When? – 21/06/2012
Where? – The Edinburgh Castle Hotel. 681 Sydney Rd. Brunswick
Price? - $16 (Small) $22.50 (Large)
Website? - edinburghcastle.net.au
Reviewers – Adam, Kylie, Lee, Nikki, Pat, Shanan, Stefo
This review is no longer valid! 5 years later we revisited the edinburgh castle to see if they improved their parma. click here and find out how they did!
To be honest I have no idea how I got onto the Edinburgh Castle, it kind’ve just … happened. But either way we headed down Sydney road and started off our meal with a pint in the bar.
The Edinburgh castle is a warm, inviting pub, love the open fires, love the horseshoe bar, love the beer garden out the back (complete with another fire and ping-pong table) and, much like last week, love all the little nooks and crannies around the place.
There wasn’t a table big enough for our group free in the front bar, so we moved through to the dining room out the back, which was plenty spacious, with yet another fireplace and a large bar up one end of the room, which was unfortunately closed this Thursday night.
We spied the menu and found our target -
Everyone was hungry, so nobody dared to go the $16 smaller serve. We ordered, I went to the bar and grabbed a pint of Mountain Goat Steam Ale (delish), grabbed some cash at the ATM, wandered out the back and checked out the lovely (but damp) beer garden then headed back to the table where it wasn’t very long at all till our chickeny delights hit the table…
Apologies for the quality of the photo, it was rather dark in the pub and flash + food is a big no-no.
The chicken breast was top quality, not massive but big enough, thick and juicy while not being overzealous with the crumbs. A quality schnitz set the base for this dish, which was topped with a hell of a lot of cheese. I’ve had cheesy parmas before, but this could definitely take the title as cheesiest, so much so that the first bite from the edge was pretty much all cheese runoff. Normally I’ve got no issue with cheese, but in this case it was a little overcooked (as you can see in the photo) and very overpowering.
To give you an idea, It was cheesier than this car, which is made of cheese.
The napoli was almost nonexistent, To be honest I didn’t even notice it was there.
Now to the most contentious part of the evening - The prosciutto. I like prosciutto, its salty goodness warms my soul, and because of this I quite enjoyed my parma, as did some other prosciutto lovers on the table. However it is a very powerful flavour, much like olives or blue cheese, and if you aren’t a fan of prosciutto, as quite a few people on the table were, it absolutely kills the dish. Opinion was split down the table, some loved it, others hated it with a passion.
The chips were a letdown, wedged under the parma was a handful of overcooked out-of-the-bag pub chips, a disappointment.
Much like the chips, little love went into the salad. A rather wilted garden salad of lettuce, onion, cherry tomatoes, cucumber and some radish. Not bad, but not good.
Basically the parma at the Edinburgh Castle is for you if you like prosciutto, if you don’t it might be best to try something else from the menu
Personally, I loved the salty goodness and will be back for more, Plus the great range of beers on tap, coupled with the cosy fires and good live music make The Edinburgh Castle it a great place to stop in for a pint.