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When? - 9nd of June, 2011
Where? - The Waterside Hotel, Corner of Flinders St. and King St. Melbourne
Price? - $18 with free Melbourne longneck
Barry? - No
Website? - http://www.watersidehotel.com.au/
Reviewers - Adam, Lee, Nikki, Pat[/info]
Before this review I had heard very conflicting reports about the Waterside Hotel’s parma, ranging from ‘god awful’ to ‘freaking amazing’, It has been on our list for a very long time but seemed to always get pushed down the queue (probably out of fear of it being as awful as some of the reports said). It was time, we could postpone no more and on Thursday night we headed down to the Waterside Hotel to see what they had on offer.
We arrived and took a seat in the bar area (there is a separate dining room if you are feeling a little bit fancy), an image on the TV screen and on the little menu cards on the table informed us that Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights at the Waterside offer up a parma special - $18 for a parma and a longneck of Melbourne Bitter. Now Melbourne isn’t my first choice for beer by any means, but when they are handing out free longnecks who am I to say no?!
We ordered our parmas and started our meal off with a bowl of wedges, which were fantastic, the garlic aoli was amazing and the wedges themselves were seasoned to perfection - if these wedges were in any way a precursor to the meal that was to come the Waterside was going to rate very well indeed.
Wedgealicious!
Before long our parma’s trotted out of the kitchen, when we ordered our meals we already had pints in hand, so the staff were nice enough to put our longnecks on ice until the food arrived, we cracked our beers and dug in
The chicken was smallish with a nasty rim of schnitzel nudity, It was thick enough, without an overdose of crumbs and actually carried a decent flavour, although it seemed small I had trouble getting through the whole thing (although the pre-parma wedges may have played a part in that) The napoli, ham and cheese were plentiful, everything was there and tasted pretty okay, although the whole thing had a bit of an air of processed chicken that I couldn’t get out of my head
The chips were great, not quite as good as the wedges mind you, but plentiful in supply, well cooked, seasoned, and not smooshed down by the parma
I am a big fan of salads in separate bowls, that way the dressing doesn’t leak to the chips and soggify them (add that one to the parma daze dictionary - soggify v. ‘sog-ee-fi’ - To make soggy, moist). The salad was a standard garden salad but fresh, well dressed and tasty, a great accompaniment to the meal
I’m not quite sure how to sum up this review - The Waterside is a great pub, spacious with options for dining, drinking or lounging (with the deck upstairs for a summer night) it is a great place to stop in for a beer or seven - I’m actually headed there this Saturday night to do just that. The parma .. argh… the sides were top quality, the salad was great, and $18 with a longneck is awesome value, but I just feel as if they cheaped out on the parma itself a little. On a non- Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday night the parma runs at $19.50 without a longneck, I must admit I would be disappointed if I got what I did and paid that much. I think my final verdict would be this -
Definitely hit this parma on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday night to get the $18 parma n’ longneck deal, its well worth it, all other times I would give it a miss, it just comes off as a little too cheap for $19.50. Good sides though.
Parma - 6.00
Chips - 5.75
Salad - 6.25
Value - 7.50
Total - 6.30
The search continues…
