[info]
When? - 20th of April, 2011
Where? - Skyways Tavern, 113 Matthews Ave. Airport West
Price? - $20
Barry? - Yes. Kinda… Read the review for details
Website? -http://www.skywaystavern.com.au/
Reviewers - Cale, Lee, Matt, Nikki, Stefo[/info]
Here at Parma Daze our first priority is to keep you, the reader, both informed and entertained. It is with that in mind that I draw your attention to the song embedded below. Is it the greatest song ever released? I am ninety seven percent sure that it is. (the other three percent go to Rebecca Black)
So click here, hit play, crank your speakers and treat your brain to the auditory orgasm that is ‘Chicken Parma’ by Craig Lee Smith
Doesn’t it just take you there? If I close my eyes I can almost smell the napoli and hear the cheese bubbling. Where is the Grammy nomination committee on this one?!
And only $1.69 on iTunes! talk about a friggin bargain.
For those who are unaware, since about 2007 the week before the Easter holiday has been declared ‘Parma Week’ by pubs around Melbourne, the point of which is to donate $2 from every parma served to the Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday Appeal, Unfortunately this review will go up on the final day of the event, so drop what you are doing and go out for a parma! do your bit for charity! (click Here for a list of participating pubs)
So in the spirit of charity we loaded up the parma bus and headed to the first pub on the list - Skyways Tavern in Airport West, This was a bonus for me personally as Skyways is quite literally the closest pub to my house, after a 2 minute drive from my front door we pulled up at the Skyways complex, The large carpark was actually very full and we struggled to find a spot, but we eventually found one and headed in to the bistro where the our were awaiting.
We needed no menu, so on arriving we headed to the counter to place our order - I noticed on the menu board they claim that their parma is, quite literally, the best thing on the menu, no kidding, heres a photo -
right there under the roast of the day, apologies for the photo quality, it says
BEST: CHICKEN PARMIGIANA Whole succulent butterflied chicken breast, hand crumbed, topped w’ virginia ham, napoli sauce & lashes of melted mozzarella “It’s the best parma we’ve ever made!”
That sounds damn good to me, and if their actual parma is at least half as good as their description of their parma, we are in for a real treat. We placed our orders, collected our complimentary bread roll and awaited our chickens arrival.
Skyways Tavern is a massive complex, spanning across multiple buildings it contains a Sports Bar, TAB, massive bistro, pokies, motel and drive in bottle shop, we were eating in the bistro area but headed into the sports bar afterwards - more on that later, as our parmas arrived not long after we ordered.
I’ve gotta say I was pretty disappointed when this parma landed in front of me, there was a fair bit of nude schnitzel, it looked a little on the small side and it was developing some slight slippery cheese.
As I started to eat I was proven wrong, It was surprisingly thick with a good amount of napoli and mozzarella, the crumbs were standard but not thick at all and the slice of ham complimented the parma nicely. The my only complaints with the Skyways parma would be the aforementioned nude schnitzel revealed a couple of burnt spots on the chicken, and some of the breast itself looked the slightest bit pink in some areas, but overall it was a perfectly acceptable parma
The chips were underseasoned and overcooked, its not often everyone on the review board passes around the salt shaker for use on their chips, not great.
The salad was served in a bowl separate to the parma, a nice touch, it was a basic garden salad of Lettuce, carrot, tomato & cucumber with a very tasty dressing - nothing special, but it did the job.
The Skyways parma is middle of the road, it has good points and bad, they do a Tuesday night $12 parma special that would be hard to go past if you were in the area, and the warm fuzzy feeling we all got from helping out the Good Friday Appeal on parma week definitely helped out collective consciences.
After the meal we headed across to the sports bar - if you ever have some time to kill in the area I would definitely recommend stopping in, with a TAB, pool table, big buck hunter, a golf simulator and some sort of Risk-type tabletop game you will never be short of something to do while downing some pots. but the BIG thing we discovered at this weeks attempt was the Barry machine.
Now, much to our dismay, Barry machines have been disappearing from pubs all over the place, it seemed as if they were dying out, their website had been defunct for months and it looked like the age of Barry was over - until last night.
We walked into the sports bar to check if there was a Barry machine, and we were greeted with this -
Same games … same machine (kinda) … different brand! it looks as if ‘Play On - Games on the Edge’ has bought out the Barry franchise and replaced them with this. I was happy, I’ll take kinda-Barry over no Barry any day of the week!
Lucky I was wearing my Action Jeans, as my Victory High Kicks™ would have been very restricted otherwise.
The Skyways Tavern parma was pretty good, not great, but okay. Worth having if you are in the area but definitely not one to go out of your way to seek out.
I hope everyone has a great Easter break, and stay tuned for a fresh review next Friday!
Parma - 6.40
Chips - 3.10
Salad - 5.60
Value - 6.06
Total - 5.51
The search continues…
