’s without even going upstairs.

We grabbed a seat and checked the menu…

From the description alone I could tell they were going to put some effort into this one. I was interested to see how the “herb & garlic mixture” would present and the apple slaw definitely excited me to see.

As far as beer goes we didn’t look too far past the options from Stomping Ground, there were some Urban Alley beers on tap also, but when I see Stompo I’m happy. While we were there three of the eight taps (pictured above) didn’t have anything flowing, but it seems that Melba Social is going to have a focus on craft beers, so I’ll definitely keeping an eye on what they put up in the future.

15 or so minutes after placing our orders our parmas arrived at the table …

My first thought when the parma hit the table was “oh jeez it looks small”. And yes, it was a little smaller than we would normally like (I know of a few pubs that would consider this a “half parma”), but none the less we picked up our cutlery and tucked in.

You know what? We were pleasantly surprised! Yeah it was a little small but the chicken breast was bordering on perfect. Pure white, top quality chicken breast coated in a super light yet crispy crumb. The “herb & garlic” mixture advertised on the menu didn’t shine through as much as I had hoped, however it was eclipsed by an unexpected addition - Bolognese sauce.

Now we aren’t strangers to bolognese on a parma here, it’s rare, but it happens - However our history with bolognese parmas has always been one of disappointment. With the exception of the Duke’s Lasagne/Parma hybrid the Chicken Larmagiana, bolognese sauce on parmas usually proves to be a dry, unsatisfying mess.

However not the case with Melba Social. The bolognese was rich, flavoursome, not dry in the slightest and proved an absolute delight on the parma, giving it a traditional, “how mum used to make it” kind’ve vibe.

The cheese had great coverage and was suitably gooey and the ham added yet another dimension to an already flavour packed bird. Any qualms I had about the size of the schnitzel were instantly quashed, and I just enjoyed a good quality, tasty example of a parma.

The chips on this parma were out of this world. The closest thing to perfection we have come across in quite some time. The large serving, plated to the side of the parma was coated in a spicy, almost BBQ chip flavoured seasoning that was absolutely outstanding, not to mention they were served with a side of garlic aioli, supplied without request. I normally love a side of garlic aioli with my chips but to be perfectly honest the BBQ seasoning was so good they didn’t even need the aioli. Amazing.

The apple slaw was a bit contentious, a rich, creamy slaw of cabbage, capsicum and (you guessed it) shredded apple. The general feeling around the table was that it was a little bit too rich and heavy handed on the capsicum… Yet I enjoyed it. Sure it was not as fresh as you would expect an apple slaw to be, yet it in my (unpopular) opinion it was a fine side to the dish.

“A really nice tasting parma. We’ve come across parmas with bolognese sauce before, yet they have usually been dry and bland - this was anything but. The sauce was rich and ‘saucy’. My one criticism could be the size of the parma (a little small) but otherwise still a top notch meal”

— Stefo

“Looked a little small on the plate, yet we all walked out full. Would rather a smaller, good quality parma than a big & bland one. A great feed! ”

— Nikki

I’d happily pay $22 for the parma that we received any day of the week. It seemed small on the plate, sure, but I think that was just the fault of a big plate. I didn’t walk away from this meal hungry, and yet almost every element on the plate was a flavour sensation (yes, I’m including the salad, as much as it wasn’t enjoyed by the others at the table I quite liked it). If you are still hesitant Melba Social offers a special of a parma (or a 1.2 rack of ribs) and a pot on Wednesday nights for $18. At that price you’ve got absolutely nothing to lose, and I’d definitely recommend checking it out.

To be honest I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from Melba Social, but this was one of the best parmas we’ve tried in recent memory (definitely so far this year). The new owner’s work on the space has impressed me to no end, the parma was fantastic and I really hope Melba Social sticks around and we aren’t back in 12 months to try the new parma at 524 Macaulay Rd. Definitely worth checking out.

Oh before we finish up the ParmaDaze Discord is slowly building into a neat little community. I’m there pretty much all the time so if you’ve got any questions about the review or just feel like having a chat click here!

Parma - 8.17

Chips - 8.83

Salad - 5.67

Value - 7.33

Total -  7.63

The search continues...

