The Laurel's Mega Parma Challenge - 2013 Finals

Huh? Wha? Go away. I'm on holidays.  

What? It's the finals of the Laurel's Mega Parma Challenge today? Oh alright then...

I'm up! I'm up!

So you may remember a few months back we went to Ascot Vale and attempted The Laurel Hotel's Mega Parma Challenge. For those who have bad memories and can't be bothered clicking on that link, the challenge was this -

$40 for a 1.5kg parma, chips and a pint. While eating it you were on the clock, the top 6 times were asked to return for the finals where they would be pitted against each other to determine who would earn the title of Mega Parma Champion, and those finals were today.

In a perfect world we would have smashed the mega parma at the prelims and been one of the contestants at the finals, however when we tried the Mega Parma we couldn't even finish it, let alone finish it in any sort of respectable time, so we were relegated to spectate for the day. As of the morning of the finals, the leaderboard looked like this ...

Like I said, we couldn't even finish the thing, let alone get a decent time. These were champions among men.

I arrived at The Laurel at around 12 noon to find a pretty deserted pub. What should I do to fill the time? I'll give you one guess...

Only a single, regular sized parma this time, I'm not a mad man.

After finishing up that bird I moved into the main bar where things were starting to come together.

The stage had been set. The winners trophy was on display...

Now it was time for the contestants...

One by one they arrived, after a short wait it was determined that one of the six was a no-show, then things got underway.

The parmas and pints arrived from the kitchen, They were as big as I remember - if not even a little bit bigger for the finals...

The contestants took their seats, and after a short wait to let them cool for a moment, they were off.

I could try and describe how the competition went down, but it'd be easier just to watch... (I cut down a chunk in the middle for upload-time's sake)

[youtube id="GSFiaIH89J4" width="580" height="337"]

And that's all she wrote!

Competition favourite (he finished the prelim's with a time of  6 minutes and 41 seconds) Tom King had taken home the championship.

Congratulations mate! Well done. Enjoy your year's worth of free parmas - well deserved.

I've got a feeling the Laurel is going to make this a yearly event, so rest assured that you wont be hearing the last of this pub and their Mega Parma.

Thats it. I'm going back to bed.

2013 Parma of the year awards

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

Lets get started!

Best new parma

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

The envelope, please.

This years Best new Parma award goes to...

The Duke

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

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

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

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

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

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

Parma of the Year

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

Drumroll please...

The Imperial Hotel

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

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

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

Our parmas arrived.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Parma - 9.25

Chips - 9.25

Salad - 8.17

Value -  9.25

Total - 9.03

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

Back to back champions! Well deserved guys. Congratulations.

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

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

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

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

Attempt #165 - 'Demazzi'

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

Where? - 4/1142 Mount Alexander Road, Essendon

Price? - $22.50

Website? - http://www.demazzi.com.au/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[pros]

• Heaps of chips

[/pros][cons]

• No ham
• Quite small
• McDonalds style fries

[/cons]

Parma - 5.50

Chips - 4.36

Salad - 5.43

Value - 4.86

Total - 5.13

The search continues...

Attempt #164 - 'The Rainbow Hotel'

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

Where? - 27 St David Street, Fitzroy

Price? - $22.

Website? - http://therainbow.com.au/

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

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

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

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

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

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

Take a second to check out this beauty.

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

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

Grabbed the menu and took a look...

Done.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[pros]

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

[/pros][cons]

• Awful salad
• A fair bit of nude schnitzel

[/cons]

Parma - 7.67

Chips - 7.42

Salad - 2.33

Value - 6.83

Total - 6.38

The search continues...

Attempt #163 - 'The Gem'

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

Where? - 289 Wellington St, Collingwood

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

Website? - http://thegembar.com.au/

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I know, right!?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[pros]

• Astonishingly thick schnitzel
• Perfect for the spice lover

[/pros][cons]

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

[/cons]

Parma - 5.30

Chips - 6.20

Salad - 5.80

Value - 4.60

Total - 5.44

The search continues...

Attempt #162 -'Limerick Castle Hotel'

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

Where? - 161 Errol St, North Melbourne

Price? - $18

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[pros]

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

[/pros][cons]

• Parma was quite oily
• Crumbs fell away from chicken

[/cons]

Parma - 6.88

Chips - 6.00

Salad - 6.50

Value - 7.38

Total - 6.73

The search continues...

Attempt #161 -'Grand View Hotel'

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

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

Price? - $20.00

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

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

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

Last night's parma was an interesting one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[pros]

• Quality, unbelievably juicy schnitzel
• Garlic aioli chip dip

[/pros][cons]

• Well made but uninspired salad

[/cons]

Parma - 7.67

Chips - 7.04

Salad - 6.25

Value - 7.58

Total - 7.24

The search continues...

