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When? – 04/10/12
Where? – The Lord Newry Hotel, 543 Brunswick St. Fitzroy
Price? - $19
Website? - http://www.lordnewryhotel.com.au/
Reviewers – Fridge, Janet, Lee, Nikki, Stefo[/info]
I thought voting was going to be tight this week, It was neck and neck between Harbour Town and Lord Newry until Monday afternoon, when Lord Newry jumped out to a massive lead! The final scores were Lord Newry - 25 votes, Harbour Town - 12 votes, and a rather unpopular Oxford Scholar with just 3 votes.
But never fear, those of you who voted for Harbour Town - This weeks selections will be comprised of the runner’s up of the last 3 weeks of voting, Check out the facebook page to cast your vote!
The Lord Newry is my kind of pub. Quiet backstreets, locals sipping on a pot while sitting by the crackling open fire and monthly trivia competition drawing quite a crowd in the next room (there was a pool table in there too, but trivia had the room pretty much packed).
We arrived to the dimly-lit Lord Newry, took our seats and checked the menu. Found the parma and placed our orders…
Now I know that last week I promised an end to poorly lit parma photos due to daylight savings kicking in, however I was a week off in my prediction, the savings of daylight kicks in this Weekend, so this will be the last dark parma I promise, even if I have to cart in a spotlight to illuminate the bloody thing, it will not be dark again!
As the parmas arrived I gathered around as many tea-light candles as I could so I didn’t need to artificially brighten the pic as much this week, managed to singe off a decent patch of arm hair in the process. See how I suffer for you people?
It was far too dark to do a ParmaCam this week, So I opted for a double cross section instead. But I digress … on to the bird!
I was impressed from the moment the parma hit the table. You could just tell this was a parma made with love. Forgetting the toppings the hand crumbed schnitzel was thick, juicy and looked damn tasty, the toppings probably weren’t even necessary to make this a ripper meal.
Then we got to the toppings. The two kinds of cheese were plentiful, well cooked and a delicious compliment to the chicken, with the obligatory slice of ham under a healthy serving of Virgin Mary Napoli.
What is Virgin Mary Napoli? I hear you ask. Well we had the same question, After our parmas arrived we asked the bartender and he went and had a chat with the Chef - Basically the Virgin Mary napoli is based on a Virgin Mary (Bloody Mary without the booze) cocktail, with Tomato, celery and a hint of tobasco sauce.
And what a Triumph of napoli it was! The tobasco gave the whole parma a kick, its easy to go overboard with tobasco but just had just enough to give you that slight tickle on the back of the throat. The originality of the flavour made the whole parma exciting, and an absolute delight.
The chips were beer battered, plentiful, well cooked, well seasoned and set beside the parma - a tick in every box.
There were squeeze bottles of sauce on the table when we arrived - Tomato sauce, BBQ sauce and Vinegar. Plenty of options for the sauce enthusiast!
The garden to the side was good for what it was, a garden salad. Plenty of dressing and beefed up with plenty in it, Not amazing, but passable.
For $19 I’d happily travel to Fitzroy again to give this parma a go, And I think you should too. Trivia runs on the first Thursday of every month, and although we didn’t partake it seemed as if everyone who did had a great time.
The Virgin Mary napoli was definitely the star of this dish, I love when a pub takes a gamble on something unique like that and it has definitely paid off. Do yourself a favour and check out the parma at the Lord Newry, you wont regret it!
Parma - 8.60
Chips - 8.00
Salad -7.00
Value - 7.70
Total - 7.98
The search continues…
