[info]
When? - 3rd of November, 2011
Where? - The Lincolnshire Arms Hotel. 1 Keilor Rd, Essendon
Price? – $14.50 in Sports Bar, $21.90 in Bistro
Barry? - They have a ‘Black’ Barry clone, but it was out of order when we tried to use it
Website? - http://www.thelinc.com.au/
Reviewers – Cale, Carly, Lee, Pat, Stefo, Tony[/info]
**EDIT** We re-visited The Linc in March, 2014 and again in 2016! - Check it out here and here to see if it fared any better!
This is a review I did not want to write. We went into the Lincolnshire Arms knowing that it wasn’t going to be a great parma, but after 74 attempts we could avoid it no longer. It had to be done.
The Lincolnshire Arms Hotel (or “The Linc”) is the Local watering hole for the majority of the Parma Daze review team, to the point where 90% of our parma attempts finish up with a few pints there afterwards. Its a great little pub that I have been drinking at for at least ten years and after the loss of the Prince of Wales it has filled the void as our go-to pub to sneak off to for a cheeky pint, any time of the day or night.
It is because we frequent the establishment so much that we were already aware of the quality of their parma offering, many of us have had one before and it was for that exact reason that we avoided reviewing the Linc’s parma for so long. The problem is that it hurts us to see a pub we love as much as the Linc hurt itself with a mediocre parma, Its time to confront the Linc about its issues, and how they are affecting us all.
Lets begin.
We arrived just before seven to an already packed pub - The Oaks Day races having just finished meant that the place was full of guys in suits and girls in frocks, Our chances of getting a table for six in the bistro was shot so we headed through the beer garden (with waterproof outdoor TV’s and plenty of heaters) and into the sports bar, where it was quite easy to get a table amongst the punters in the TAB. We glanced at the menu, $14.50, placed our order and awaited our foods arrival.
Four minutes after we ordered, two parmas arrived.
Four minutes.
Thats a bad sign in any language, I find that the old saying “good food takes time” is damn applicable to the chicken parmigiana, and no parma that arrives in 4 minutes flat can be any good.
However I mentioned that the first two parmas arrived within four minutes, it took another ten minutes before another three came out of the kitchen, then another ten on top of that before reviewer Tony got his hands on his.
This isn’t going to be pretty, but remember, we are harsh because we care.
Where to begin. First of all, you will notice that the Linc opts for the SHCN (Schnitzel, Ham, Cheese, Napoli) system of topping layering that we discovered a couple of weeks ago at our review of The Cross Keys, However the slice of ham was missing from the Linc’s parma, leaving us with a SCN topping layering system.
Actually, I’ll correct myself there, as there was another topping present on the Linc’s parma, we will call it an SCNO topping order. Take a look at the above photo carefully, see how in some places it looks like the napoli has split and you can see the cheese underneath? That is due to the pools of pure oil that had gathered together amongst the topping, A lot of the reviewers resorted to dabbing the top of the parma with a napkin to remove the excess oil that drowned this parma. Unacceptable.
The schnitzel was as processed as can be, as thin as a credit card, the underside of the crumbs were burnt and the napoli tasted like dolmio spaghetti sauce tipped straight from the tin onto the parma. The only thing we could taste was oil with a hint of tomato, the chicken had no taste and it makes me feel terrible to say this, but it was simply an awful parma, I have nothing good to say about it whatsoever.
The chips were so tasteless it was almost as if they had negative flavour, they looked okay from the outset, but biting into them left an odd claggy texture in my mouth, as if I was back in kindergarten eating the non toxic glue, we all reached for the supplied salt shaker to load them up with something to make them edible.
As for the salad, its time to play a brand new game! its called…
Name that ingredient!!
The ‘salad’ on the plate was comprised of four ingredients (no dressing), I have separated them in the above photo and lets see if we can go through what they are.
The lettuce is the easy one to get us going, its leafy, its green, its gotta be lettuce.
the other three ingredients however had us a little more stumped. They all tasted exactly the same, so the only clue we had to discern what they actually were was their colour, from this we can assume that the second ingredient is carrot, the third is either beetroot or cabbage (although it had the texture of dried beef jerky) and the final ingredient remains a complete mystery. Our best guess was parsnip but without scientific tests I don’t think theres any way to be sure - if anyone else has an idea as to what the mystery ingredient may be, please send us a Tweet or Facebook message!
On to the letters from loved ones (otherwise known as the quotes)
As a few reviewers mentioned, the parma came with a bake-at-home roll on the side. Bake at home rolls are delicious and this was definitely the best part of the meal by a mile.
We finished up our meals and headed back into the main bar - A great part about having a parma at the Linc is that we didn’t have the hassle of getting to the Linc afterwards … we were already there!.
The parma at the Linc is bad, not worth your time, money (or health) trying, It may sound like we are being harsh but if any member of the Linc’s management is reading this, we do it because we love!
The Linc is one of our favourite pubs and we want to be proud of the parma at the pub we call home! I am putting it out there that this is only a temporary situation, and if you get your act together with your parma we will be more than happy to come back and sit down for a completely unbiased re-review, its up to you now!
‘Cause I know … somewhere deep down in my heart … I still love you!
Parma - 1.50
Chips - 1.58
Salad - 0.67
Value - 3.00
Total - 1.65
The search continues…