Cooking with Parma Daze #4 - 'Vegemite Aioli'

 

Lets get one thing straight from the get-go. There are a lot of Vegemite haters out there. This post is not for you. This is for the people who can't start their day without a smear of black gold on their toast, who grew up with Vegemite sandwiches in their school lunch box. This is a post for the Happy Little Vegemites.

Last Friday marked the 90th birthday for the quintessential Aussie spread, Vegemite. I saw an ad promoting 'creative ways to serve Vegemite' (the ad in particular suggested Vegemite on toast with smashed avocado) and it got me thinking... is there a way to incorporate Vegemite into a chicken parma? Perhaps making the iconic Australian dish even more Aussie.

I floated the idea on facebook and it was met with mixed responses, some of pure joy and others of utter disgust. After back-and-forthing a little I came to the conclusion that a Vege-parma might be taking things a bit too far, however another idea floated into my brain that I had to give a go.

Regular readers will know that I am a sucker for a good chip dip. Be it tomato sauce or any sort of aioli, a serve of chips will always get extra points if there is some sort of liquid sitting beside them for dipping. A few years back Smiths released Vegemite flavoured potato chips -

They were only 'for a limited time', but when they were available they were my chip of choice -Which, to me, was proof positive that the union of potato and Vegemite was meant to be, and what is better than cold potato chips? Hot chips!

Now there are two ways to make aioli. The easy way and the hard way. As I pretty much proved on the last cooking with Parma Daze I'm an 'easy way' kinda guy, so for this experiment we kept things simple...

Aioli is a fancy word for garlic mayonnaise, and I know this entire post is a really convoluted way of saying "I mixed Vegemite with Mayo", but bear with me. For the chips I went a little fancy and tried these new "Deli parmesan, garlic & basil" seasoned oven chips - I figured if the aioli was a disaster I could at least have some decent tasting chips for dinner.

So ... lets get this started.

First up, a bowl of mayo -

As I wasn't following any recipe in particular there isn't many measurements I can give you to try this at home - but as there are only two ingredients it shouldn't be too hard to work out. Everyone has their own opinions of how much Vegemite to use anyway, so my recipe is basically "mix to personal taste".

I started with a liberal squirt of mayo, probably between a quarter and a half of the bottle. On top of that I spooned about two teaspoons of vegemite, grabbed a whisk and started stirring.

Now you've gotta be prepared to put some elbow grease into it - the consistency of Vegemite doesn't really lend itself to being mixed so you've got to force it, I found using a fork to mush out the lumps worked quite well.

After several minutes of mixing I had something that looked like this -

A quick taste-test told me that it was a little too mayonaisse-ey and (although the flavour was starting to come through) not quite Vegemite-ey enough, I doubled up and put another two teaspoons of Vegemite in the mix and kept on stirring. Another taste test in a few minutes, it was closer but still not quite there, so I put in a fifth teaspoon and mixed it up.

After smoothing out the lumps and furiously mixing for another few minutes it looked about done, I put it into a serving bowl and chucked it in the fridge while the chips finished cooking...

Damn that looks pretty, doesn't it?

While waiting for the chips I stuck my pinky in and had a taste ... It was good. It was the first time in this whole process I let myself think that this one might actually be a success. The oven chips were done and I served up the whole shebang...

Now those oven chips, to me, look undercooked, so no need in pointing that out, but as some of the smaller ones were starting to burn without turning golden brown, I think that is just the colour that they are supposed to be.

I picked up a chip. My hands were shaking. I dipped...

And it was good.

IT'S GOOD!

It really tasted exactly how you would imagine it, liking coating a hot chip in runny Vegemite. My one complaint would be that I took the easy way out and didn't make the aioli from scratch - the strong vinegar taste from the mayo definitely came through and interfered with the Vegemite taste a little - next time I would definitely make it from scratch, omitting the vinegar.

EDIT: I've been told from a few people since posting this that I should've used whole-egg mayonnaise, that would have solved the vinegar taste issue - keep it in mind when making your own!

After the failure of the pork rind parma I was terrified that I'd have another failed invention on my hands, and it pleases me to no end that this one was good (at least in my opinion, you guys might hate it).

So there you have it! Take some mayo, mix Vegemite to personal taste and you've got yourself a tasty little chip-dip.

So if you want to Aussie-fy your next bowl of chips, perhaps make a surprising treat for your next Australia Day party then give Vegemite Aioli a try (or as a mate of mine dubbed it "Vaioli"). I recommend trying it the easy way first, just to see if its your cup of tea, then if you're a fan give making it from scratch a go, it'll definitely put a rose in your cheeks.

Attempt #160 - 'College Lawn Hotel'

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

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

Price? - $21.00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other than that it was amazing.

