#390 - 'The Charles Weston Hotel'

Where - 27 Weston St. Brunswick

Price - $12 reg, $17 Large on Thursdays, $19 reg, $25 large other times.

Website - https://charlesweston.com.au

Reviewers - Dylan, Fridge, Grace, Lee, Pat, Kim & Tony Q

I said it back when we first reviewed them in 2016 and I’ll say it again. I love the Charles Weston. And although Brewcult briefly stole the title then rode off into the sunset, it stands as my favourite pub in the Sydney Road strip.

When we first tried the parma night at the Weston it was just that - A parma night exclusive. The parma was still a relatively new thing to their kitchen and while it was available on parma night it had yet to make its way to the printed menu. It rated well (total score of 7.24) but I was curious to see how three years of development had affected the Charles Weston parma (and to be honest, any excuse to revisit the Weston is fine by me)

As far as decor goes I don’t think a single thing has changed since our last review three years ago, so I’ll reiterate what I said then -

It has a great backstreets local charm coupled with multiple open fireplaces, friendly staff, live music, board games and a solid craft beer list, I'm not ashamed to say that I've spent many a Satuday and Sunday arvo wasting away the hours playing Jenga by the fireplace.

Along with the fireplaces, board games and beers the Weston also boasts a surprisingly spacious beer garden out the side, a full sized ping pong table indoors and a very cosy, dimly lit dining room out the back

You know what? I tell a lie. Something has changed - They have a foosball table now as well.

We sat down and checked the menu - It was great to see the parma had finally made it to print -

However it was once again Thursday when we visited the Weston, and lucky for us their $12 parma night remains. Our first trip we had the option of Hawaiian, Mexican or Classic. This time around the menu has expanded to Classic, Breakfast, Nachos or Eggplant - All available in a regular size for $12 or an “upsized” parma for $17. Of course I opted for the upsized version.

As far as beers on tap go the Weston has something for everyone. The board on our visit sporting a selection from Coburg Brewing Co, Venom, Hargreaves Hill, Balter, Hawkers, Napoleone Cider and Mornington Peninsula Brewery. My heart belongs to Balter and I stayed on those for most of the night, but it was nice to see a good range of beers on offer.

About 20 minutes after ordering our meals arrived from the kitchen. As is tradition with pubs we have already reviewed once, lets take a look at the parma from our first visit compared to the new one…

Charles Weston Parma - 2016

Charles Weston Parma - 2019

Quite a difference! First things first I definitely recommend going for the upsize as the schnitzel had almost doubled in size from its smaller counterpart. The chicken (which was entirely engulfed in toppings, not a nude patch of schnitzel to be found) was surprisingly thick - A little dry for my liking, but not a huge complaint. The crumbing was thin, slightly soggy but still enjoyable. Overall a quality foundation to the parma (especially on discount parma night).

I have already mentioned the liberal application of cheese, which was grilled to a perfect golden brown, and I was very pleasantly surprised to find that the Charles Weston has upgraded their pork from ham to prosciutto - Now prosciutto on parmas can be a bit divisive, however I am a big fan of the salty snap prosciutto provides.

The napoli was fresh and chunky, but, like in 2016, was a little bit lost amongst the other elements of the dish.

I was very pleased to see that the Weston has upgraded from shoestring fries to proper chips. Had these had copped a little bit more seasoning before they were plated they would have been fantastic. But as they were they were fresh, but a little bit lacking. Some dipping sauce would be nice.

The salad is one element of the Charles Weston parma that I think was done better back in 2016, this was a contentious point back in our last review however in my old age I have grown to much prefer coleslaw over a garden salad. As far as garden salads go it was fine, however I feel a side of coleslaw like it had when we first reviewed it was a much better accompaniment to the dish … but that’s just me.

“For $12 on a parma night it was worth every penny. Great quality chicken and sides”

— Tony

“Good value for the price and the size. Crumbing underneath was a little soggy, was the only let down. Good parma overall.”

— Fridge

For $12 or $17 (depending on the size you get) on a Thursday I’d have to say that this is one of the best value parma night’s in the Brunswick area. The upsized parma was a struggle to get through, and that’s just for the Classic, the novelty topping options were loaded even higher.

Every other night the pricing is still relatively good. It is smaller but a parma under $20 on a non-parma night menu is a rare sight these days, so I’d say this is one worth checking out parma night or not.

If you hadn’t worked it out already I am a little biased to the Weston just because I enjoy the pub so much. But putting my bias aside I genuinely enjoyed my parma there. Thursday parma nights are rare to begin with, they are more often than not relegated to the quieter Monday or Tuesday nights, and the Weston’s parma night offers up a high quality feed at a bargain basement price with a solid range of beers on offer. Definitely one worth checking out.

Parma - 7.67

Chips - 6.63

Salad - 6.00

Value - 9.00

Total -  7.39

The search continues...

#389 - 'Burger Kitchen'

Where - 4 Margaret Street, Moonee Ponds

Price - $21 for classic, + $1.50 for novelties

Website - https://www.burgerkitchen.com.au/

Reviewers - Adam T, Lee & Nikki

Not gonna lie, we came across this week’s review purely due to a fuck up on my part.

Here’s how it happened. A few months back we were recommended the burger place “Pattysmiths” in Flemington. Right across from Flemington Station I had heard that they were doing a parma burger for a limited time.

Except when I decided to check it out I couldn’t quite remember the name, but I remembered it was a burger joint and it was across the road from one of the train stations along the Craigieburn line.

Unfortunately for me (and fortunately for them) that across the road from a couple of stops down the line, Moonee Ponds Station, is a burger place that also specialises in smash burgers, just like Pattysmiths. Almost the exact same distance from station to restaurant.

I’m in my mid 30’s now, and like a baby boomer trying to work the self service kiosk at McDonalds I confuse easily. So last night we visited Burger Kitchen thinking it was the Burger place that was recommended to me a few months ago.

Burger Kitchen is a small little store. Its cosy and has a strong take-away vibe yet they manage to squeeze a surprising number of dine-in tables in their little traingle shaped slice of the building.

