Google street view saves my arse again! apologies for the sub-par photo guys, it looks a lot nicer than this in person I promise!
[info]
When? - 18th of November, 2010
Where? - 293 La Trobe St. Melbourne
Price? - $12 ‘Parmas of the world’ Wednesdays
Barry? - Yes
Website? - http://www.dofk.com.au/
Reviewers - Lee, Luke, Luke & Matt[/info]
When a friend recommended the Duke of Kent for review I was a little dubious, I have always been weary of inner city pubs and their pub meal offerings - being in the city center there is the immense pressure to cave in to all the wank that comes with being in the inner city, Their heads go up their arses and before you know it you’re paying $30 for a crap parma served with smoked buffalo instead of ham, gluten free soy goop instead of cheese and a bed of whipped chickpeas instead of chips…. apologies for the rant there, I think I have some suppressed childhood trauma regarding wanky parmas.
Which is why I was pleasantly surprised when I walked into the Duke of Kent - A spacious, down to earth pub in which you could completely forget you are sitting in the middle of La Trobe street. The Duke has multiple seating options, from cozy leather booths to the more restaurant style bistro area, and the high wooden tables situated next to massive open bay windows are perfect for warm summer nights. There were a plethora of beers available on tap, a decent looking wine list and a very creative pub trivia game going on the big screen - normally we would join in but it had started before we arrived. We had a smaller group than usual this week as a bunch of the review team were on holiday up in Queensland, so Bulmers in hand we took our seats and looked over our options for ‘Parmas of the world’.
Hmmm what to choose?
To be honest all of the options looked appealing, especially when I saw a Mexican come out of the kitchen that looked delicious (A Mexican parma that is, not an actual delicious looking human from Mexico). But even with all the options presented to us we opted for the standard parma, which strangely doesn’t appear on the menu pictured above.
There is plenty to do at the Duke while waiting for your meal, The pub trivia game I mentioned earlier was fun to watch, as well as pool tables, full TAB, a skill testing prize machine and of course Barry, to which we were seated beside - primo seating if I’ve ever seen it!
The above photo is a perfect indicator of how close we were to the Barry machine, as I took it from my chair as reviewer Nikki (who came for the Barry but no parma this week) played a game of Monopoly. If you look carefully you will notice that its a Superman themed question on the screen - we probably had three superman themed questions while playing, quite fitting I thought seeing as we were eating at the Duke of Kent.
He looks hungry, if I were you I’d give it to him
Moments after we ordered Reviewer Luke arrived and joined our table - having ordered for him minutes before he didn’t realise that there were different parmas available, he tried to change the order to a Texan BBQ parma but was too late -our parmas were (amazingly) almost ready. Very soon after that our meals arrived.
It looked good when it hit the table, apart from a slight burning around the edges on mine (lesser on the others) the chicken was well cooked with golden brown cheese. The schnitzel itself looked a bit small but the majority of it was thick chicken breast, although there were a few spots on it that shrunk down to thin territory. Good brown cheese and napoli coverage with a healthy dose of shredded ham hiding under the cheese, which while looking like a lot of ham complimented the chicken nicely and didn’t even come close to overpowering it.
The chips were standard, hiding under the parma soggied (it is too a word) them up a little, but they were perfectly acceptable, however not memorable.
The Garden salad consisted of lettuce, onion, cucumber and tomato, It had a balsamic dressing but was unfortunately killed by too much olive oil on the lettuce, nothing terrible but turned a decent salad into an ‘only okay’ one. One redeeming factor to the sides, however, was the massive bread roll which accompanied every parma - a fantastic addition that is often overlooked by pubs but makes all the difference when it comes to the presentation of the meal. points for bread.
Reviewer Luke was still hungry after his (and still a little shattered that he missed out on his Texan BBQ parma) so he ordered a second, Texan BBQ this time, which arrived in about 3 minutes flat - amazingly quick service
As he treated himself to a double parma, Reviewer Luke gave his score twice - however his score was the same for both meals
All in all it was a pretty darn good example of a parma, and at only $12 on a parma Wednesday its hard to go wrong.
From what I could gather The Duke of Kent is all about the food specials - It was hard to nail down the price of the parma as it fluctuates Daily, but from what Icould gather it goes a little like this: Monday - Thursday is a $15 Parma, However on Mondays it is still $15 but it comes with a free pot and on Wednesdays it is $12 with no pot, but you get a choice of the ‘Parmas of the World’ topping. All other times (so Friday - Sunday) its $19.90. Oh and on Tuesdays its burger n’ pot night for $15 - nothing to do with Parmas, but definitely worth mentioning. I hope you followed all that, It may require re-reading.
Parma - 7.1
Chips - 5.5
Salad - 4.3
Value - 7.4
Total - 6.28
The search continues …
Finally I want to say a big thanks to the guys over at Melbournepubs.com for their support over the last week, It’s greatly appreciated and anyone who reads this should head over to their site to find the biggest and best database of Melbourne nightlife on the Internet!