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

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

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

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

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

[pros]

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

[/pros][cons]

• Thin-ish schnitzel, a little small.

[/cons]

After the meal we did the birthday thing...

Happy Birthday Knickers!

Parma - 7.85

Chips - 9.00

Salad - 7.50

Value - 7.62

Total - 7.96

The search continues...

Attempt #159 - 'Network'

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

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

Price? - $23.00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[pros]

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

[/pros][cons]

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

[/cons]

Parma - 8.00

Chips - 4.00

Salad - 3.13

Value - 4.88

Total - 5.60

The search continues...

Attempt #158 - 'La Di Da'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[pros]

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

[/pros][cons]

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

[/cons]

Parma - 5.60

Chips - 4.60

Salad - 3.40

Value - 6.90

Total - 5.22

The search continues...

Attempt #157 - 'Universal'

When? - 3rd of October, 2013

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

Price? - $14

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pros

• Delicious traditional napoli

• No shortage of cheese

• Crispy crumbs - no sogginess

• Amazing chips

• Big! You won't leave hungry

• At only $14 its a steal

Cons

• Not the best quality chicken used in the schnitzel

Parma - 7.67

Chips - 7.72

Salad - 6.72

Value - 9.56

Total - 7.87

The search continues...

#156 - 'The Ascot Vale Hotel'

When? - 26th of September, 2013

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

Price? - $18

Website? - None

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

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

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

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

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

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

I never thought I'd sit at these tables again

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

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

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

Next up - The Main event...

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

Well. This is a new one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

QUOTES-PD

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

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

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

Pros -

• Thick chicken breast

Cons -

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

Parma - 3.00

Chips - 3.86

Salad - 3.14

Value - 4.00

Total - 3.43

The search continues...

Attempt #155 - 'Saint & Rogue'

 

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

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

Price? - $24

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

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

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

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

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

Photo from hiddencitysecrets.com.au

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

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

Photo from hiddencitysecrets.com.au

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[pros]

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

[/pros]

[cons]

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

[/cons]

Parma - 7.75

Chips - 6.17

Salad - 5.50

Value - 5.67

Total - 6.57

The search continues...

Cooking with Parma Daze #3 - 'Cooking Parmas for the Lazy Man'

After we threw in the napkins on last week's Mega Parma Challenge, sitting around the table moaning and clutching our stomachs, the topic of where we were heading the following week came up. Now bear in mind we had just eaten the majority of this...

So at the time the idea of eating any more chicken - no matter how far in the future it may be, turned our stomachs.

It was decided amongst the table that we were gonna take a week off, to digest, collect ourselves, have a little cry and ponder what decisions we made in our lives that culminated in us attempting to eat 1.5 kilos of chicken. We parted ways and left it at that.

Fast forward to this week - The first Thursday I have had off (while being in Melbourne) for quite some time. I felt lost ... The mega parma was well and truly digested and I was getting that familiar hankering, yet I brushed it aside and headed to my local butcher in North Essendon - Famous for their Chicken Kievs. If I couldn't indulge in my favourite crumbed chicken dish I was swapping it out for my 2nd favourite ... Who doesn't love a good Kiev? Nothing beats the feeling of putting a knife through a freshly cooked kiev and unleashing a river of molten garlic butter through your chips (or rice, or mashed potatoes. Everything goes with Kiev)... I bet you're thinking about having a kiev right now.

As I said, the local butchers, or "North Essendon Gourmet Butchery" has got a bit of a name in the area as the best place to go for your meat. Be it some rissoles for the barbie, a slab of succulent roast pork or the aforementioned chicken kiev - 1083 Mount Alexander Rd is the place to be.

I finished work for the day and stopped off in the shopping strip to grab the kievs, when walking into the butchers a sign on the glass caught my eye...

It was fate. Even when I actively tried to avoid having a parma on a Thursday, the parma found me. It was like "Final Destination" but with pieces of schnitzel.

Well this definitely threw a spanner in the works! I could almost taste the garlic butter on my tongue, yet how could I turn down the promise of an oven ready parma? On parma night no less! I put the kievs on hold and got a parma instead (the last one left, The wife still got her kiev, so she was happy). This unexpected parmage was going to be interesting, thats for sure. We've had Microwave parmas before, we've had take away parmas before, we've even had Lite n' Easy parmas before - But never have we done a raw, oven ready parma from a butcher ... this was unknown territory.

Now at this point it was half past five, I had resigned myself to doing no more cooking than putting the kievs in the oven - maybe boiling some rice. But thats no way to treat a parma, a parma needs sides! Yet... It was 5:30, I was nearly home and was feeling incredibly lazy. Then inspiration struck. The parma is oven ready, why not try to put together a proper parma with only oven ready (or pre-packaged) ingredients? After a quick stop at Coles I was good to go. It was a very close call, but like a phoenix from the ashes parma night had been resurrected!