Special Attempt: 'The Birmy Reconsidered'

I have tried it in the past so I’m speaking from experience when I tell you that telling your wife that Valentine’s Day dinner is “parma night at the pub” does not go down as well as one would hope. So last night, rather than heading out for a parma we took a week off and headed out to a non-parma serving restaurant (I know right? why even bother?). Luckily I had a review banked from the Australia Day long weekend for just such an occasion… Enjoy!

Before we get into it, This week we indulged in latest trend of 2019 and launched a ParmaDaze Discord channel, A spot to drop in, hang out and chat about whatever tickles your fancy (mostly parmas, but we are open to other topics). I’m almost always hanging out in there if you’ve ever got a question ask so click here if you want to check it out!

Anyway, on to this week’s review…

I’d be surprised if you haven’t heard yet as I have been broadcasting it pretty relentlessly since the announcement, but this year we presented the Birmingham Hotel in Fitzroy (Or Collingwood, depending on who you ask, Smith Street is literally the border between the two suburbs) with their third consecutive Golden Chook award for best parma in Melbourne.

An impressive feat indeed! Before we discovered The Birmy Melbourne’s Imperial Hotel took out the Golden Chook for four consecutive years, so Birmy has to go unbeaten for another 12 months to hold the title for as long as the Impy did.

Anyway, after the announcement of the Birmy’s third award, Triple M picked up the story and it got a bit of attention…

You can read the full post here if you’d like. After it went live Facebook was ablaze with comments, our traffic surged (if you are a new reader here due to that article, Welcome!) and more eyes than ever were on ParmaDaze. Of course, with added attention comes added criticism, and the Facebook comments weren’t without detractors, claiming that the Birmy no longer deserved the title of number one.

This got me thinking. Our first review (and first scoring) of the Birmy parma was in 2016. I ‘ve stopped in periodically since to make sure things were still up to par but I hadn’t gotten to the Birmy for probably 12 months before we presented them with the 2018 Parma of the Year award.

Was it still good? Or had it done an Impy and dropped in quality?

Luckily as I was in the middle of this existential crisis the Birmingham made an announcement…

$10 Birmy parmas?! How could we not go?

So rather than a full blown redo I decided that we would head down to the Birmy during the Parma Party and just double check that the Birmy Parma was still up to scratch.

We arrived at the Birmy on the Monday, I was expecting throngs of hungry parma goers however the pub was relatively quiet when we arrived, grabbed a seat and placed our orders.

As we sat the pub started to fill, more and more people rolled in the door to get their hands on a feed. The Birmy’s usual parma night goes for $13 so to be able to get one for just $10 was a spectacular deal.

About 20 minutes after ordering our $10 Birmy parmas fell to the table…

Look, I know taste is a subjective thing and what I like may not necessarily be what someone else likes. But I’ll be goddamned if that isn’t the best damn parma going. As soon as I saw it my fears that it had dropped in quality allayed. We picked up our cutlery and tucked in to find that, if anything, the quality of the Birmy parma has improved since 2016, with the addition of a strong garlic flavour throughout the crumbs of the schnitzel

The chips were spot on too, well seasoned, well cooked. Crunchy and soft at the same time. Delightful.

Now this post isn’t going to be entirely sucking up to the Birmy parma. I think it’s just because my tastes have changed but I am just bored with garden salads now. The Birmy’s is fine, but after nearly 10 years of reviewing them I’m just over the garden salad in general. If the Birmy offered up the option of salad or coleslaw I think that would be my dreams coming true.

The fact that we were getting the best parma I had ever tried for only $10 was just ludicrous, $13 on their parma night is just as silly so if you haven’t had one before I urge you to get down to the Birmy and try it for yourself.

Now as I said at the start of the review - The Imperial held on to their top spot for four years before toppling to the Birmingham, and there’s no reason that a better parma can’t come along and take the top spot from the Birmy. So please, keep those suggestions coming in. Either on Facebook, Instagram, our contact page or even as a comment on this review - Let me know if you know of a parma better than the Birmy’s and we’ll check it out.

It has been a few years, there has been some damn stiff competition, there have even been copycats - But for now the Birmy parma remains unbeaten in our eyes. If you haven’t checked it out yet get down there immediately, you won’t be disappointed.

The search continues…

#368 - 'The Corner Hotel Rooftop'

Where - 57 Swan St. Richmond

Price - $24

Website - https://cornerhotel.com

Reviewers – Lee, Matt, Nick, Sakkun, Cynd

I said at the start of our last review that Richmond’s Corner Hotel needed no introduction, and over 6 years later I stand by that statement.