For a place named “Burger Kitchen” their menu is surprisingly robust, offering (as well as burgers) a range of Philly cheesesteaks, Bistro Meals (mostly steaks) and, you guessed it, chicken parmas…

Now I know what you’re thinking…

The menu grab they have on their website is surprisngly low resolution, so taking a section of that makes it even smaller. Before you run and get your magnifying glass, I’ll just tell you - They have a Classic for $21, along with the novelty options of Aussie, Mexican, Greek, Hawaiian, and Peri Peri for an extra $1.50. I opted for the Mexican, reviewer Adam the Peri Peri and Reviewer Nikki kept it boring and went with the traditional.

I was surprised to find that Burger Kitchen has a couple of beers on tap for those choosing to dine in. Not a huge selection, this is primarily a take-away joint after all, but the option of Carlton Draught and 4 Pines was on tap ($7.50 for a pint of draught - bargain) as well as a row of other alcoholic delights on the top shelf of the Coke fridge.

We placed our order at the counter, grabbed a couple of pints, kicked back and waited for our parmas to arrive, and about 15 minutes later they did exactly that.

The Traditional

The Peri Peri

The Mexican

I’m gonna be entirely honest - I didn’t have the higest of hopes for the Burger Kitchen parma, but what we received blew me away.

The schnitzel was huge, pan fried and retained and excellent crunch. It was well cooked, and flavoursome. One criticism is that the crumbing was thicker than I would normally like, and it definitely didn’t need to be given the size of the schnitzel, but overall this was a quality foundation for the dish.

As far as novelty parmas go the toppings were outstanding - both the Mexican and the Peri Peri were topped with lavish amounts of shredded chorizo and jalapenos (the only difference between the two being the addition of Peri Peri sauce).

Reviewer Nikki was not as pleased with her traditional, not being a big fan of capsicum there was a strong capsicum flavour throughout the napoli sauce that she didn’t care for. I’d say if you visit Burger Kitchen then the novelty toppings are definitely worth the additional $1.50 charge.

Chips were delightful. fresh, crisp and dusted with an almost barbecue chip flavoured seasoning similar to the one we found at Melba Social. Very pleased.

The salad was a bit of an afterthought. A small stack of garden salad could use a fair bit of work. It was fine, but mostly flavourless - The cucumber slices were nice and crisp though.

“ I really enjoyed this one, the Parma was quality, made from real chicken, solid crumb coating & great size. Great toppings, you can’t go wrong with chorizo and jalapenos and the peri peri sauce just topped it off beautifully.
Chips were seasoned well, nice crunch and just the right amount. The salad was a little on the simple side, just your plain run of the mill garden variety, not bad but not great either.
I had mine with a $7.50 pint of draught. Overall, I was very satisfied, I’m a big eater and struggled to finish, I did, but it was an effort. I’m definitely going to go back again!”

— Adam T

“Quality schnitzel, nice and big and I barely put a dent in it! Not a huge fan of the capsicum through the napoli but otherwise fine - The chips were tasty! ”

— Nikki

Under $25 for a parma this big is a solid deal in my book, and if that’s still too rich for your blood they offer a $14 Parma Wednesday as well as a $16 Parma & Pot Saturday, so you are really spoilt for choice when it comes to cheap feeds at Burger Kitchen.

I was surprisingly pleased with our trip to Burger Kitchen (I’d call it BK but I’m pretty sure there’s another relatively popular international burger chain that may take umbridge with that) - It has gotten me curious to try their burgers and philly cheesesteaks. I don’t normally do this but I’d recommend you go with one of the novelty toppings as that chorizo was delicious, and if you can’t be fucked going out to eat you’ve got the option for take-away, and if you can’t be fucked putting in any effort at all they’re also listed on Uber Eats.

Worth a trip if you’re in the area!

Parma - 8.17

Chips - 7.30

Salad - 4.33

Value - 7.83

Total -  7.16

The search continues...

#388 - 'The Gamekeepers Secret Country Inn'

Where - 1555 Melton Highway, Rockbank

Price - $25.90

Website - https://www.gamekeepers.com.au

Reviewers - Lee & Nikki

If you’ve spent any time driving from Melbourne to Melton you’d surely know about “The Windmill”, a function centre on the Melton Highway which has a large, colonial style windmill as its centrepiece.

If you can draw your eyes away from the majesty that is the windmill for even a moment, you might notice that next door to the windmill is a pub, a pub that is the target of our review tonight - the Gamekeepers Secret Inn, or Gamekeepers Secret Country Inn, the signage is inconsistent - Although any signage at all seems a bit counter-intuitive to an establishment that you seemingly want to keep “secret” … but I digress.

Having driven past the ‘keepers hundreds of times I have always wondered what it was like inside, by the looks of their facebook page they seem to be pretty active, with regular live music and food special nights - Yet as far as pubs go it seems to be in an awkward spot, even though the suburban sprawl is edging closer and closer the stretch of the Melton Highway the keepers lies on seems to still be firmly in the middle of nowhere.

So imagine my surprise when we arrived on Thursday night to an almost full carpark. The pub is huge, so there was no issue finding a table, however rocking up at about 6:30 on a Thursday night the pub was already abuzz with activity.

The keepers definitely takes the “Gamekeepers” part of their name seriously. Everywhere you look there is a stuffed animal of some sort. Mounted game trophies and taxidermied ducks as far as the eye can see along with various hunting paraphernalia lining the walls. The gamekeepers has the definite vibe of a country pub, yet surprisingly close to Melbourne.

We took a seat and checked the menu…

I expanded the above photo from just the parma purely because I can’t remember the last time I saw a Chicken Kiev on a standard pub menu. I love a good Kiev almost as much as I love a parma and seeing one on the printed, every day, not-specials-board menu is a rarity these days, so I wanted to capture it here for posterity and to remind myself to head back to the Gamekeepers very soon to give their Kiev a proper crack.

The menu at the ‘keepers seems to have a signature item. Above the entrees and mains and everything else there is a sort of “cob” menu, offering up a “warm cob loaf” with your choice of butter, garlic butter or olive oil & balsamic, along with the option of a garlic & cheese cob or a garlic cheese and bacon cob if you’re feeling particularly naughty.

Only two of us at review this week but my curiosity got the best of me and I had to try at least some sort of cob. We went with a half cob with garlic butter ($5), and trust me I was glad we only got the half because when the below massive loaf of bread got delivered to the table I was in shock.

