When? – 19/04/2012
Where? – North Suburban Sports Club. 622 Mount Alexander Rd. Moonee Ponds
Price? - $19.00
Website? - http://www.nssclub.com.au/
Reviewers – Adam, Cale, Kylie, Lee, Ness, Shanan, Stefo, Tony
UPDATE 05/07/2019 - After some renovations and a name change we revisited the north suburban, now known as the moonee ponds club. read all about it here!
This parma came right out of left field, all week we had intended to try the much hyped parma at “Smoken’ Joe’s”, a restaurant/cafe on Mount Alexander Road, however at 5pm on the day of the attempt I got a call from Joe’s to say there had been a “disaster” in their kitchen, and they would be unable to fulfill our reservation, as they were closing the store.
Exactly what kind of disaster struck the Smoken’ Joe’s kitchen I can’t say, but in my mind it was either a captured suitcase nuke or ground zero for the zombie apocalypse, either way its probably best we didn’t push the issue (unless it was the zombie thing, zombies are awesome).
As a last minute switch up we went to quite literally the closest parma to Smoken Joe’s that I could think of - The North Suburban Sports Club.
If you’ve ever been to an RSL, you’ve pretty much got the atmosphere of the North Suburban down. Pokies up the front, pool room to the side, restaurant up the back and a bar down the middle, complete with a club keno screen to finish everything off.
We took our seats and confirmed there actually was a parma on the menu -
It always worries me when a menu touts their parma as being “famous”, I can think of probably 2 or 3 pubs in Victoria that qualify as being able to call themselves “famous” for their parma, and even then the classy thing to do would probably be not to advertise it, as it definitely builds up the hype to an almost unachievable level.
We ordered our parmas and had a seat, not long after ordering we were presented with a basket of hot bread rolls - a simple, yet delicious, addition.
After a bit of a wait, our parmas arrived…
All of the parmas on the table seemed to vary in shape & size - a good sign as one surefire sign of processed crap is uniform processed crap. The schnitzel was top quality chicken of absolutely perfect thickness, lightly crumbed and coated with an unholy helping of cheese.
The ham was there, although it didn’t have much of an impact on the flavour of the dish, and it was very light on the napoli sauce, almost to the point of being a little dry.
If I had to use one term to sum up this parma I would say “home made” the whole thing tasted like it came directly out of mum’s kitchen, nothing was processed and everything seemed to be prepared fresh and with care.
We don’t normally rate french fries (or “Maccas Chips”) very highly when they appear beside a parma, the opinion seems to hold that the chunkier the chip, the better. The chips at the North Suburban, however, are the exception - fresh, expertly cooked, a more than generous serving and seasoned to perfection, this is how french fries should be done.
The garden salad of cucumber, lettuce, onion and tomato was pretty standard fare, although most noteworthy was the dressing - plenty of it and carried a great flavour that complimented the meal quite well
If you’re after a fresh, home made parma in a down-to-earth environment then the North Suburban is definitely one for you.
In terms of specials, they offer an $11.50 Parma n’ Pot night, which the waitress told us was becoming at $6 parma night in May - if they offer up the same quality parmas for $6 then I’ll be there every week, that is a deal far too good to pass up.
I went into the North Suburban with low expectations, as it was an emergency last minute booking I had done no research into the parma and had zero idea what to expect - It’s always nice to be pleasantly surprised!
I must apologise, this weeks review has been all business and very light on the jokes, I’ll bring the laughs in next weeks review I promise.
In the meantime, here is an obviously drunk flamingo
