[info]

When? - 15/12/11

Where? - Stolberg Beer Cafe. 197 Plenty Rd, Preston

Price? - $18

Barry? - No

Reviewers - Adam, Lee, Nikki[/info]

Last weekend, on the way to Doncaster shopping center to battle the hordes of christmas shopping maniacs, we passed by Stolberg Beer Cafe - On the corner of Bell St. and Plenty Rd a sign out the front touted the pub as having “Melbourne’s Best Beer Garden”. A big call, and as regular readers will remember, I’m a sucker for a good beer garden. I set it up and last night we headed to Stolberg for our last ranked parma attempt for the year.

As a pub Stolberg is massive. A big front room with dining area, massive well stocked bar, heaps of TV’s running sports (last night was field hockey … interesting choice) and a pool table, turning the corner leads to an equally big area with fireplace, more TV’s and what I assume is the dance floor on busier nights. It was a small group this week so not having to wait around for other attendees to arrive meant we ordered our parmas on arrival, headed out the back to the beer garden and awaited the arrival of our birds.

The beer garden was rather decent (although I wouldn’t agree with the claim that it was “Melbourne’s Best”), as we sat down a two piece acoustic cover band known as “Bright Side” was starting up, they did a pretty good job, playing all the songs you’d expect an acoustic cover band in a beer garden to play - Although (and I’m going to sound like an old man here) at some points they got quite loud, and it was difficult to chat amongst ourselves while eating due to the noise.

With a pint of Goat by my side, our chicken parmas arrived -

The first impression of the schnitzel was it was a bit small and a bit processed. There was no nudity, well browned cheese and plenty of ham, however it was a little light on the napoli, it seemed most of the liquid had been absorbed into the crumbs by the time it arrived. There was also a sweetness through the whole parma that I couldn’t put my finger on, Reviewer Nikki likened it to cinnamon, but not quite.

I haven’t got too much to say about the Stolberg parma (amazing, on a parma review website) It wasn’t bad by any means, but it was just bland. I have mentioned Big Parma Syndrome in previous reviews, and the Stolberg parma seemed to carry the Big Parma lack of taste, in a rather small parma - quite the anomally.

The chips were the absolute star of this meal, crispy, fluffy, cooked to perfection with just the right amount of seasoning - my only complaint would be that there just wasn’t enough of them, I didn’t want it to end! They are quite possibly the closest thing we have had to the Prince of Wales chips in a very long time.

The salad was also a bit of a surprise - A kind of greek salad with lettuce, onion, carrot, fetta cheese and little orange cubes that we placed as either pumpkin or sweet potato, the balsamic dressing obscured the flavour and hindered our investigation into the identity of the ingredient. Overall the salad was quite nice - nothing amazing, but pretty good.

Overall the parma at the Stolberg was a bit of a let down, if it weren’t for those glorious chips the score would’ve been a fair bit lower - they absolutely saved the dish.

According to the website Stolberg offer up a $13 parma Monday - if I were in the area on a Monday I’d probably stop in for a parma, but otherwise I wouldn’t go out of my way for it. If you’re there on a Thursday like we were its probably better to opt for the $10 Pizza & Pot deal that they run, the pizzas looked quite good - and if you can get it with a side of chips you’ll definitely be on a winner.

So thats it! our last ranked parma for the year, and what a year it has been! Big thanks to all our readers, it’s because you read my insane rantings about crumbed chicken that we have the inspiration to head out week after week.

Although it is our last ranked parma for the year be sure to pop in next Friday, as Thursday night we are heading out and presenting a very special pub in Melbourne with the Dazey for Parma of the Year 2011. Exciting, huh!?

Parma - 3.3

Chips - 7.67

Salad - 6.50

Value - 6

Total - 5.43

The search continues…

Be sure to visit this time next week when we announce our winner of our 2011 Parma of the Year award, “The Dazey”! more info on the Twitter and Facebook!