As promised it was warm & crispy and the supplied garlic butter was delicious. It was like a construct-your-own garlic bread hobby kit at the table. Massive, delicious and worth the $5 (we couldn’t get through it between the two of us, you’ll see what remained in the background of most of the photos of the parma) I highly recommend starting out your trip to the ‘keepers with a cob.

As far as beers at the keepers go there’s nothing too fancy, but honestly it was a more varied range than I was expecting. On tap they had Yenda Pale, Magners, Carlton, Carlton Dry, Furphy and Guinness with Little Creatures, Beez Nees and a few American imports available by the stubby.

I had to stop myself from shovelling cob into my face as our parmas arrived shortly after…

First things first this parma arrived from the kitchen steaming hot. I had to let it sit for a second as it was absolutely boiling. The chicken was real, insanely juicy chicken breast. Cooked to perfection and well crumbed. The two schnitzels varied wildly in shape, a good sign that they are making/crumbing these things in house. Thickness varied a little but overall this was a thick, juicy schnitzel - A fantastic base for the toppings above.

The toppings, however, weren’t as high in quality as the schnitzel. They were fine, there was nothing particularly wrong with them, however the lack of ham and a relatively boring napoli sauce left it feeling a little bland. With a bit of salt, pepper and some cheeky garlic butter left over from the cob we managed to infuse some life into it, but I felt like this is a parma that needs something special to bring it home. The cheese blend was flavoursome, very cheddar heavy and reminiscent of the Prince of Wales parma days, but still not quite enough for this to be a standout for me.

Don’t get me wrong, this was still a super enjoyable parma, but I feel with a tweak or two it could be great.

The chips were a bit of a let down. Standard pub chips, unseasoned and a bit undercooked. They were okay but needed quite a bit of work, Also with such a long plate there’s no need to stack the parma on top of them at all. The chips were probably the weakest part of the dish.

The garden salad was fresh and crisp with a balsamic bite. Nothing too fancy but they got the basics right. A fine side dish to the parma.

“Loved how fresh and piping hot the parma was served! Chips need work but otherwise a solid feed”

— Nikki

As far as value goes I think $25.90 is a little expensive for what we got but I was mostly happy with what we paid. I don’t mind chucking in an extra buck or two to support country pubs. As far as I can tell there are no special parma nights on the books at the ‘keepers, but its still worth trying either way.

The ‘keepers parma is a parma with a lot of potential. They’ve got the basics on point, it just needs a little bit of flair to bring it home. A slice of smoked ham would do this dish wonders, hell even a parma night with a couple of novelty options once a week would work wonders for them. Overall an enjoyable feed with a super friendly country pub vibe a stones through from the CBD - Definitely worth checking out (and be sure to try the cob).

Parma - 7.75

Chips - 4.50

Salad - 6.65

Value - 7.00

Total -  6.73

The search continues...

#387 - 'The Sporting Globe'

Where - 690 Mount Alexander Rd, Moonee Ponds (with other locations all over)

Price - $23.90 for the standard MVP parmas, $27.50 for the “loaded” parmas

Website - http://www.sportingglobe.com.au/

Reviewers – Grace, Lee, Nikki & Tony

We have quite a history with the Sporting Globe, Our first visit was in 2013, with a follow up visit (to the Watergardens location) in 2015 and a special look when the dude from Masterchef designed some parmas for them in 2016. They have had more repeat business than any pub we’ve reviewed at ParmaDaze - And yet they keep doing interesting things, varying up the parma menu often enough that I feel like its worth taking a week out of a year to duck in and see what new parma-themed delights they have come up with.

Before we continue yes I know we have been doing a lot of revisits lately. The problem is that after 9 years of reviewing pubs there just aren’t that many options left unvisited! , I’m trying to keep it to our particularly old reviews and not giving anything too recent a redo. Our rule of thumb used to be 12 months before we’d look at a pub again … I’m starting to think we need to bump that out to 5 years before its considered as we have quite a backlog built up. Anyway. Some fresh stuff will be coming in a couple of weeks, I promise!

I’m not gonna spend a lot of time on the decor of the Globe, because 1) We’ve covered it three times already and 2) With 13 Mother-Flippin’ locations around Victoria surely you’ve seen one by now and know what the deal is. It’s a sports bar with red chairs and a hell of a lot of TVs.

Let it not go unmentioned that the AFL Footy finals are also kicking off this week, the night of this review taking place of the first match of the finals between Essendon and West Coast. Being the biggest Essendon-adjacent sports bar in the area the Globe was absolutely heaving when we arrived for parma review. We lucked out on a table, grabbed a menu and checked what was on offer this week …

The standard parma menu hasn’t changed much since 2013 with the exception of “our new Buffalo parma” just being called the “Buffalo” parma. But the following page is where the action was this week -

It was pointed out to me when chatting about the menu on the ParmaDaze Discord Chat That none of the Loaded parmas use Napoli sauce. Actually Only the MVP parma has the option of napoli. A surprising move but I was ready to give napoli a miss this week! We went to the bar and placed our orders for the evening. One Buffalo, one Hawaiian, one Hickory Smoked BBQ and I landed on the Mac n’ Cheese creation.

The Sporting Globe has never been a pub to blow you away with their craft beer selection. Heineken, Draft, Great Northern, Furphy, 150 Lashes, Little Creatures, 4 Pines and their house beer “Little Bull” mark the options on tap with a few more options in the bottles in the fridge. Nothing outstanding but you should be able to find something to keep your whistle wet.

About 20 minutes after ordering (and still an hour from the footy starting - Bloody Perth time zones!) our parmas arrived at the table

“Loaded” is definitely the correct term for these parmas. Absolutely stacked with toppings. I grabbed the cutery and tucked in to find that even beneath the stack of ranch dressing, bacon and mac & cheese that there still remained a surprisingly thick schnitzel underneath. The chicken was well cooked and juicy - the crumbs were quite soggy but to be honest I’m not sure how you would avoid that given the sheer amount of stuff piled on top of the schnitzel.

A solid foundation to the dish, but to be honest these parmas are all about the toppings.