If you haven’t heard of the Corner you must have been living under a rock (or somewhere outside of Melbourne, maybe Adelaide?). It’s one of our cities most prolific live music venues, and if anything its reputation has only grown in the 6 years since we first ventured to Swan Street for a review

Although I am distancing this review from our first visit a little for reasons that will become apparent later. This time around we walked into the building, took a hard right and went straight up to the rooftop, which in the fabled words of Princess Jasmine is a whole new world from what lies below…

As far as rooftop bars go, the Corner Rooftop is spectacular. Heaps of space, a tonne of tables & chairs and options for both covered areas or spots out in the sun depending on the weather/how sunburnt you want to wake up the following day. Without hyperbole I’d call it one of the best rooftop bars in Melbourne.

So, other than our usual Thursday-night-parma-night, this week’s outing took place last Saturday arvo. It was a 30+ degree day so, while we started the day under the sun it quickly became apparent that we would be burnt to a crisp if we stayed out much longer, so we retreated into the undercover area with air conditioning, in front of the bar and adjacent to the kitchen.

By about 1 o’clock the rooftop was starting to get busy, so we checked the menu and spied our target for the day…

Despite the menu description spending an inordinate amount of time itemising the items in the salad and not really mentioning the parma at all, we placed our orders at the bar and waited for our meals to arrive.

The tap list upstairs was relatively fine. 4 Pines, Mountain Goat Steam Ale, Brookvale Union Ginger Beer, Bulmers, Frothy, Melbourne Bitter & Carlton Draught were all on offer. On the way in I noticed that there was Stone & Wood on tap in the downstairs bar, but not upstairs, would have loved to see that one migrate upstairs also.

Just shy of six years earlier (to the day! Sorry I keep bringing that up but I find that coincidence uncanny), the Corner Hotel parma looked like this…

Good god that was a lot of coleslaw!

About 15 minutes after ordering the parmas arrived…

It looked fine on the plate so I picked up the cutlery and tucked in. This is where things went downhill.

First up the schnitzel was cold. The toppings were warm-ish, but the schnitzel itself was stone cold. The schnitty was big enough, it used real chicken, hammered a little bit thinner than I would normally like but real chicken none the less.

The crumbs on the bottom of the parma, however, were mush. completely waterlogged and soggy, all the moisture had been sucked from the schnitzel and absorbed into the crumbs, leaving the chicken completely dry and the crumbs without any semblance of crunch like a wet sponge. With real chicken at its core this had the chance to be a great schnitzel, but due to reasons we would discover shortly, this was a case of extremely squandered potential.

The toppings were also in a pretty sad state. Any napoli that might have been on the parma had been absorbed/evaporated away. What looked like it was once a good coverage and golden brown grill of cheese had separated into an oily, greasy, unpalatable mess.

The ham held up relatively well compared to the other toppings. It had quite a bit of flavour and if it weren’t for the off-putting taste of the cheese might have actually helped elevate this parma quite a bit.

It’s not often that I don’t finish a parma, but I got halfway through this one and couldn’t take any more. As far as the parma goes this one was bordering on inedible for me.

As opposed to the parma the chips were pretty good. Decent serving, well cooked and seasoned, served to the side of the parma and super crunchy. After not being able to finish the parma I was glad to have a decent side of chips to satiate my hunger.

After making such a fuss over the ingredients of the salad on the menu you would think they would make sure we received everything that was listed. Unfortunately the “Bitter leaves with shaved red onion and vinaigrette” was just bitter leaves with some vinaigrette and oil, no onion to be found (some of the other plates had a sliver to two) and overall unenjoyable. Even though there was an unholy amount of it I much preferred the coleslaw we received back in 2013 to 2019’s “bitter leaf” salad.

I hoped it was just me, but the thoughts from the others in the group show that it wasn’t just an isolated incident…

“Parma was thin with extra soggy crumbs, but at least it was real chicken. It wasn’t helped by having powdered cheese and SPC spaghetti sauce instead of napoli. “Salad” was literally a pile of vinegar soaked leaves, which gets a +1 for menu honesty but -10 for being a pile of leaves. The chips were well seasoned & crunchy”

— Nick

“The crumbing was like garden sand and the ham had the consistency of old paint. The leaves tasted fake, and the chips like rubber. By all accounts and evidence I’m lead to believe this was made in a Bunnings workshop, not a kitchen.”