I got home and had a look at the package the butcher had bagged up -

For perspective that is a large foil tray, if you've ever ordered a parma from your local pizza shop you'd know what size we're talking about. Pretty sizable, and for a moment I thought it might be complete with sides as the container seemed rather heavy. I opened up the box and...

No sides! But still a pretty big parma, much bigger than I thought, although (from what I could see) I was a little concerned about the thickness of the schnitz, it was kindve hard to tell through the napoli and cheese if the foundation was any good. I preheated the oven and set the parma aside.

Now, as for the salad, I went for this...

I considered going all out and getting some coleslaw as well, but after spending $5 on the salad, the cost of the sides with coleslaw would have been more than I paid for the parma. This seemed good enough, I love when I'm at a pub and they put cheese through the salad - so surely this would do the trick.

The oven was pre-heated, I slid the parma in and we were good to go.

Now we play the waiting game.

While we wait, how about a riddle?

A man lives on the twelfth floor of an apartment building. Every morning he takes the elevator down to the lobby and leaves the building. In the evening, he gets into the elevator, and, if there is someone else in the elevator -- or if it was raining that day -- he goes back to his floor directly. Otherwise, he goes to the tenth floor and walks up two flights of stairs to his apartment... Why?

I always loved these lateral thinking puzzles as a kid. I had a book of them and used to relentlessly annoy people around me by constantly quizzing them. I guess I haven't grown out of that yet.

Anyway, give up? The guy is short, he can only reach to the button for number 10, but if there's someone in the elevator with him to ask, or he has his umbrella to push the button, he can reach his floor directly.

Oh look, The parma is done...

Not. too. shabby!

I went with potato gems as an alternative to chips, just for something a bit different! Although the entire time I was preparing them I was thinking to myself "Napoleon, Gimme some of your tots"

I cracked a beer, sat down and tucked in, The schnitz was thicker than I expected, not massively thick, but definitely nothing to complain about. There wasn't any ham, which was a bit of a disappointment, but there was plenty of cheese and napoli to make up for it. The chicken quality was top notch - I was a little worried that they would use the cover of toppings to hide their crappier cuts of chicken as some butchers do, yet this was pure white chicken breast all the way through.

The crumbs were heavily herbed and added a great flavour to the dish (they clearly used the same crumbs that they use on their kievs, as this parma reminded me a lot of a flat kiev covered in napoli and cheese ... although doesn't that sound delicious?)

Yet the crumbs are where we get to this parma's major problem - there were just too many of them. The parma was thick enough, we have had parmas at pubs where the parma was half the thickness of this one, yet the oven ready parma was just so thick with crumbs that it was pretty much all you could taste, the texture of all that crumb overpowered the meal quite a bit.

Other than that its pretty hard to find fault, we have had much, much worse parmas at pubs, for a heftier price tag at that.

The potato gems actually served their purpose well, They went perfectly with the chicken and were a refreshing change - If I went to a pub and they served the parma with a side of tots instead of chips I'd be more than happy.

The salad wasn't fantastic, as expected for a salad from a supermarket fridge. Although the fact that my pile of salad was 40% cheese definitely helped it out a lot, Like I said with the parma - we've had worse.

Now a new feature to Parma Daze reviews - the Pros and Cons list!

[pros]

• Great quality chicken
• Potato Gems go surprisingly well with a parma
• Plenty of toppings, no nude schnitz in sight
• A damn good parma for $7.95

[/pros][cons]

• Too much crumbing, overpowered the dish.
• A slice of ham would have helped

[/cons]

Out of all the take-away,  microwave, or home-cooked parmas we've had, this was by far the best - If you're after a hassle free parma in the comfort of your own home it definitely can't be beat, and for $7.95 its fantastic value (although I spent extra on the sides, so the final price depends on what you want with it). If you live in the Essendon area I recommend giving it a go.

Be aware the oven-ready parmas are only as permanent as the sheet of butcher paper on the window, so no promises that it'll still be there when you arrive - but if we all go and buy them maybe they'll become a regular part of the selection, the fact that I got there at 5:30 and it was the last one left bodes well for their success, I think word must be getting around.

If its a rainy night and all you want to do is stay in, watch the footy finals and maybe impress your significant other with your cooking skills without actually doing anything, then it's definitely worth a try, I'm calling the Pre-packaged parma experiment a success.

And if you want to start kievdaze.com let me know.

Oh one more thing - We now have merch available! A whole range of parma related shirts for your purchasing pleasure, click here to get to our merch section, or click the button up the top. Enjoy!

Merch now available!

