When? – 9/8/2012
Where? – The Pumphouse Hotel. 128 Nicholson St. Fitzroy
Price? - $19.90
Website? - http://www.pumphousehotel.com/
Reviewers – Emmett, Fridge, Grace, Lee, Nikki, Pat, Stefo, Tony
UPDATE 07/06/2019 - WE REVISITED THE PUMPHOUSE UNDER ITS NEW NAME - THE ST. ANDREWS HOTEL - CHECK OUT HOW THE UPDATED REVIEW LOOKS HERE
The Pumphouse has been on our ‘to try’ list for quite a while - how it got there I cannot remember (if you are the person who recommended it, I’m sorry! I can’t remember if you emailed, facebooked, reddited or tweeted! but cheers for the heads up). Last week on our way home from Transport, we passed The Pumphouse and it looked damn inviting - with a beer garden out the side the big red brick building just looked inviting, especially when compared to the grey sterility of Transport.
I knew it was on the list, so we made the decision to check it out.
The moment I walked in I liked the pub. Open fire, lots of wood, the whole place was warm and cosy, yet spacious (if thats possible) Plenty of leaning space over one side of the bar, and opening up to a rather large bistro over the other side. We took our seat in prime position by the fireplace and checked the menu
The parma was sighted, the pints were in hand and the gang was in attendance. We placed our order and awaited the arrival.
Judging from the other food that was being paraded by the table as we waited, I had high hopes for this parma - every meal that walked past looked delicious, good parma or not I’ll definitely be back to have a taste of the other items on the menu.
Despite its lack of coat hooks the bistro had a great feel - classy yet casual, if I had to compare it to another pub I’d have to say it reminded me a lot of The Exchange Hotel in Port Melbourne, both in atmosphere and the quality of the meals.
Before too long our chicken arrived…
The schnitzel was high quality; Succulent pure white chicken breast - very lightly crumbed and pan fried, Reviewer Stefo even reported that his parma was two smaller chicken breasts, fused together with cheese - we took this as a positive, any sign that what we are being served isn’t processed crap is always a great thing.
Despite being pan fried, the schnitz was a little overcooked, a lifting of the ham showed a few black spots underneath, not a hell-worthy trespass, but worth reporting.
The napoli was a delight, great flavour, fresh and plenty of it without being too much - very similar story with the cheese and ham, lots of flavour and melted to perfection (well, the cheese was melted, not the ham. I don’t think you can melt ham. Oh how good would life be if you could melt ham!! Hmph. Thanks A LOT physics)
You might appreciate this weeks ParmaCam a lot more knowing that one of the legs broke off the tripod, and we had to MacGyver a replacement one out of salt & pepper shakers, water bottles and other items we could find on the table
The chips were so/so. Very similar to fish & chip shop chips, but without the chicken salt. While being plenty of them they weren’t quite cooked enough. We were brought a couple of sauce pots as our parma’s hit the table though, so that saved them to some degree.
The garden salad, much like the chips, was a bit nothingness. Standard garden salad of lettuce, cucumber, onion and cherry tomatoes. Once again (much like last week) tossed in oil. While not being as oily as last weeks, Try as I might I simply can’t get into oil as a salad dressing.
The Pumphouse is a great pub, It has a fantastic vibe that I would be proud to call my local. At $19.90 I’d have the parma again (after trying some of the other amazing looking dishes on the menu), hopefully the slightly undercooked chips were just a result of 8 yahoos unexpectedly arriving and ordering 8 parmas simultaneously.
The chicken was solid, if they put a little more effort into their sides it would be in contention as one of the greats, will definitely be back soon for a pint and some quality tucker.