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When? - 10th of March, 2011
Where? - The Carron, 398 Spencer St. Melbourne
Price? - $12 Parma Thursday, $18 regular menu
Barry? - No
Website? - http://www.thecarron.com.au/
Reviewers - Cale, Emma, Janet, Lee, Nikki, Pat, Stefo[/info]
** NOTE - This pub has closed! Parma no longer available - Review will stay up for posterity. Enjoy!
The last time I was at the Carron was for pre-drinks the last time AC/DC were in town. The Carron, as a pub, is perfect for times like this - A stones throw from Colonial Stadium Telstra Dome Etihad Stadium, The Carron is a great little pub for pre footy/concert/Disney on ice drinks. I had heard they offer up a pretty decent parma, and as icing on the cake the Carron offer up a $12 Parma Thursdays. So we delayed our usual parma Wednesday 24 hours and headed to the Carron to see what they had on offer.
Other than some people sitting out in the sun on the little balcony thing they have going out the front, the Carron was pretty quiet when we arrived. We claimed our table then went to the bar to place our order - one thing I would suggest to the Carron management is to put more staff on. Every time I went to the bar to either order our meals or get a drink I found the bar unmanned and had to wait valuable minutes for someone to come out of the kitchen and serve. frustrating. However we ordered our parmas and in a fairly short time they were marched out of the kitchen.
I was pleasantly surprised when the plates hit the table, discount parma nights have a habit of being sub-par but the golden brown beauty that laid before me begged to differ. One or two out of the 7 parmas that were served suffered from slight slippery cheese, there was extremely minimal schnitzel nudity and it was a little on the small side but other than that the meal that laid before us was damn appetizing. The schnitzel was of decent thickness, nothing special but certainly nothing to complain about. There was a hearty coverage of napoli, ham and golden brown cheese. My only complaint would be that at times the crumbs tasted a little processed, but it was all in all a great tasting parma
The chips were standard chunky chips - middle of the road (a trait that has been common with chips lately) a little on the minimal serving scale but nothing to really complain about here, although they could have used a bit of seasoning
The salad was big and salubrious, taking up a large portion of the plate. It looked very promising as a mix of Lettuce, cucumber, capsicum, tomato, carrot and onion. Unfortunately there was no detectable dressing other than a splash of oil and it left what could have been a fantastic side dish wanting.
The Carron has a great atmosphere, a great location and on Thursday nights a fantastic parma! A glance at the website tells me that on their non-parma nights the meal goes for $18, a price I’d happily pay for what was served up, having it for $12 on Thursdays is just gravy, It only lost points for the run of the mill chips, a schnitzel that was a little on the small side and a beautiful looking salad that squandered its potential. Don’t let that put you off though, The Carron offers up a fantastic parma that I’d be happy to try again any day of the week.
Parma - 7.79
Chips - 5.21
Salad - 5.14
Value - 8.57
Total -6.90
The search continues…
