Where? - 150 Mascoma St. Strathmore
Price? - $19 + Delivery fee
Website? Facebook Page
Reviewers – Lee & Nikki
Delivery areas - Uber Eats doesn't have this info, lets just say "Strathmore and surrounding suburbs"
In case you missed the first issue of Crossing the Road back at the start of March, and the second one in June, This is a review category dedicated to delivery parmas, the ones we would never get to if we stuck to pubs alone ... Let's be honest, delivery parmas are usually pretty terrible, but lets call this an effort to find that diamond in the rough.
The first two Crossing The Road's were ordered via Menulog, and even though I could stare at Jeff Goldblum's loveable face for hours at a time, for the sake of switching things up I decided that this week we would give Uber Eats a crack.
Cards on the table, I have used Uber Eats a few times for non-parma related deliveries and I've yet to be blown away by the service. In my experience it's expensive, takes forever and the food often arrives cold.
Scrolling through the available options The Pizza Bar in Strathmore caught my eye. It had a decent range of pizzas, pastas and even a couple of burgers available. Then I saw the category I was after - A category devoted entirely to a single menu item -
I think this is the first time in our many years of reviewing that we've come across a parma with a Christian name. In honour of this I'll be referring to this parma as Italiano for the remainder of this review.
Italiano looked good, if the photo supplied was anything to go by this would be a tasty dish. With an expected delivery time of 45 minutes I kicked back and waited for our food to arrive.
One of the best features of Uber Eats is, once your food is on its way, you can follow it's progress from the store to your house in real time...
Nice to see that Italiano took a detour past the Kerrigan's house from The Castle before coming over.
Can't really put this on the Pizza Bar, but Italiano took forever to arrive. Taking a massive detour what should have been a ten minute trip was blown out to 25 minutes at least.
But he finally turned up, and it was time to meet Italiano in all his glory -
As discovered last time, these things never photograph well in their take away containers. Let me plate this bad boy up so we can really see what we're dealing with...
Much better! It look a bit of effort to extract the chips that had been fused to the top of the parma in transit, but I did the best I could.
Time to tuck in!
As expected, Italiano was bordering on the cold side when he arrived. Not horribly so, but I would have loved to try him fresh as the flavours in this parma were actually pretty solid. The schnitzel was real chicken breast - not the biggest we've come across and a little overcooked, but mostly a quality foundation.
A surprise addition to the mix was a healthy heaping of ham (possibly prosciutto) not mentioned on the menu - really added a salty punch. Cheese was fine, as was the napoli - All bursting with flavour ... I just wish it had've been a bit hotter.
The chips were overdone and a little oily, but not inedible. Its amazing to see the sheer amount of chips that they throw at you with delivery parmas that you never see at a pub. Points for quantity, thats for sure.
The salad was fresh and crisp, however underneath the grated carrot, cucumber and single cherry tomato on top there wasn't much going on underneath other than lettuce, lettuce and more lettuce.
For $19 I'm pretty happy with the price. It was pretty tasty and with the added convenience of home delivery I'm calling it a win.
I'd happily invite Italiano over again, although next time around I'd opt for pickup and cut Uber Eats out of the equation - I don't know if its their mapping system or that the food has to sit and wait for a driver to come and collect, but I have consistently received lukewarm food when using the service.
Of the 3 delivery reviews we've done so far I'd probably rate this second. Better than Tram Stop but not quite as good as The Gates. Worth a crack if you live in Strathmore, although I wouldn't travel far for it.