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When? - 5th of May, 2010
Where? - The Doutta Galla Hotel, 339 Racecourse Rd, Flemington
Price? - $18.90 regularly, with a $12 Parma & Pot Night on Wednesdays from 6pm
Barry? - No
Website? - http://www.douttagallahotel.com
Reviewers - Adam Y, Bec, Cale, Emma, Fridge, Kathleen, Lee, Luke, Matt, Shanan, Stefo, Tanya, Tony Q & Tony S[/info]
We rocked up at the Doutta Galla Hotel at about 7.30 to find a fairly full pub. Split down the middle by the bar with the drinkers on one side & the eaters on the other, the Doutta Galla (or the ‘Doot’ as its known to the locals) looked promising. The restaurant side was very busy, most of the tables were taken, so we were forced to sit on the massively long outdoor table that runs the length of one side of the building (not really a fault to the pub however, as there were fourteen reviewers and we arrived without a booking)
We claimed a table and joined the long queue to place our order - I took the large amount of people eating as a good sign, hard to imagine a bad parma attracting this many people! The service on the register was slow, it took quite a while to get to the front of the queue, but the order was eventually placed without too much hassle. We were there on ‘Parma Night’ so it came to $12 with a free pot, winning points on the price, and who doesn’t love a free beer?! Another thing worth noting, apparently if they dont ask you if you would like a garlic bread with your parma, you get one for free.
The pub itself had a good atmosphere, a pool table in the pub area and a video jukebox always adds to the fun, plenty of TV’s to keep you amused and a good range of beers on tap (including Bulmers cider, a personal favourite & great accompaniment to a parma). There was also a rather cosy room at the front of the bar with an array of couches & plenty of outdoor seating if its a warm night, unfortunately for us it wasn’t a warm night on the night of the review, but as dedicated reviewers we suffer for our parmas!
Apologies to the quality of the photo, it was dark outside and the lighting is the combination of about 4 mobile phone screens
The parmas arrived, the reviewer who ordered last (and separate to the majority) got his parma about 5 minutes before everyone else, but soon enough we were all digging in. I had high hopes for this parma & first impressions were good! … I was sorely disappointed.
On the plate, the parma looked kind of small, not an unforgivable sin if its tasty, but the chicken was terrible quality, thin, cheap and more breadcrumbs than chicken. There were many nude parts of the schnitzel & the cheese that was there tasted plastic. There was an included slice of ham, which is always a bonus point, but the napoli sauce was virtually nonexistent.
The salad was a mixture of shredded lettuce, carrot and other vegetable with some tomatoes thrown on the side, it tasted more like coleslaw than a parma salad, one reviewer commented “this is what I used to feed to my pet rabbit”.
The one redeeming factor was the chips, they were beer battered, plank style chips, wouldve been great if they had’ve been salted just a little. There were salt shakers on the tables inside, but being relegated to the outdoor seating, we didn’t have access to them.
After the meal we moved inside to warm up, played a few games of pool & had a drink. The general consensus was that the parma was cheap, small and we all played pool ‘like Betty White’ because of it.
Betty White hates shitty parmas
All in all it’s a cheap & nasty parma for a cheap price, if you are looking for a low priced parma you are gonna pay for it in quality and this definitely qualifies, if we had’ve gone on a night that wasn’t their ‘parma night’ and paid the full price of $18.90 I would have been severely disappointed & its score would’ve been significantly lower. It’s passable for what you are paying, but its always a bad sign when after the meal half of the reviewers are feeling sick, and the other half are considering going to McDonalds up the road to have a proper dinner.
Parma - 4
Chips - 5.9
Salad - 2.3
Value - 7.3
Total - 4.74
The search continues …