— Sakkun

Normally this is about where we would throw in our napkins, score our meal and walk away. But like I said we weren't at the Corner Rooftop on a usual Thursday night, we were in for a Saturday Arvo sesh, and we settled in for a few post-parma drinks on the lovely rooftop.

As we had moved inside due to the heat our table was situated in such a way that we could see into the kitchen, it afforded us a view into the parma creation process at the Corner and it was about this time things started to make sense - From where we were sitting we could see a tray of pre-cooked parmas (not just pre-cooked schnitzels, pre cooked parmas) with toppings on, just sitting on the bench.

I watched them for 10 minutes, I watched them for 20 minutes, I watched them for 30 minutes, I watched them for 40 minutes.

Then I watched an order for two parmas come through and then, while I watched on with horror, saw the 40 minute old parmas get plated up without being reheated at all (besides a few moments under the heat lamps while they waited to be collected) and the order go out.

Now my cold schnitzel was starting to make sense, as were the soggy crumbs, nonexistent napoli sauce and separated cheese. Shortly after that tray of parmas was finished a new batch of 5 parmas appeared on the bench and the cycle began anew. The Corner Rooftop’s system seems to be to cook 5 parmas at a time and let them sit until an order comes through.

I’m sure the first parma off the tray would have been great. The elements used had the potential to produce a fantastic parma but it was all squandered due to pre-preparation in the interest of saving time, however I wouldn’t have this parma again due to what we experienced.

$24 for this parma is too expensive, that’s pretty high when it comes to a parma and for that price I’d expect my meal to be made to order. They do offer a $20 parma and pot night on Wednesdays alongside trivia, but even then I’d hesitate (although if anything the parma night parmas would probably be better as the turnover would be much higher).

Now you see why I tried to distance the kitchen on the Corner Rooftop from The Corner Downstairs, I’m not 100% sure, but it would make sense if there was a second kitchen Downstairs - Making parmas upstairs and then ferrying them downstairs doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and Upstairs seemed busy enough without worrying about Downstairs’ orders as well, so fingers crossed that the ones downstairs are better.

Even McDonalds stopped pre-making their burgers years ago. I have heard of pubs pre-cooking their schnitzels and topping/grilling them to order - Not the best practice but I’d prefer that to fully topped & cooked parmas left to just sit there.

Side note - One member of our group ordered the Chicken Tenders from the kids menu in lieu of a parma and was equally displeased, the “tenders” consisting of a sliced up schnitzel, just as dry and unpleasant as the one our parma was built on.

The Corner is a live music institution. It is one of the best bars, best venues and best rooftop pubs I have been to in my life, which is why it absolutely shatters me to review them so poorly. I want this place to serve up a good meal, and if they knock off this pre-preparation garbage I think they have the potential to. Until then, though, I’d give it a miss.

Parma - 2.80

Chips - 6.80

Salad - 2.60

Value - 2.40

Total - 3.48

The search continues...

#367 - 'The Yorkshire Hotel'

Where - 48 Hoddle St. Abbotsford

Price - $24

Website - https://www.theyorkshirehotel.com.au

Reviewers – Lee & Nikki

The Yorkshire Hotel (or the Yorkshire Stingo Hotel, or just “The Stingo” depending on who you ask) has been on our list for quite a while, and to be honest I’m floored that it has taken us nearly 9 years to get to it. Recommended to us multiple times it just kept getting pushed down the ladder (and for a while there I could’ve sworn we already visited). However its time has come, and last night we ventured to Hoddle Street to try out the parma at the Yorkshire Hotel.

A stone’s throw from the MCG this would be a great pub to pop into before the footy (especially if you are a Collingwood supporter as there is Pies merch everywhere). The Stingo manages to retain its old-world corner pub vibe so close to the CBD.

I have seen the Stingo claim to have “Abbotsford’s best beer garden”, and if it weren’t for the fantastic beer garden just opened at the nearby Park Hotel I would have to agree with them… But it’s still pretty damn good. Open and spacious with a pool table, TAB machine and a selection of arcade games (Time Crisis II, Street Fighter, Big Buck Hunter and NBA Jam), it reminded me of one of one of The Great Northern, one of my favourite Melbourne beer gardens.

We ordered at the bar, for the first time this year we weren’t parma-ing in oppressive summer heat so it was a perfect night to make use of the aforementioned beer garden. We pulled up a seat and waited for our meals to arrive.

