[info]When? - 15th of May, 2014
Where? - Iddy Biddy, 35-39 Blessington St. Saint Kilda
Price? - $22.50 regularly, $15 Thursday parma night
Website? - http://www.iddybiddy.com.au/
Reviewers – Lee, Nikki, Stefo, Tony [/info]
When it comes to St. Kilda we haven't had a whole lot of luck, With the exception of St. Kilda East all we have come across is a bunch of "meh, blah, and okay" - nothing has really blown us out of the water.
So when I heard about this pub I was happy to try and put a win for St. Kilda on the board, and just around the corner from Luna Park it was smack-dab in the center.
We heard about the pub through our old mate Brunsy, former frontman for the band that used to play at The Prince of Wales on Saturday nights, and who now has a regular Thursday and Saturday gig at Iddy Biddy. The promise of a good parma and live tunes was too good to pass up! We loaded up the Parma Bus and headed over.
For a pub named 'Iddy Biddy' its actually quite spacious. It definitely keeps a cosy vibe but at no point did I ever feel cramped. Plenty of seating on both sides of the bar, as well as a tonne of table space out the front - a perfect spot for people-watching.
We found a seat around an old school tabletop arcade machine which doubled as our table, this is one of those pubs you could get lost in for hours. Open fire, wooden tables, massive leather couches that you just sink into with a cold pint, just my kind of place.
Now as for the menu there are usually two options, a $22.50 regular parma and a $24 mexican -
However Thursday night at Iddy Biddy is Parma Night, dropping the price down to $15 (bonus!) as well as throwing in a few beer specials...
We ordered our meals at the bar, kicked back, took in some live tunes and awaited our parmas arrival. Before too long at all my game of Frogger was interrupted by four parmas hitting the table...
First thought - massive. The biggest parma we've seen in some time. You'd think with a parma this big for $15 it'd be a processed piece of crap but amazingly this was pure chicken breast. I'm not sure what kind of mutant mega-chook was used to make this particular breast, but real chicken it was.
It eclipsed the whole plate (if you weren't paying attention it could easily be confused with a small cheese pizza) there are chips and salad under there, but we'll get to those in a minute. The chicken breast itself was pure white, juicy and flavourful - a little ironic that a joint called "Iddy Biddy" serves up a schnitzel bigger than my head (and to those who haven't met me, I've got a big head. Huge.)
Normally with a parma this size you run into what we have dubbed "Big Parma Syndrome", which occurs when a parma has size but falls short on flavour. Fortunately for Iddy Biddy this was not the case. Even though the parma was massive there was 100% topping coverage.
Plenty of perfectly grilled cheese, The napoli was flavourful and well seasoned and the ham carried a wonderful smokey flavour throughout the dish. I struggled to finish this parma purely due to its size, but at no point did it feel like a chore to get down, every bite was interesting - No BPS here.
Now, the downfall in having a parma this big is that it absolutely covered the chips. I go out of my way in these reviews to not bring up the "parma on the chips" complaint - its cliché and played out at this point. 90% of the time as soon as your parma hits the table you can scrape the chips out from underneath. It's not a huge drama.
However.
With a parma this size it was absolutely impossible to rescue them before downing at least half of the schnitzel, which really did leave what started as a good chip (pub chip, well cooked and seasoned) in a bit of a soggy mess by the time we could get to them. Parmas this big need separate bowls for the sides, as not even the salad could completely escape the sweaty prison of this godzilla of parmas.
Other than that the salad was decent - nothing amazing, standard garden salad of lettuce, tomato, onion, cucumber and a pretty tasty dressing. It did the job. However I eat my salad last, so most of my greens were hot by the time I got to them, having sat under the parma for so long. I say again, separate bowls.
I nitpicked a lot at the end there, but I'll clarify - If we didn't go to a different pub for a parma every Thursday I would be here quite often. $15 for what we were served is amazing value, probably one of the best value parma night's we have ever come across and I will be recommending this one to people looking for a Thursday parma night for a long time to come. I'd happily travel from the other side of town for this parma night, even the full price of $22.50 is reasonable - there's no chance you will walk away hungry, and the staff even offered take-away containers to those of us who couldn't finish.
To me Iddy Biddy is a tick in every box. Cosy pub, great atmosphere, quality live tunes and solid grub. I'll be back to Iddy Biddy - I could easily see myself losing a couple of hours on the tables out the front on a fine Saturday arvo. Apart from a couple of issues with the sides I have no qualms recommending checking this place out.
[pros]
- Massive, Tasty parma.
- only $15 on Thursdays (and drink specials)
[/pros][cons]
- Size of the parma killed all of the sides.
[/cons]
Parma - 8.03
Chips - 6.10
Salad - 4.75
Value - 8.93
Total - 7.17
The search continues...