That's right! Now you can get a selection of parma related threads for you to wear all over your body! All of the shirts are fully customisable, once you click through from the design you like you can get a full range of colours, cuts, you can even slap it on a hoodie if you want!

Keep an eye on the store for updates, its just tops at the moment but we're hoping to expand into posters, stickers and other goodies very soon - and if you have an idea for a design be sure to let us know so we can get it up for you!

Click here or on the button that says "Merch" up the top. Enjoy! After your purchase arrives be sure to send a photo of yourself in your new threads for our gallery via Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or good old fashioned email - We keep our ears open everywhere.

Special Attempt - 'The Laurel Hotel Mega Parma Challenge'

Where? - The Laurel Hotel, 289 Mount Alexander Road, Ascot Vale

Price? - $40 (for mega-parma, chips, salad and pint)

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

Reviewers – Cale, Dale, Lee, Nikki, Stefo

A few weeks ago it came to our attention that there was a new parma eating challenge in town. But this one was different to some of the others we have tried in the past - This challenge was offering a pretty substantial prize...

A years worth of free parmas to the person who downs this bird the fastest. Thats a spicy meat-a-ball!

We had visited The Laurel in the past, way back in 2010 it was the seventeenth parma we did, Now this week's challenge isn't about taste, so if you want a review of the regular parma I think the one linked there still holds up (although it looks like they've altered the chips since the last time we had it).

When I finished work on Thursday afternoon I was cocky, I was confident, I thought it would be a breeze! Feeling a bit peckish I made myself a vegemite sandwich to hold me over until 7 o'clock. It was a different time... so young and naive.

We arrived at The Laurel and took our seats, Four of us (Myself, Cale, Stefo and Dale) went for the Mega-Parma challenge, while reviewer Nikki did the sensible thing and got the regular parma. We were chatting to the chef afterwards and he said that the standard Laurel parma comes in at about 300g of chicken. The mega-parma is 1.5kg of chicken - For those terrible at math that means that a single mega-parma has the same amount of chicken as five standard parmas. We placed our orders and waited.

First thing to arrive was our assigned number -

Along with a form to fill out with our details, as well as an explaination of the rules (No getting up, no sharing, no hiding food, must finish parma, chips, salad and pint to be eligible, etc. etc. etc.) as well as a liability waiver if our stomach explodes after consumption. I was starting to get nervous at this point.

Before I show you the Mega-Parma, I'll show you the Laurels regular parma, purely for size comparison, This is what Reviewer Nikki was delivered...

This is what we got...

Its hard to comprehend just through pictures how big this bastard is. Thats a steak knife to the right, hopefully that can give you a little bit of perspective. It was big, that's all I will say. Underneath the parma was a healthy layer of chips, the salad was just a couple of lettuce leaves, good to break up the massive onslaught of chicken I was about to unleash on my body, but small enough to be insignificant in terms of stomach real-estate.

Cale, Stefo and Dale ready to go. This photo kind've puts them in perspective. It's bigger than Dale's head

The waitress came over, collected out waivers and set up four stop watches. We asked how quickly we had to eat it to make it onto the leaderboard, she said the current fastest time is 7 minutes and 30 seconds, completed by professional eater and friend of Parma Daze Hungry Haydo - This man is a champion of food consumption, you can check out his YouTube channel here. After 7:30 the times really open up - At the time of writing this to be in the top 6 and get into the finals you need to have a time of less than 28 minutes. That was enough to give me hope. I could do this. I could do this. I shouldn't have eaten that sandwich. I could do this.

The stopwatch starts at the time of the first bite. Ready? Go.

It was so. much. chicken.

My strategy was to go fast, be done before my stomach knows that its full - I've heard that works. So I hoed in. On cutting in I realised something, this parma wasn't only huge - it was thick. Fluctuating throughout the parma, of course - but there were plenty of areas that cracked the inch thickness mark.

The first few mouthfuls flew, but by about forkfull eight or nine I started to slow. This was gonna be harder than I thought, not just because I was getting full, but the constant onslaught of chicken after chicken started to get to me. I switched it up, a sip of the pint, a couple of chips, a bit of salad, then chicken. This kept me going for a while as it broke up the monotony a little, this worked for a while but then I realised my mistake - the pint.

Water would have been fine, but the carbonated pint brought on the burps, and when you're trying to focus to put as much stuff in to your stomach as possible the last thing you want is having to stop and let air out.

I kept my eyes on the time, When the 7 minutes and 30 second mark (the current time to beat) ticked past I was about a quarter of the way through and already feeling quite full, It was around this time that It dawned on me that I wasn't going to finish. I slowed up, snacked on some chips, and kept at it.