Okay. So. First up the “Mac & Cheese Bites” listed on the menu was more of a Mac & Cheese pancake covering the entire top of the schnitzel. That’s not a criticism, its just a hell of a lot of mac & cheese. The hickory sauce on both this parma and the BBQ parma is super flavoursome and even carries the subtle bite of the Sporting Globe’s trademark buffalo sauce. They weren’t tight at all on the bacon, it was crisp and flavoursome.

If I were to order this parma again, however, I’d ask for it without the ranch sauce on top. Ranch is such a strong flavour that I felt like it was both competing with and overpowering the other flavours of the parma. Bacon, mac & cheese and BBQ sauce all compliment each other perfectly, but the ranch didn’t really go with that and definitely distracted me from the other flavours of the dish.

Sporting Globe chips are consistently good. Beer battered, well seasoned and crunchy. I honestly don’t have anything else to say about them other than that they hit the spot.

I always liked the salad at the Globe but this week (and I may be imagining things) but it felt a little bit smaller than it used to be, like they’ve shrunk down the side of the salad bowl. It was enjoyable but I was done in two bites.

“Loved the bite of buffalo flavours through the hickory sauce. Not as full on as the buffalo parma but still enjoyable!”

— Nikki (Hickory Smoked BBQ Parma)

“Overall a great meal, If you like their buffalo bites this parma is like a giant version of them with ham”

— Tony (Buffalo parma)

$27.50 is pretty damn expensive for a parma, even a “loaded” one. You definitely won’t walk away from this meal hungry - I failed to clear my plate, it is a formidable meal. Yet if $27.50 is too much for you the Globe offers $14.90 MVP parmas and $17.50 Loaded parmas on Wednesdays. A $10 reduction is a decent bargain so if you’re on the fence that is definitely the night to check them out.

I’ve always considered the Sporting Globe the McDonalds Quarter Pounder of the parma scene. No matter where you are in the world you know what you are getting when you order a Quarter Pounder. It is consistently quality with no surprises - And I think the Sporting Globe’s parmas are like that. Consistently good, not surprising but not disappointing. Sure the loaded toppings add a bit of variety but when you order a parma at the Globe you don’t have to worry that it’s not gonna be satisfying. Plus its a great place to watch the footy.

Parma - 7.17

Chips -  7.33

Salad - 6.17

Value - 7.33

Total -  7.03

The search continues...

#386 - 'The Royal Hotel'

Where - 873 Mt. Alexander Rd, Essendon

Price - $25

Website - https://www.royalhotelessendon.com.au

Reviewers – Lee, Nikki, Shanan & Ivy

Full disclosure - We had not planned to visit the Royal last night.

All week we had intended to visit a nearby restaurant that we had heard was slinging a killer parma, however when I called to book a table yesterday afternoon I found out that the parma had (sadly) been taken off the menu, and we had to switch to a backup location - The next closest spot was the Royal Hotel.

Now I know the Royal doesn’t have the greatest reputation, but it has been over eight years since we first dropped in for a review, so I figured a revisit was definitely due.

Sadly, the “Parma, Pot & Punt” deal of 2011 was no more (and I say “sadly” without a hint of sarcasm, that was one of the most unique parma night specials we have ever come across). We did the public bar the first time so I figured we might as well switch it up this week and grab a table in the bistro.

I was shocked at how busy The Royal was. 7pm on a Thursday night and we were struggling to get a table, as the place was pumping. We found a spot and checked the menu…

Fun fact - When the Royal first reopened back in the late 90’s it was as an AYCES all you can eat smorgasboard. My sister worked there both as wait staff and in the kids play area as a clown painting faces on the kids. I heard some true horror stories about the shit that went on with their food that turned me off buffet restaurants for a very long time…

Anyway, on to the beers!

While waiting for the rest of the group to arrive I had a chance to peruse the tap list in the front bar. All the usual suspects were there - Carlton, Furphy, 150 Lashes etc - I was surprised to find that they also had Stone & Wood on tap. A bit of a sidebar but I was at Skyways Airport West (another ALH pub) recently and they were also celebrating the addition of Stone & Wood to their lineup - Could it be that ALH has struck a deal with Stone & Wood? If true that might make their pubs that little bit more tolerable.

We started the meal with some cheesy garlic bread as an entree that was actually damn delicious, super garlicy and the reason my coworkers are keeping their conversations with me short today - But its hard to fuck up cheesy garlic bread, so the true test would be the parma that arrived 10 minutes later..

The Royal Hotel, 2011

The Royal Hotel, 2019

The first thing that struck me was the sheer amount of chips of the plate when the parma hit the table. Truly a gargantuan serving, but we’ll get to those in a minute.

The schnitzel was covered in so much cheese that I couldn’t see any chicken. Most of the parmas at the table were browned nicely but mine was the least photogenic of the bunch. We tucked in.

Once I found the schnitzel I discovered it was pretty good - Real chicken breast for a start. It was a little bit over-crumbed but not criminally so, there was so much topping on top that all semblance of crunch was gone from the crumbs. But the chicken was juicy and thick enough… I didn’t have high hopes for the Royal’s parma but this was actually a relatively decent base for the dish.

There were a lot of toppings on this parma. Cheese and napoli in spades. However it all tasted rather pre-made. The napoli tasted like straight up jarred pasta sauce. There was a slice of ham but it didn’t carry a whole lot of flavour. The cheese blend was surprisingly good - I like a cheddar-heavy blend to my parmas, it reminds me of the old Prince of Wales parma cheese blend, and the Royal’s cheese was definitely on that track.

As I mentioned before there were a lot of chips with our parma, and they were actually pretty good! They were your basic beer battered plank chips but they were served hot, well seasoned and there was a metric crapload of them. What more could you want? (actually a dipping sauce would have been lovely).

I didn’t enjoy my salad, purely because they forgot to put any dressing on it. Dry leaves, dry carrot, dry tomato, dry onion (and I found a single olive under my parma that I can only assume was supposed to be part of the salad) The other reviewers around the table however didn’t have their dressing forgotten and reported back pretty positively on it! A mistake no doubt, but still a bit annoying.

“Chips were good, a lot of toppings on the parma - almost too much. Cheesy garlic bread was great though!”

— Nikki

I think $25 for the parma we received is a bit on the pricey side to be honest. I’d call this a $20 parma, $22 max. I can’t see any specific “parma nights” advertised anymore, however Wednesday night is “$10 off all main meals” night, so surely the parma falls into that category.

