When? - 21st of March, 2013
Where? - The Flying Duck, 67 Bendigo St. Prahran
Price? - $21
Website? - http://www.flyingduckhotel.com.au/
Reviewers - Adam, Cale, Kylie L, Lee, Matt, Nikki, Pat
Once again, I’m really not sure how The Flying Duck fell onto our radar (I should really start writing that stuff down), but last week in our facebook poll for which Prahran pub deserves our attention, The Flying duck demolished the competition, with more than double the votes of the pub that came in second (The College Lawn).
I love a backstreets pub, a hidden gem known only to the locals - and The Flying Duck is this in spades. The place was practically empty when we arrived on Thursday afternoon but it is very easy to envision the place bustling on a Friday evening or Sunday afternoon.
Pretty standard on the inside, the dining room of The Duck opens out to a massive glass greenhouse, in the middle of an even bigger and more spacious beer garden out the back. Very impressive and (as I said in the previous paragraph) perfect for a few pints on a warm Sunday arvo.
View of the greenhouse, taken from the beer garden.
We arrived at the duck and took a seat under the glass. Everyone was starving so we decided a pregame was necessary - An order for a couple of bowls of wedges and turkish bread was placed as we ordered our parmas
The wedges that arrived were quality - Standard wedges with standard bowls of sour cream and sweet chili sauce. Massive serves that went down a treat. The turkish bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar was a little less inspired, but did the job adequately.
Very shortly after our pregame arrived, the parmas landed on the table…
I assure you, there is some chicken under that slice of ham. Unfortunately, not much. As you’ll see from the cross section below, the schnitzel was the most processed piece of bird we have seen in some time. Every element of the parma carried more thickness than the chicken itself. The crumbs were thicker, the cheese/napoli was thicker, hell even the slice of ham was bordering on being thicker than the actual chicken in this chicken parma.
The toppings were ordered in an odd way, the massive slice of ham on the bottom it formed a barrier between the schnitzel and everything else - leaving it possible to lift everything off if one wanted (as pictured below)
There was barely any cheese on the decent serving of napoli, unfortunately the nap just tasted of canned tomato paste.
To my distain I got through my parma, it was edible, but not an enjoyable experience.
The chips were fine, not as good as the wedges we had previously, but fine. Standard pub chips with zero seasoning and a little undercooked. The seasoning wasn’t an issue a there were salt pots along the table that brought the chips to life slightly. Sadly, the chips were probably the tastiest thing on the plate - and thats not saying much.
From the moment the plates hit the table the salad looked sad. You can see from the above photo that it was a wilted mess, to be completely honest it looked like it was made for the lunch shift and had been sitting around in a bowl in the kitchen all afternoon.
If this was a parma that I got for free at Crown after putting $50 in the pokies, I would still be disappointed. Paying $21 for this hot mess was just insulting. Wouldn’t cross the street to get it again, and driving from Essendon to Prahran for the experience was just a slap in the face (Citylink ain’t free!)
Trying to draw some positives from the experience - The pub itself was gorgeous, I love a good beer garden and The Flying Duck definitely had a tick in that box - According to the internets they pride themselves on being “dog friendly” even going as far as having special “Mad Dog Monday’s” where you are encouraged to bring your dog - This kinda thing is pretty cool, and I give them kudos for it.
And with a dog at your feet there’ll be an incognito place to slip your parma after you realise it’s rubbish.