By twelve minutes I was done. Admitting defeat I wiped my mouth and threw the napkin on top of the parma (the universal sign for 'get this fucking food away from me')

At the end my plate looked like this -

There was still a full parma there, at least.

As for the cross section, I sliced what I had left down the middle (down the shortest edge) and put a fork on top for perspective , you can see the layer of chips beneath and the multi-layers of ham on top, this wasn't the thickest section of the schnitzel either - It got much thicker in other areas.

Slowly but surely, Cale and Stefo admitted defeat. Yet hope was not lost - Reviewer Dale was still going strong, He was our last hope ... Could he complete the challenge and save our dignity?

He pushed on, slowly but surely he worked his way through the parma. He had probably half-a-parma to go (around the 30 minute mark) by this point when he could take no more. Dale through in the napkin and we all admitted we were beaten.

So close... yet so far.

Reviewer Nikki couldn't even finish her regular sized parma, probably for the best that she didn't try the challenge.

If you reckon you can take it on, I'd say give it a go... You'll feel terrible for a few hours afterwards and you'll probably shit the bed, but definitely give it a go. The $40 entry fee covers the parma, chips, salad and pint - thats a pretty good deal considering the amount of food you're getting.

If you want to give it a go yourself the competition is open until the 21st of December, Although I'd advise not leaving it till the last day as the finals are being held on the 22nd of December (you won't have to shell out another $40 for the finals, if you make it into the top 6 the finals are a freebie). Full details at The Laurel's Website. A years worth of free parmas is a great incentive.

If you wind up trying the challenge yourself, be sure to tweet us with your victory photo and thoughts on how it went! I'm curious to see everyone else's experience.

At the time I regretted it, but I'm glad I did it. I'd recommend going and trying it out, or at least convincing your mate to give it a go and laughing at his pain, as all good mates do.

I really shouldn't have had that sandwich.

The search continues...

United States of America #3 - 'The Australian'

[info]When? - 18th of July, 2013

Where? - The Australian. 20 W 38th St #1  New York, NY

Price? - $18 USD, $20 USD if you want it "Victorian Style" (with ham)

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

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

It has become a bit of a tradition that whenever I go overseas I find a parma (or the closest approximation of a parma that I can find in the area) and give it a review, In the USA we've found a lot of "Chicken Parmesan", but never a good old fashioned parma.

Americans have an odd take on the parma (odd from our perspective anyway) as you will see from reading our last two attempts in the USA, the "chicken parmesan" sticks a lot closer to its Italian roots than it does to the classic Aussie pub meal we have come to know and love. Served almost exclusively in Italian restaurants, the parmesan consists of a schnitz, coated in napoli (or "marinara" sauce) a little bit of cheese (usually just a sprinkle of parmesan, hence the name) and served with a side of napoletana pasta. Its different, it can be tasty, but its not a Parma.

Regular readers will know that I recently took a few weeks off the parma hunt for a trip overseas. Over the course of 3 weeks we visited Vegas, Montana, New York, LA, San Fran and Hawaii - yet over that three weeks I only managed to get one parma on the books. Luckily It was a classic Aussie parma, found in the most unlikely of locations. New York City.

We got to New York about halfway through the trip - So I was definitely jonezing for a parma at this point - Not just a parma, but also an escape from the constant onslaught of America. I love the USA but sometimes you just need to escape. Before we left I had heard about this pub called "The Australian" in New York City, an Aussie themed pub in the middle of New York. I was pumped. We dropped off our bags and headed to the garment district.

I was a little worried while walking to The Australian that it wasn't going to be real Australian, Anyone who has been to Outback Steakhouse will know exactly what I mean, Outback is about as Aussie as Bridie O'reilleys is Irish, actually, its worse than Bridies, as Bridies actually tries somewhat to have faux irish cuisine on the menu. Anyway, I've gotten off topic.

We arrived at The Australian and were greeted with an Aussie accent - a great sign. The pub is cosy, narrow and deep with a bar running along the front and opening up to tables out the back. With heaps of TV's lining the walls, all playing AFL -  You could easily forget that you were halfway around the world from home.

It was time for food, Looking at the menu was a breath of fresh air - all of the food was authentic Aussie cuisine, from wedges, meat pies, sausage rolls and even possibly the only chicko roll served in the entire USA. We spied our target -

Of course, we went "Victorian Style" and got the extra slice of ham.

While waiting for our food we kicked back, watched a bit of footy, and honestly forgot that we were in New York City for awhile - It was a fantastic experience.

Then the moment came, our parmas arrived...

It was a real parma! after weeks consisting entirely on burgers, nachos and onion rings I finally had a real parma sitting in front of me! Without hesitation I tucked in. It was so damn good I started humming Advance Australia Fair as I ate.