The parma at the Royal is definitely better than I was expecting, but going in my expectations weren’t very high. It’s definitely one of the nicer meals I’ve had from an ALH pub, but its still an ALH pub. It has improved since 2011 and served its purpose as a last minute backup when our other plans fell through, but I won’t be quick to hurry back.

Parma - 6.50

Chips - 8.00

Salad - 6.00

Value - 6.5

Total -  6.70

The search continues...

Cooking with ParmaDaze #6 - 'The PGC Chicken Parm'

It has been a hot minute since we have done a Cooking with ParmaDaze. Other than the low point that was the incident with the dog biscuits from 2017 we haven’t done a proper “parma recipe” segment since the great Tater tot & bacon creation of 2014, and while that one will definitely be hard to top, recent events have inspired me to dust off the old apron and once again get busy in the kitchen.

Why are we cooking today? Well recently an American YouTube channel known as Pretty Good Cooking posted a video recipe on how to make a chicken parma, or “Chicken Parmesan” as they call it, and they were nice enough to give ParmaDaze a shoutout and credit in the review. Check it out below -

It’s not like we are strangers to the American style parm. Over the years ( 2010, 2012, 2013 & 2016) we have hopped across the Pacific Ocean to sample what they have on offer. They’ve always been fine, but I’ve yet to have one that has knocked it out of the park, Phil’s claim of the “best ever” chicken parm definitely piqued my curiosity.

So in an unprecedented display of cross promotion I decided to fire up the stove and see if I can recreate the “best ever” American style chicken parmesan, and see just how well it holds up compared to an Aussie Parma.

Just a warning, “Cooking with ParmaDaze” posts are very photo heavy compared to regular reviews, so prepare your eyes for a slideshow of images with not a whole lot of text in between. Here we go.

My best approximation of the ingredients listed in the recipe. With the exception of the milk (I bought milk thinking I needed milk then realised later that I didn’t actually need milk) this is everything needed to create the PGC Parm. Check the description of the video if you would like a full list of ingredients.

First things first- Turn on the oven. Around 220 degrees C should be fine, get it good and preheated while we prep everything else.

Next up is the napoli sauce. The Americans call it “Marinara sauce” despite a very obvious lack of any sort of seafood.

First up we roughly chop and cook a few cloves of fresh garlic. Pro-tip, if you ever want to seem like you’re a good cook this is all you need to do. Just have some garlic frying in olive oil when your significant other gets home from work and you will get showered with praise along the lines of “oooo that smells good!” with almost zero effort. Then you swap it out with pasta you ordered from Uber Eats (you could even get away with McDonalds if your SO hasn’t got great attention to detail).

Next up is the tomatoes…

As the recipe video states I used two cans of whole, peeled tomatoes and crushed them by hand in the bowl. Now the napoli is one of my favourite parts of the end result of this dish (spoilers) so I’m gonna say that hand crushing the whole tomatoes is a very important step in the process.

The garlic is done browning at this stage, so into the pot the tomatoes go…

… along with some tomato paste, a basil leaf some brown sugar and a decent whack of dried chilli flakes. In place of oregano I used a pinch of Masterfoods “spaghetti bolognese herbs” that I had left over in the pantry but feel free to use whatever you’d like (within reason, don’t go replacing oregano with marshmallows or anything).

Now that the sauce is bubbling away (you can put it on a low heat on a back burner for now, let all that tomatoey goodness stew for a bit while you’re getting everything else ready) lets get started on the chicken.

Now I’m not sure what kind’ve giant mutant freak-chickens they’re breeding in the States but the chicken breasts Phil uses in the video are freaking huge. Ours aren’t nearly as big and normally I would hammer them out a little as to not be wasteful, but in the interests of authenticity and adherence to the recipe I’m cutting the chicken the same way Phil does in the video - Basically slicing diagonally across the tenderloin then butterflying the thick breast into two smaller chicken “steaks” (its hard to describe. Watch the video if that’s not clear).

This method is a bit wasteful as the lower half of the cut is too small to use as a schnitzel with these smaller breasts, but I put that aside and made it into a chicken curry the following night. Waste not want not.

Chicken is done, let’s set up our crumbing station.

In place of the “italian” crumbs I spotted this bag of Masterfoods pre-herbed crumbs designed specifically for schnitzels. Seemed like a decent substitution.

Into a bowl with about half of the bag of panko crumbs, dried parsley and some grated parmesan cheese. Give it a good mix then tip it out onto a plate along with a plate of plain flour and a bowl containing a couple of eggs that you’ve whisked up with a fork and you’ve got yourself…

… one kickass looking crumbing station!

Pretty self explanatory what you have to do here, no? Get a bit of chicken, roll it in the flour, then into the egg wash, then into the crumbs. In my reckless youth I would have sworn that you need to double-dip the chicken through the egg wash and crumbs, but I’m older and wiser now, one trip through the crumbs is all you need even though it may not look it.

Once you’ve crumbed your schnitzel its time to cook these suckers. Heat up a little olive oil in a frypan and chuck them on, 4-5 minutes on each side, watching carefully that they don’t burn.

this isn’t the final cook the chicken will have so don’t get too stressed about making sure they’re cooked all the way through at this stage. Depending on how much chicken you’ve got you may need to cook a few batches.

Now as we are doing an American style “parm” as opposed to an Aussie parma we won’t be busting out the garden salad and McCain beer battered oven chips this time around. It’s time to start working on our spaghetti. Nothing too serious yet, just grab a pot, fill it with enough water to cook the amount of spaghetti you will need, season with a bit of salt and get it on the boil. Not using it just yet, but will need it soon.

The above photo isn’t at all necessary, but I worked for like 45 minutes scrubbing that stove top so it was camera ready and I’ll be damned if that goes unacknowledged.

As your schnitzels are done line them up on a baking tray. I used non stick baking paper for ease of picking them up later, but whatever floats your boat.

Hopefully your napoli sauce has been quietly simmering away on the back burner with the occasional stir. Grab that off the heat and spoon it out onto the schnitzels, no hard and fast rule on how much to use for each piece - listen to your heart.

That looks about right!

