[info]
When? – 21/2/13
Where? – 231 Sydney Rd. Coburg
Price? - $25
Website? - http://www.thepostofficehotel.com.au/
Reviewers – Fridge, Lee, Nikki, Pat, Stefo[/info]
The Post Office Hotel fell onto our radar after a comment was made on a great article written by long-time friends of Parma Daze, Chris Canty
The past few weeks we’ve been going over the other side of town, so a recommendation that doesn’t have us driving over the Bolte in peak hour traffic was more than welcome.
Arriving at the post office I was taken back - I was not expecting a pub so gorgeously renovated. The pub looks superb. Exposed brick and polished wood floors make this one sexy establishment, and the pool table, beer garden and oh-so-comfy lounge area gives you a reason to stay long after the plates have been cleared away.
We checked the menu and spied our target…
There is an eggplant parma available in the dining hall, but 1) we were in the pub and 2) eggplant is icky.
We placed our orders at the bar and took our seats - food was pouring out the kitchen left right and center, and it all looked fantastic - The hamburgers looked especially good and I’ll definitely be popping back in for one in the future.
After a decent wait (35 - 40 minutes) our parmas arrived…
If I had that monkey’s paw that they found on that one Halloween episode of The Simpsons, my wish would be this -
“I wish for a parma that’s thick and juicy, Well cooked, with crumbs that aren’t too thick, and chips to the side that are fresh and well salted”
And the POH parma would be that wish, granted…
And at first, it was fantastic, the first few bites of the POH were bliss, the ingredients are all of the highest caliber and top notch.
However, we all know the curse of the Monkey’s Paw - that it twists the wisher’s words into something unexpected…
An odd complaint, but the chicken schnitzel was just too thick, I took a second cross section pic to show just how thick it got -
As reviewer Nikki so eloquently put it, “its just too chickeny” (we are in talks with webster’s to get “chickeny” added in next year’s dictionary). A slice of ham was desperately needed on this oh so thick bit of bird to break up the assault of chicken on the senses.
And the wish for thin crumbs? they were too thin, giving the parma no *crunch*, as I said before, it was just so chickeny
Our wish for a well cooked parma was partially twisted as well, as a few reviewers around the table noted that the bottom of there schnitzel was a little burnt, almost black in places.
The wish for “well salted” chips also came back to bite us. Now I love a well seasoned chip as much as the next bloke, maybe even more than then next bloke, but these shoestring fries, despite being well cooked and quite tasty, were so damn salty my mouth started to burn.
I can’t really complain about the salad, because it delivered exactly what was promised on the menu - a “mixed leaf salad”, and that’s exactly what it was. A pile of different lettuce leaves, very well dressed and tasty, but just boring overall. What ever happened to hearty salads? … with lots of stuff in them.
I didn’t really mind shelling out $25 for this parma, despite my complaints all the ingredients were of superb quality, and I can’t fault them for charging a bit more for the good stuff.
Even though I had a bit of a whinge, the POH parma is worth giving a go - All the elements of a great parma are there, they just need some slight tweaks to push them up the scoreboard. If they added a slice of ham (or bacon, or prosciutto, or any sort of pork product) and whacked the chicken breast with a mallet a few times this would be a parma in contention for the top ten. Unfortunately a couple of issues dragged it down.
Hopefully the next poor soul to find that monkey’s paw will put it to good use…
Parma - 6.7
Chips - 5.2
Salad - 5
Value - 5.2
Total - 5.76
The search continues…