The schnitzel was pretty sizable, a little overcooked but nothing to complain about, there was plenty of cheese, napoli and ham, which all carried their flavour perfectly and worked well with each other. It wasn't overcrumbed, it wasnt underseasoned. Other than some slight nudity around the edges and the aforementioned overcooking It was a damn good parma. I'd definitely recommend it "Victorian Style", ham is the way to go.

There was a big pile of steak chips, well cooked and set beside the parma as opposed to under it - They were pretty unseasoned when they arrived, but moments after dropping off the parmas our very friendly Aussie waitress then delivered a few bottles of tomato sauce, which made everything better.

The garden salad was a bit of nothingness, but it did its job perfectly, Lettuce, tomato, onion, carrot and a mustard-seeded dressing, it was nothing to write home about, but it was nothing to complain about either.

I really enjoyed the parma, and for $20 USD plus tip its definitely worth giving a go - I may be a little biased in this review as we were rather parma-starved and possibly a little homesick at the time of consuming it, but you know what? Any pub that goes this far to properly represent Australian culture in a faraway land definitely deserves extra points in my book.

The Australian is an Aussie ex-pats dream. They open early when there's a big Aussie sports game on to show it live, and (from what I can see on their twitter) they throw a kick-ass Australia Day party. If I ever wound up living in New York my choice of apartment would definitely be influenced by proximity to The Australian. If ever you find yourself in the city that never sleeps, be sure to stop in and say G'day.

Oh, And for desert we had Tim Tams and Ice Cream. Something I've never had in Australia, but it just felt so right...

The search continues...

Attempt #154 - 'The Castle Hotel: Redux'

[info]When? - 29th of August, 2013

Where? - The Castle Hotel. 56 Courtney St. North Melbourne.

Price? - $20

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

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

It's Redo week! Where we find a pub that feels harshly done by and give them another shot. This week we had The Castle Hotel in our sights, A pub we visited just shy of 100 parmas ago (check here to read about the last time we stopped in)

First things first, since we last went to The Castle there has been some major changes. New owners, new management, new menu, new parma, and even the pub itself has had a funky facelift.

I always liked The Castle as a pub - it's in a great location and has a fantastic vibe inside. With plenty of room in the dining area, a less formal lounge area for bar snacks and a spacious sports bar with big screen, pool tables and a couple of couches - Which is why I was so bitterly dissappointed with the parma we tried last time. Hoping that they've lifted their game, we checked the menu -

Nice, simple, straight to the point, The first good sign there was some change, as compared to the menu last time around -

Not that I'm against creative menu descriptions, but that menu wrote a cheque that The Castle couldn't cash, if memory serves I described the previous parma experience akin to eating a pair of beige pants. Not the best.

We placed our orders and awaited the arrival of our dinner. I sauntered over to the bar to get my next pint and had a gander of the beers available. As far as selection goes not too shabby at all - They've got Ten different taps going at the Castle (9 beer, 1 cider) as well as a selection of over 40 bottled beers and ciders - with a major Belgian influence - It'd be a hard person to please who couldn't find a beer to tickle their fancy at The Castle Hotel.

There was a bit of a wait for the meals, I was more than 3/4 through my freshly poured pint before our meals came from the kitchen - There's the old saying "good food takes time to prepare". God I hope that held true.

As is standard with Redo Week - first lets take a look at the parma last time around...

And now ... The new one -

Now thats a parma.

The schnitzel itself was thick, juicy and hand crumbed. worlds ahead of the processed lump we got last time. Gone was the slice of ham (unfortunately) but there was plenty of perfectly melty cheese and fresh, flavoursome napoli on top. It was served piping hot, fresh and delicious. The ham was definitely missed, A bit of pig would have really added some 'oomph' to this parma and elevated it from 'great' to 'fantastic'.

One of the best redo comebacks we've seen for sure, it wasn't perfect... But this is what we want from Redo Week.

The cross section after-photo didn't come out so great, steam from the parma fogged up my lens and I didn't realise till after I had polished it off, but you can kinda see the difference with this before and after shot -

much better

The chips were also better. There were heaps of them and like the parma they were hot and crunchy, I also detected a bit of chicken salt on there, I would have been happy with just that, and then the waitress brought us a round of individual sauce pots. Bonus!

The salad is where this parma fell over. Gone was the side-bowl (one of the only things the previous version did right). Some lettuce that was over-dressed yet somehow remained dry, a few slivers of onion and some tomato - There were reports of cucumber as well but that wasn't consistent around the table. A bit disappointing after the first two elements did so well, but you can't win them all.

For $20 I cannot complain about the Castle's new parma. I'd happily return and pay that again with no complaint at all. I saw a few burgers coming out of the kitchen as we were awaiting our parmas and they looked amazing - definitely worth checking out.