Next up is the mozzarella. I have a photo here of sliced mozzarella on the cutting board but we have been going a bit nuts on the photos this review. You guys know what sliced mozzarella looks like yeah?

Get your sliced mozzarella and do your best to give the schnitzels some good coverage…

… followed by a healthy sprinkle of grated parmesan on each, then whack the whole tray in the oven and set a timer for 20 minutes.

While the parmas are cooking its time to get started on the spag. Hopefully your salted water is merrily boiling away at this point, chuck in your spaghetti and let it cook until soft.

Now at this point I’m going to reveal something, dear reader, it’s going to be hard to hear but if we are both strong and stick together I think we can get through this.

This is the point where I made a mistake.

I know, I know, I’m sorry. I’m more disappointed in myself than you could possibly be.

Basically after I was done cooking the schnitzels I left the frying pan on the heat and forgot about it for a little too long, which meant all of the lovely oils and schnitzel bits that were supposed to imbue the spaghetti sauce with flavour turned to charcoal. It didn’t ruin anything, and I did my best to scrape out the majority of it, but it is visible in the sauce.

So next step is to get your totally not burnt pan, melt up some butter and stir in the full container of cream

What do you mean burnt?! That’s just … uhh… cracked pepper! Yep. definitely cracked pepper.

Once the cream has started to heat up its time to stir in the main event. The parmesan cheese. I used two 100g packs of cheese which I think may have been bordering on too much for me, but I am not going to be the person to tell you to include less parmesan cheese in your life, so just listen to your heart.

We need to let it simmer and thicken up a fair bit. Grab a spoon and stir in the parmesan.

Pro tip - If you’ve got some sort of portable device capable of playing YouTube videos you can have it playing in the kitchen while you cook the recipe and it will help to reduce any monumental stuff ups!

So hopefully by this point the spaghetti is cooked and the sauce has thickened up to a pleasant sauce-y consistency. Strain your spaghetti, dump it straight into the sauce and give it a good stir.

If you’ve timed it well the schnitzels in the oven should be pretty much done by now!

Lets open her up and see how the parmas faired during their time in the hot box

If you’re anything like me this is the point where you think to yourself “holy shit … this actually looks good”

Everything is ready!

I grabbed a bowl, served up some spaghetti, picked my favourite two mini schnitzels and gingerly placed them atop the noodles, then topped with a little bit of dried parsley that I had left from the crumbing.

Holy crap that looks good.

After some glamour shots I tucked in. Australians tend to complain a lot about how difficult it is to eat a parma that has been stacked on top of chips - Let me tell you something, we’ve had it easy. Because eating a parma that has been stacked on top of spaghetti is a whole new ball game.

It’s difficult, but good lord it was tasty. I said it at the start of the review but that rustic homestyle napoli sauce was an absolute triumph. I thought the liberal use of chilli flakes would come back to haunt me but they only added a slight note of heat, nothing overpowering in the slightest. I can’t overstate how much I enjoyed the schnitzels.

The spaghetti was good, super enjoyable, however it made the whole thing a very heavy meal that I honestly needed a nap after finishing. If I made it again (and I will definitely be making this again) I would sub out the spaghetti for a more traditional chips and salad but keep the parm exactly the way it is. I’d say it’s worth trying with the spaghetti at least once for the full experience, but it’s not the every-day meal that an Aussie parma so obviously is.

And there you have it! Big thanks to Phil and Pretty Good Cooking for the shoutout in your video - I hope we did your recipe justice. I can honestly say that this was the best chicken parm I’ve ever eaten, and I think this just might be the most successful “Cooking With ParmaDaze” we’ve ever done.

Hopefully this has made up for the dog biscuits.

The search continues…

#385 - 'The Prince Alfred Rooftop & Bar'

Where - 191 Grattan St. Carlton

Price - $24

Website - https://www.princealfred.com

Reviewers – Lee

Cast your mind back to March of 2018. The country was reeling from Steve Smith’s suspension in the ball tampering scandal, Qantas launched its first direct flight between Australia and London and Carlton’s Prince Alfred Hotel had just re-opened after extensive renovations.

We headed down as soon as we heard the doors were open, The place looked fantastic - I won’t re-hash everything about our first impressions of the new pub, you can read about them here.

But the long and short of it is that this is the parma we were served …

Yeah. Not so great.

It goes down in history as the first time a pub has insisted we take a refund for the parma that was delivered.

But they were new, new pubs have teething problems so I had always planned to go back to PA’s and give them another go once things had calmed down and they had found their feet.

Then a couple of weeks ago I saw this post on their Instagram feed…

Oh damn. That actually looks pretty good! The coleslaw looks more traditional, they’ve done away with the ugly smear of unknown sauce on the plate and best of all they’ve finished it off with a healthy topping of prosciutto! A little overdue but I guess its time to head back to Carlton, so last night that is exactly what we did.

Flying solo I stopped into the PA at about 6pm on Thursday. The place was much quieter than our first visit and it was great to see a much calmer vibe to the place. Everyone seemed less rushed, it was a much more casual, low pressure experience.

I grabbed the menu, eyed the target…

And placed an order at the bar.

Tap list is still respectable. A few varieties of 4 Pines, some Goose Island, Furphy and the Copper Carlton draught tanks all available. The 4 Pines Summer Ale is what I opted for in the end and to be honest it went down very well.

After about 15 minutes the parma arrived from the kitchen…

We will get to the most glaring omission in a moment, but first the schnitzel.

First positive is that they have ditched the sticky sauce the schnitzel was basted in first time around that ended up blackening it to the point of being burnt. It was real chicken breast, unfortunately the chicken itself was quite dry, I had to make liberal use of the lovely coleslaw to the side to help balance it out.

Now to the toppings. Where the hell is my prosciutto.

I thought I was taking crazy pills to the point where I got out my phone and checked the PA instagram account again to make sure I hadn’t accidentally gone to the wrong Prince Alfred. Nope. I peeled back the cheese in hopes it was hiding under there … nope. I double checked the menu on the table in case they had changed it up since the Instagram photo was taken, yet it was there in black and white. “prosciutto”. Where was my prosciutto.

I can only assume that they had run out? It looks like there was a private function winding up in the downstairs area so maybe they had a run on parmas, this shit happens, but to send my parma out without mention that a key selling point (a selling point that I paid for, by the way) is missing is just not on.