The tap list at the Stingo surprised me. Got the full gamut here, at the time of writing this review we had (deep breath) Pirate Life IPA, Carlton Draught, Collingwood Draught, Coldstream Golden Ale, Coldstream Cider, Pirate Life Pale, Young Henry’s Newtowner, McCrackens Amber Ale, 4 Pines Summer Ale, Great Northern, Melbourne Bitter and Frothy… Phew. Long story short I’m pretty sure anyone could find a drop they like in that extremely varied tap list.

After a 15-20 minute wait our meals were delivered…

I’m not normally one to complain about parmas stacked on chips. My official position is that 95% of the time it doesn’t bother me, and in the case a parma arrives stacked on the chips any parma pro worth their salt can de-stack before any damage is done (and in the long run I’d rather have more chips stacked than less chips because the plate is too small). However the plate the Stingo used was quite large with a heap of empty space. The chips were rescued before any damage was done, but it boggles my mind that they went the stack with so much extra space that could have been utilised. No points deducted for this or anything as it doesn’t bother me that much, just an observation.

The schnitzel was pretty great quality. Well cooked and juicy. The crumbs were a little thick for my liking but not criminally so. Despite being on a large plate and possibly looking a little small in the photos it was big enough that I didn’t walk away hungry in the slightest. Overall a solid foundation to the parma.

The toppings were quality all round. Plenty of cheese, plenty of napoli and they went the extra step and included a slice of ham. The cheese was well browned and the napoli sauce rich and chunky. I appreciate the inclusion of ham but couldn’t really taste it amongst the other toppings. Something with a bit more oomph would have really brought this parma to life.

As far as chips go these were pretty spot on. A pretty massive serving, well seasoned, served piping hot with a solid crunch, and the offer of tomato sauce or Sriracha on arrival was greatly appreciated.

The salad was … controversial. On its surface it was your standard garden salad. Lettuce, tomato, cucumber and plenty of onion, just how I like it. However the Stingo has decided to also load it with what appears to be pickled fennel? (the yellow stuff you can see in the above photo). It had such a strong flavour that it totally overrode all of the flavours in the salad (and even a bit of the parma). If you like fennel then you’ll probably love this. I was not a fan and would be happier to see it stricken from both the Stingo’s parma and the planet Earth in its entirety.

I’d happily pay $24 for this parma again. It’s a little bit pricey, but I was happy enough with what I received that I’d order it again without question. If you feel like a bargain the Stingo parma is $10 cheaper on Monday night, definitely worth checking out if you’re a local.

Local pubs in the inner suburbs are becoming a rarity, so it’s fantastic to see the Yorkshire still going strong. Its a quaint little pub with an old school vibe and a stellar beer garden that I’d happily drink away the afternoon in. Despite a couple of missteps the parma is overall quite good and definitely worth checking out if you’re in the area.

Parma - 7.60

Chips - 7.00

Salad - 5.00

Value - 7.00

Total -  6.96

The search continues...

#366 - 'Central Club Hotel'

Where - 246 Victoria St. North Melbourne

Price - $20 ($15 Parma & Pot on Tuesdays)

Website - https://centralclubhotel.com.au

Reviewers –Lee & Nikki

During the latter half of last year after watching one too many episodes of Hot Ones on YouTube, I decided to try my hand at making hot sauce. The first batch was a bit of a dumpster fire, but chalk it up to a learning experience. The second batch was much better but still a bit mild (mostly habaneros and jalapeños, nothing crazy hot just yet) . So for the third batch I wanted to go hot... proper hot. I wanted to use some of the hottest chilis known to man, Carolina Reapers.

So during the December break I hopped on a tram and headed in to the Queen Victoria Market. After a bit of browsing I found one stall with what I was after… Reapers aplenty. I grabbed a bagful and was headed home when the Central Club Hotel caught my eye. It looked like it had some work done.

A bit of history - I have wanted to try the Central Club for a while, it looked like a bit of a dive but that has never stopped us in the past, some of our best parmas have been in divey pubs - However pre-renovations the kitchen for the Central Club was only open for lunch and not for dinner, which made it super hard to get out and do a review as 95% of our reviews take place on Thursday after work.