The parma was fresh, the chips were tasty but the less said about the salad the better. There is still room for improvement at the castle (ham please!) but overall this is a damn good parma and a hell of an improvement from what it was, I have absolutely no qualms recommending you give this place a go.

Parma - 7.36

Chips - 6.29

Salad - 4.93

Value - 7.14

Total - 6.61

The search continues...

Attempt #153 -'The Cricketers Arms'

[info]When? - 22nd of August, 2013

Where? - The Cricketers Arms, 69 Cruikshank St. Port Melbourne.

Price? - $23

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

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

**EDIT** Just got word that the owners sold the pub and it shut doors on June 28 2016, and that the Cricketers is currently closed for renovations ... Stay tuned for more info once it re-opens!

The Cricketers Arms call themselves "Port Melbourne's best kept secret" - and I don't think they're too far off.

If you went purely from the unassuming exterior you would expect nothing more than a quiet backstreets local with a collection of regulars sipping on after-work pots while keeping an eye on the TV. And if you stop at the front room of the Cricketers thats exactly what you will find.

However if you push through the public bar, out the back you will find a gorgeous little dining room, beautifully furnished and serving some damn good looking meals - beyond that is the expansive courtyard, complete with outdoor bar, retractable roof (with plenty of heaters for poor-weather evenings) and plenty of seating. Seeing the dichotomy between the front bar and the back area is definitely worth the visit alone.

The Courtyard

We arrived at the Cricketers and took our seats out in the beer garden, I was worried that the poor weather would leave us cold and damp, however with the retractable roof and abundance of heaters you could easily forget you were outside at all.

Shortly into our first pint a lovely couple came to our table, selling tickets to a meat tray raffle - I loved this,  (although we didn't win) it added some entertainment to the night, as well as gave the place a fantastic inviting country pub feel.

Before ordering we realised that Thursday night at The Cricketers is "Spit roast night", I couldn't help but felt left out as hungry patrons lined up at the spinning meat, loading their plates high with goodies (a full range of sides, roast potatoes, corn, bread rolls etc). It looked phenomenal, however we were there for one thing. (**EDIT** Just found out that the Spit Roast Night is no longer a thing, oh well! Good thing the parma was great. Is that a spoiler? oh well, yeah... its pretty awesome.)

We placed our order with the friendly bar staff (everyone who worked at the cricketers was great. The staff were welcoming, in high spirits and happy to have a laugh with the patrons - great to see in a place like this)

I picked up a bottle of "Cricketers Arms lager" from the outdoor bar and we awaited the arrival of our dinner. As my empty stubby hit the table our meals arrived.

It was a little dark at the table, I shifted across to a more well lit area and tried to snap a better shot - Neither turned out stellar, but its the best I could get on the night.

I'm always a fan of quality over quantity in my parmas, and the parma at the Cricketers is definitely one of those. The schnitzel, while not being massive, was the paramount of quality. Hand crumbed and herbed, pure chicken breast - probably the juiciest parma we have come across to date!

There was quite a bit of schnitzel nudity, which is probably the only negative to the dish - the toppings were amazing (which I will get to in a moment), and although the schnitzel itself was delicious on its own I would have loved to have enough toppings to cover it all.

The napoli was fresh and tasty, the 4 cheese mix was inspired, carrying a fantastic flavour through the parma and the choice of pancetta instead of straight ham is inspired. - it added just enough flavour so you knew it was there, but didn't overpower the dish - a risk that is often run when using a different cured meat, such as prosciutto.

This was an outstanding parma with only a couple of very minor issues, however the good absolutely dwarfs the bad leaving a parma you'd be silly not to try.

The beer battered & herb dusted chips were almost as good as the schnitzel. Pure chip perfection that I didn't want to end. The starter's menu offers the same chips with a choice of gravy, garlic aioli or mustard mayo - it'd be worth the visit just for these.

Compared to the rest of the meal the salad was a little uninspired. It was of a higher quantity than most of the garden salads we come across (the shaved carrot was a lovely touch) but in the end it was still just a garden salad.

For $23 I was more than happy with the meal we received. Compared to last week's lukewarm garbage that ran at $22 this dish is manna from heaven. There is a $15 parma night that runs on Wednesday's that is definitely worth checking out, although I cannot attest to how the cheaper variety compares to the full priced version.

I unashamedly love this pub, a quaint little backstreets local that I could see visiting regularly if I didn't live on the opposite end of Melbourne. There's so much more I want to try on return visits - The spit roast, the bowl of chips, the steak sandwich... hell everything on the menu looks appetising!

"Port Melbourne's best kept secret" isn't far off...

Parma - 8.69

Chips - 8.56

Salad - 6.60

Value - 7.31

Total - 7.97

The search continues...