“Hey mate, I’m so sorry but we’re out of prosciutto for the parmas. I can knock a couple of bucks off the price or throw in a free pot to make up for it?”

That’s all they needed. Instead I got a very basic parma for $24. disappointing.

The napoli was fine, albeit a bit light. The cheese had good stretch and was well browned, but to be honest everything was soured by the lack of prosciutto.

In theory the chips were fine, however once I lifted the parma off them I realised just how small the serving was. Maybe 10 chips in total on the plate, They were hot and crispy and the staff member who dropped off the parma offered to grab some tomato sauce if I wanted it, which is always appreciated. Could have used a little seasoning too, but just as I was starting to enjoy them I was done. Not nearly enough chips

The “cabbage and fennel salad” was just plain coleslaw, I couldn’t detect any fennel at all so that is another promised element that didn’t appear on the plate … Lucky for PA I’m actually not a big fan of fennel, so the lack of it actually turned out to be a positive rather than a negative. What I ended up with was a basic but creamy coleslaw that (as I mentioned earlier) did well to balance out the dryness of the schnitzel. A quality side.

When it comes down to it I paid full price ($24) for a pretty basic parma. Had everything that had been promised on the menu been on the plate I would probably be singing its praises for the use of quality ingredients … But as it currently stands I feel pretty short changed. There is a $17 parma night on Tuesdays.

The parma at the Prince Alfred is definitely better than our first visit - If it had’ve come with the promised prosciutto it probably would have been an okay parma, but the lack of such a key ingredient without any explanation as to why was a bitter disappointment. I really like the Prince Alfred - The Location, the staff, the renovations, the general vibe of the pub are all fantastic (I had a jäger bomb there on my wedding day ffs). I want to give them a positive review but I just don’t know how many more chances I can give them.

Strike two.

Parma - 4.00

Chips - 4.50

Salad - 6.00

Value - 3.00

Total -  4.30

The search continues...

Crossing the Road #8 - 'Mamma's Parmas'

Where - 257 Keilor Rd. Essendon, but exclusive to Uber Eats.

Price - $24.90 all varieties. Chips & Salad $4 each extra.

Website - Facebook Page

I have a bit of an obsession with Uber Eats. Growing up in a time where the only food you could get delivered was pizza and … nope pretty much just pizza, the concept of having the ability to get any kind of cuisine one can think of delivered to my door is still a bit mind boggling, and chances are if I’m not out at the pub reviewing a parma I’m sitting on the couch in my trackie-dacks scrolling through the latest additions to Uber Eats (This review isn’t sponsored by Uber Eats or anything, I’m not that shrewd, I’m just really lazy).

For the newcomers, a “Crossing the Road” review is a special attempt where I sample what is on offer in the home delivered parma space, shining a light on parmas that might not normally get attention otherwise. We try not to do them too often, our most recent one was back in April, but when interesting places pop up I will definitely give them a try.

So I was doing my usual Uber Eats browsing when something caught my eye…

A parma restaurant? In my neighbourhood?! How did I let this slip by! So I looked up the address and things started to make a little more sense.

A weird phenomena has been happening with Uber Eats of late - Some cafe’s and restaurants seem to be living a double life, touting a different name and menu on Uber Eats than they do in the real world. I first noticed it when Moonee Pond’s Sir Duke cafe appeared on Uber Eats as Chick Chick, a fried chicken restaurant.

So looking up the address for Mamma’s Parmas revealed they were operating out of Mamma Lina’s, an Essendon cafe we reviewed back in 2016. Oddly enough Mamma Lina’s also has a concurrent Uber Eats listing as well, with much less of a focus on chicken parmas.

Anyway. That was a very roundabout way of getting to the point - Mamma Lina’s is going by “Mamma’s Parmas”, and has a pretty comprehensive novelty parma menu …

Now when I say “Parma Menu” I mean it because it is just that. No entree’s, no garlic bread, no drinks. Just parmas and nothing more. Each parma has the option to add chips and salad once you click into it, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

I had a decision to make! Now normally I would forgo novelty toppings and use the standard, traditional parma as a bit of a yardstick to which the other parmas are measured against … but take a look at the menu above - Which one would you consider the “traditional” parma?

The Bolognese parma? Nah because the picture has it covered in spaghetti. The Italian parma sounds the same as the bolognese parma so thats also out. The “bruschetta” parma is probably the closest to a traditional parma, just napoli sauce and cheese but I was really craving some pork on my parma tonight. I was leaning towards the Aussie parma as it was the only one with the combo of napoli, bacon and cheese but the egg wasn’t doing much for me … So I took a leap and went with the Smoky BBQ Parma.

All of the parmas are $24.90, each side (chips or salad) bumps the price up $4, so if you feel like the whole shebang Mamma’s Parmas clock in at $32.90 plus delivery.

So I placed the order and 20 minutes later a package arrived at my door. Regular readers will know that “Crossing the Road” reviews are quite photo heavy, so lets get to it…

Unpacked it looks a little like this…

Hmmm. Not the most photogenic parma that’s for sure, but even the ugly duckling turned into a beautiful swan, so let’s plate this bad boy up and see what we’ve got.

Okay … That looks a little better. Not great, but better. I grabbed some cutlery and tucked in.

If you’re running a parma restaurant you would think that one of your highest priorities would be a top quality chicken to work as a base for the toppings above. A lot of novelty topping parma restaurants can fall into the trap of using the toppings as a crutch to hide a lower quality schnitzel underneath, but the best of the best know that novelty toppings work best in addition to a good quality schnitzel, not instead of.

The schnitzel at Mamma’s parmas was a little disappointing. It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve had, a step above a supermarket deli window style schnitzel - However it was quite thin, dry and rather thickly crumbed as you can see from the cross section below…

I will give credit to the novelty toppings as they definitely did their part to save this parma. The bacon was thickly cut and liberally applied. I find barbecue sauce is routinely over-applied when it is better when it is only lightly applied as not to be overpowering, and Mamma’s Smoky BBQ parma had just the right amount of BBQ sauce for me.

Some more cheese would have been lovely. I don’t know where all of my cheese went but I would have much preferred a heavier serving on cheese on top of the bacon. If I couldn’t see the bacon I’d be happy.