So with a bag of reapers in hand I poked my head into the Central Club. It was a new pub! Completely refitted with a focus on craft beer and tap takeovers. I grabbed a pint and checked the menu, even though the kitchen is now being run by Burgerlove they still made room for a parma on the “Classics” section of the menu. I made a mental note that we needed to check them out ASAP in the new year … which I promptly forgot about until receiving a tweet from a reader reminding me to do so, and last night that is exactly what we did.

Cold beers and lethally hot chilis. A good combination?

We arrived back at the Central Club just after 7 on Thursday and were surprised to find the pub already quite busy. I’m gonna chalk it up to a lot of punters wanting to escape the oppressive heat hitting Melbourne this week, but we almost struggled to find a free table in the front bar when we arrived (luckily we managed to secure one in prime position in front of the aircon when we did)

We grabbed the menu and found our target for the night -

Sounds good to me! A quick trip to the bar to place our order and back to the table to await the arrival of our meal.

The tap list at the Central Club is a thing of beauty. I hesitate to list any beers here as it appears they rotate through taps with great frequency, I’ll just pull this paragraph from their website which should tell you everything you need to know -

“Each month we will be showcasing a different independent craft brewery each month and allowing them to Take-Over our entire pub. As well as giving them as much wall space as they need to brand the sh*t out of the place, we’re giving them 8 out of our 12 taps to pour their entire range for a month.”

— centralclubhotel.com.au

The Central Club touts itself as “North Melbourne’s Best Craft Beer Venue”. Big if true, and to be honest I can’t think of any off the top of my head that would compete. Definitely worth checking out if you enjoy a beer or two.

After about 20 minutes our parmas arrived from the kitchen…

First up, under that mountain of cheese I can assure you that there actually is a schnitzel. I was pleasantly surprised to find real, unprocessed chicken breast.

A little thin in spots and slightly dry, but overall a quality piece of chicken used in the base. The crumbing was super crunchy, maybe slightly overcooked but otherwise fine. a decent foundation for the parma.

I want to say “this parma was all about the cheese” due to the overwhelming avalanche of cheese floated on top, however the napoli sauce was also quite tasty in the Central Club parma as well. Unlike last week’s parma at Kicks which was also insanely cheesy, the Club’s parma had enough napoli that it wasn’t lost in the shuffle. Perhaps slightly heavy handed on the tomato paste, but overall added a great rich flavour to the dish.

The ham was visible but its flavour was all but lost amongst the cheese and napoli. I appreciate that it was there, however it didn’t add much to the dish for me.

I can already hear the complaints of “The parma is on the chips! FAIL!” flooding this review, but to be honest the serving of chips was so damn huge I don’t know where else they could have put them. Massively large portion, well seasoned, my only complaint would be that they were served a little bit cold, but other than that a top notch side to the parma.

The salad was probably the weakest of the three elements on the plate. It was a big serve but felt like a bit of an afterthought. It was fine, but the lettuce was quite wilted and it didn’t bring a whole lot to the party. To be honest I’d prefer it if they swapped out the garden salad for a creamy coleslaw, that would have complimented the parma insanely well.

“Nothing flash but enjoyable for a down to earth parma. Better than last week!”

— Nikki

The parma at the Central Club was fine for what it was, and I think it is priced appropriately. Its a no-frills parma at a no frills price and if you walk in with that mindset I think you’ll be happy with what you get. I’d be happy to shell out another $20 for this one, and their $15 parma & pot night is a fantastic deal if you can get down on a Tuesday.

I enjoyed our trip to the Central Club. Despite renovating into a craft beer focussed pub it has managed to retain its character. Its a welcoming, friendly pub with a great range of beers and a solid feed. It definitely could use some work, but the foundations of a great meal are there. Worth a crack if you’re in the area (especially on a Tuesday) but I wouldn’t go out of my way for it.

Oh, and that third batch of hot sauce turned out great. New business venture? ParmaBlaze™ Hot Sauce coming soon… Maybe

Parma - 7.00

Chips - 7.50 

Salad - 5.75

Value - 7.00

Total - 6.85

The search continues...

#365 - 'Kicks'

Where - 1/450 Elizabeth St. Melbourne

Price - $21.90 original, $22.90 novelty

Website - https://www.kicksmelbourne.com.au

Reviewers – Lee & Nikki

We’re back! The 2018 Golden Chook awards have been distributed (Check them out here if you missed it) and we are geared up to kick off another year in the search for the perfect parma. Incidentally this review marks the 365th parma review we have done at ParmaDaze, meaning we have reviewed enough parmas to be the equivalent to one per day for an entire year. What have I done with my life.

