[info]
When? - 19th of January, 2011
Where? - 243 Gertrude St. Fitzroy
Price? - $9 Parma Wednesday ($17.50 all other times)
EDIT 21/09/11 - Sources inform me that this parma Wednesday deal now sells for $10, still great value!
Barry? - No
Website? - http://sentidofunf.com.au/
Reviewers - Adam, Cale, Lee, Matt, Ness, Nikki, Tanya[/info]
When I told the group we were going to ‘Sentido Funf’ for a parma there were a lot of blank stares followed by ‘…where?’ but this little pub in Fitzroy has a big secret.
From the outside you wouldn’t look twice at Sentido Funf, as you can see from the photo above it doesn’t look like much, inside there is an unassuming little bar (with a great beer selection as well as a stellar cocktail list) and some tables scattered around. We took our reserved seat inside and sat for all of 60 seconds before deciding that we should move, where? to Sentido Funf’s best feature - The beer garden.
Following the door past the bar will lead you out the back to the beer garden, an indoor/outdoor expanse easily twice the size of the front bar itself, the beer garden is the place to be.
We ordered our parmas at the front bar and took our seats out the back amongst the trees, after a few minutes of waiting we realised that as well as being $9 Parma night, it was also Quiz Meisters Trivia night. Free to enter the Quiz Meisters put on a great trivia comp, the perfect accompaniment to a chicken parma (other than garlic bread … I love garlic bread).
It took a while to get all the teams sorted for trivia so by the time the competition started we had mostly all finished our parmas - so lets review!
The perspective of the photo may be confusing, but this parma is served on a skinny, oval shaped plate with salad to the side and a decent heaping of shoestring fries under a massive hunk of chicken.
The parma was wide but fairly thin with a minor case of slippery cheese and minor burning around the edges, not a hell-worthy tresspass. The schnitzel was pre-fab chicken that to be honest was a little disappointing, the breast was dry, stringy and at times was rather hard to cut through (although dull knives and being perched on the chips didn’t help with this issue). The toppings for the parma, however, were very good - with generous helpings of napoli, ham and cheese they were the saving grace for this meal.
The skinny plate made it hard to maneuver the chicken around to be eaten properly without losing chips to the table, but being rather experienced at this we managed to get it done.
The chips that were hiding under the parma were surprisingly good, there was actually a decent serving of fries hiding underneath the chicken - well seasoned, fresh shoestring fries that are very similar to those served at McDonalds … not that there’s anything wrong with that.
The garden salad to the side was simple and fresh, with actual lettuce as opposed to just wilted leaves as well as cucumber strips, onions and shredded carrots. I couldn’t quite pick what dressing was used, but it had a very refreshing citrus tang.
After the food, team ‘Jimmy Rowes’ kicked off trivia, the Quiz Meisters do a great job of keeping things different and interesting with their variety of media questions, we managed to win a free jug of beer in the ‘Pick the Wags’ competition in which we had to identify Ten male celebrities based on photos of their wives/girlfriends, we got 9/10, I’m not sure whether to be proud or ashamed that we won that round.
Reviewer Tanya enjoys our winnings
In the end I think we came in about 4th or 5th, no prize but we had an awesome time playing, it was fun, exciting and (most importantly) kept us drinking!
For only $9 with free trivia its very hard to complain about Sentido Funf’s parma, and if it weren’t for the disappointing schnitzel quality they would be serving up a stellar meal in a very impressive gem of a pub!
Sentido Funf is one of those pubs that you wouldn’t know existed if you didn’t know it existed … if that makes any sense. It is a wonderful little spot and I definitely recommend going down before word gets out and it gets insanely popular - which will definitely happen. I saw some of other meals going past as we played trivia and they looked pretty amazing - the burger in particular looked legendary, definitely one I would try in the future.
In the end the meal was secondary to the fun we had playing, when you are in a good mood everything seems better and it made the poor quality chicken actually seem not as bad.
I took this picture of the beer garden/trivia game in action and couldn’t find a way to work it into the article … so its going at the end!
Parma - 5.07
Chips - 5.86
Salad - 5.36
Value - 7.14
Total - 5.70
The search continues…
