[info]
When? – 14/06/2012
Where? – The Union Club Hotel. 164 Gore St. Fitzroy
Price? - $19
Website? - http://www.unionclubhotel.com.au/
Reviewers – Lee, Nikki, Pat[/info]
With parma #100 quickly followed by the Queens Birthday public holiday and the sickie I took on Tuesday to make an extra long weekend *cough cough*, This weeks parma rolled around damn quickly!
The Parma Bus had been returned and attempt #100 was complete, but that didn’t mean we could rest on our laurels. The hunt for the perfect parma was still afoot, and with that in mind we set our sights on a pub that I had been suggested on a variety of occasions, The Union Club Hotel.
The Union club has the same ambiance as a lot of pubs in the area. A warm welcoming open fire, hallways criscrossing hallways, each leading to a different hidden drinking nook, and a very impressive outdoor drinking area (downstairs and upstairs), pool table in the corner and footy playing on the projector screen. A cosy pub that I fell in love with immediately and that I would be proud to call my local.
We took a seat by the fire and perused the menu, being a rather dark pub I struggled to get a good menu photo, so here is a grab from the website -
None of us were game to try the Mexican, the menu was a tad vague, was it only the napoli that was mexican? or the whole parma? We will find out next time I suppose.
We placed our order as the projector screen was rolled down and Thursday night footy kicked off. Pint in hand we kicked back and awaited the food’s arrival, Happy to sit for hours in front of the cosy fireplace.
But it didn’t take hours! shortly after ordering our parmas were trotted out of the kitchen…
The darkness of the pub meant I had to do a lot of post-brightening and white balancing of the photo, so I hope its okay (The ParmaCam this week is shocking, but I’ll get to that later)
The schnitzel was a thick, full chicken breast, crumbed to perfection in panko crumbs, and juicier than Scarlett Johannson (I haven’t used that joke in at least 80 reviews, I’m dusting it off for this one!)
Atop the parma was lashings of ham, not just a single slice as you will find with most parma’s, but layers of tasty ham that, surprisingly, didn’t overpower the dish.
There was plenty of cheese, extremely tasty and carrying a ton of flavour, and finally the Napoli sauce was truly fantastic - Never have I had napoli that tasted so fresh, as if it had been squeezed directly from the tomato onto my parma. An outstanding effort.
Major apologies for the quality of ParmaCam this week, I accidentally re-assigned focus to the bottom corner before filming and didn’t realise till after we finished eating. I’ll definitely be back and will re-shoot the ParmaCam next chance I get!
[youtube id="lV962Wns7sU" width="580" height="337"]
The chips were standard pub chips, unseasoned and boring - nothing bad, but compared to the awesome parma sitting next to it, A bit of a let-down
The garden salad was also so/so. Lettuce, onion, cucumber and cherry tomatoes. It was fresh and crisp, but lacked any “wow” factor!
The Union Club Hotel is a gorgeous little pub that serves up an amazing parma, which is unfortunately let down by lackluster chips and salad, If those were to improve it would definitely be a contender for the number #1 spot.
These days its not often that we find a parma (let alone a good one) that clocks in at less than $20, and at $19 on a non special night, the parma at the Union Club is great value. I’ll be heading back soon to re-shoot the ParmaCam and further investigate the mexican option, I will update this review when I do, so make sure you follow our Twitter to get an update when that happens.
In the meantime, head down to the Union Club and check out what they have on offer - you wont regret it!
Parma - 9.50
Chips - 5.50
Salad - 5.67
Value - 8.00
Total - 7.63
The search continues…