When a pub pops up touting itself as “Melbourne’s finest sports bar” you’d better believe we are gonna take notice, so when we heard about Kicks, up the Queen Vic end of Elizabeth Street, we made sure to make checking it out a priority.

Situated on the second floor above an EzyMart, the large screen TV’s and multiple bars of Kicks are easy to spot from the street below. We arrived at about 7:30 on a Thursday afternoon, were greeted at the door by two bouncers (a bit overkill if you ask me) and ascended the stairs to Kicks.

The vibe of Kicks is a hard one to pin down, it’s kind of a sports bar, but not really. Yes there are TV’s on almost every surface showing a plethora of sports games, but with the pool table, foosball table and three tabletop arcade cabinets it feels considerably more nerdy than your standard sports bar. The best way I can describe it is if The Sporting Globe and GG EZ had a baby, that baby would be Kicks.

With plenty of options for seating (the terrace, the high tables, the pool area, the arcade booths and the large dining area around the back) we pulled up a chair in prime position in front of the bar and checked the menu.

I wasn’t expecting novelty parmas on the menu at Kicks so seeing a parma section on the menu threw me for a moment, unfortunately after a month away everyone on the team was craving a standard parma so we didn’t get a chance to try the novelties this time around. We placed our order at the bar and watched a bit of tennis while waiting for the arrival of our dinner.

The tap list at Kicks is … Okay, with the massive copper tanks of Carlton Draught looming precariously above our seats they also had Furphy, Four Pines, Pirate Life, Mountain Goat and Fat Yak to name a few of the other options. Die hard craft-heads may be disappointed, but the should be enough of a choice to satisfy most needs.

About 20 minutes after ordering the parmas arrived at the table. The chips and salad looked great on the plate, but more on them later. The exposed schnitzel peeking out from under the cheese worried me though, it looked pretty overcooked and those were deli window schnitzel crumbs if I’d ever seen them. With great trepidation we picked up our cutlery and tucked in.

As suspected the schnitzel was not great, overcooked and dry as expected with super thin chicken throughout (see cross section below). As much as the toppings tried to save it the schnitzel (a lynch pin of any parma) was the weakest element of the dish.

If you like cheese then this is a parma for you. Flavoursome, gooey, well cooked cheese did its best to rescue this parma from mediocrity. The ham was there but didn’t add a whole lot to the flavour profile while the napoli sauce was barely detectable, both by the eye or by the tastebuds. As far as the parma goes this one was a pretty disappointing outing for the first of 2019.

The chips, on the other hand, were fantastic. Served in a seperate basket away from the underside of the parma, they were plentiful, cooked to perfection and lightly dusted with a spicy seasoning. Every table was adorned with a bottle of tomato sauce so chip dippage was readily available if required (although to be honest I ate most of them sauce free, they were well seasoned enough without it).

The garden salad was another winner. Fresh and crisp with plenty of ingredients and loaded with honey mustard dressing. If you’re after a healthy salad to accompany your parma then this definitely isn’t it, however if you’re after a palate cleanser and a suitably unhealthy side to an already unhealthy meal then this is a pretty good example of one.

“Quality sides let down by a disappointing schnitzel. A nicer piece of chicken and this could have been great!”

— Nikki

For $21.90 I won’t be running back to Kicks to try this parma again. Monday night offers a parma (of any variety) with a pot for $16, which, to be honest, is a pretty good deal and probably about what this parma is worth and I think the only scenario I would recommend this parma.

When it comes to novelty toppings on a parma I always say that they have to be able to do the standard parmas well first, and then pile the other stuff on. If you can’t do an original parma successfully then don’t stack extra stuff on as a way to hide it, it’s a crutch.

I enjoyed the vibe at Kicks. The tabletop arcades were a neat touch, especially with the screens above mirroring the gameplay below so onlookers could observe the game. It’s the kind’ve pub I could see leaning into eSports as well as traditional sports when the Overwatch League fires up again.

As for the parma it has potential. The sides are great, the toppings are mostly fine, it just all falls apart when you use a crap piece of chicken as the base. Check it out on Monday night and get the novelty toppings to cover up its failings, otherwise I’d say give this one a miss.

Parma - 5.25

Chips - 8.50

Salad - 7.50

Value - 5.80

Total - 6.46

The search continues...