Chips are hard to judge fairly when it comes to delivery parmas, as so much of their quality is determined by how they are handled by the driver. The Mamma’s chips were fine, a little bit cold but you can’t fault them for that. A bit of seasoning wouldn’t go astray but otherwise they worked well.

The garden salad was actually pretty great. Everything was fresh & crisp and the inclusion of olives and a garlic-heavy (almost home-made feeling) dressing really brought it all together.

If the entire Mamma’s Parma was just $24.90 I would be singing its praises, but stinging an extra $8 for chips and salad is a bit too rich for my blood. With delivery my order came to $36.89, and that’s just for the parma, chips & salad - No drinks or sides. Cut $10 off that and I would be chuffed, but at its current price point I just don’t think the value is there and won’t be hurrying back.

I really like the look of the menu at Mamma’s Parmas. They’ve got some interesting takes on novelty toppings that I would be keen to give a crack if they dialled up the quality of the chicken a little bit. Hell if they put those toppings on a top quality schnitzel I would happily swallow the inflated price.

It has potential, was definitely better than our 2016 visit to Mamma Lina’s … Will be keeping an eye on it.

The search continues...

#384 - 'Bob's @ The Albion Charles Hotel'

Where - 2 Charles St. Northcote

Price - $17.50

Website - https://www.albioncharles.com.au/

Reviewers – Lee, Nikki & Stefo

Well I didn’t think it was possible, but we actually did it. We found another pub in Melbourne with “Albion” in its name. After the Hotel Albion, The Albion Hotel, The Albion and Albion Pizza you would think we would have exhausted Melbourne’s supply of Albion’s, However a new challenger has entered the ring … The Albion Charles Hotel.

“New” is a bit of a misnomer as the Albion Charles has been around for a while - However for the longest time they had outsourced their kitchen to “Burger Edge” slinging a wide variety of burgers but, sadly, no parmas on the menu.

Until recently - Burger Edge has gotten the arse and a new mob has moved into the Albion Charles’ kitchen space - “Bob’s Diner”. They still do burgers, but they have added a few more treats to the menu, including a parma, so as soon as I found out we headed out to see what’s what at the Albion Charles.

Also, for the curious, the word “Albion” is an ancient name for the island of Great Britain. The more you know.

The first thing that struck me about the Albion Charles is how spacious it is. The main bar/TAB is huge. offering standing room for hundreds on a busy night (there were about 8 people, including us, in the bar on the night we reviewed so that might have added to the feeling of space). Sports are definitely a priority at the Albion, with two large projector screens displaying the action along with a few more large flatscreens showing the races for good measure. Bob’s Diner (pictured above) is attached to the pub through a door at the back, it is very much its own space, however you can still order from the menu at Bob’s direct from the bar at the Albion.

We ordered at the bar, grabbed our little buzzer thing, took a seat and kicked back with a beer. If you feel like killing the time with some arcade games the Albion Charles has got you covered with both Big Buck Hunter and original Daytona USA.

Tap list is nothing special. Draught, VB, Great Northern and it seems that Pirate Life was recently added as there was a lot of advertising floating around encouraging patrons to give it a try … which we did.

About half a pint after ordering our buzzer buzzed and we went through to Bob’s to collect our parmas…

I was actually surprised at the quality of the chicken. The schnitzel was big enough to satisfy most stomachs while remaining plump and juicy. It was served piping hot and I was impressed at how crunchy the crumbs remained throughout the dish. A little inconsistent with thickness - Plump up one end thinning out a little to the other. The plump-side was fantastic but the thinner end got lost a little to the crumbing.

All up a surprisingly solid foundation for a parma.

The toppings for the Albion Charles parma is where things started to fall apart and the true nature of this parma was revealed.

Nothing was bad, however nothing tasted home made. The napoli sauce had zero chunks and felt more like a pasta sauce with a very strong capsicum taste. The ham was present, but flavourless and the cheese was fine, but also didn’t add much. Every element of the toppings tasted like it was pulled straight from a tin or a packet, giving the whole parma a strong “fast food” vibe.

It might just be because I had Hungry Jacks for lunch the day of the review, but the Albion Charles chips really reminded me of the “new and improved” chips that HJ’s have been pumping out lately. Thicker than a McDonalds chips but thinner than a Fish & Chip shop chip (probably closer to a KFC chip in thickness). The chippies at the Albion Charles were well seasoned, but unlike the parma they were served a little colder than I would like, as if they had been sitting in the kitchen for a bit before getting chucked on the parma. Could have been great had they been served hot, but otherwise fine.

The coleslaw was basic and definitely store bought like the toppings, but it complimented the parma well. After 10 years of reviewing parmas I am well and truly over boring garden salads, so I am a little biased - But the coleslaw was creamy, flavoursome and worked well when combined with the schnitzel.

“There’s nothing really amazing about this parma, but it was quite simple a cheap parma done well”

— Stefo

“It was fine. I’m not big on capsicum so the flavour through the napoli was off putting. Chicken was good quality & Decent for the price!”

— Nikki

The price of the Albion Charles parma is what really saves it. Parmas under twenty bucks are few and far between these days, so finding a relatively palatable parma for $17.50 is definitely cause for celebration, and if you are still on the fence the AC offers a Wednesday parma night for just ten dollars - Amazing value if it maintains the same size/quality as the regular parma.

The Albion Charles parma reminds me of a Quarter Pounder from McDonalds. Sure there are better, more expensive burgers out there, but there remains a place for a cheap, dirty, no frills feed and that is the niche the Albion Charles parma is filling. If it had’ve been more expensive this would be a much harsher review, but for $17.50 (only ten bucks on Wednesdays) it’s hard to complain too much. Its hot, it was well put together, it filled a hole without breaking the bank.

I wouldn’t travel for it, but good to know it’s there.

Parma - 6.50

Chips - 6.33

Salad - 6.83

Value - 8.67

Total -  6.97

The search continues...

#383 - 'Holgate Brewhouse'

Where - 79 High St. Woodend

Price - $27. Extra $2 for garlic aioli

Website - https://holgatebrewhouse.com

Reviewers – Lee & Nikki

When I think about the parmas of my childhood one parma sticks out in particular. I would have been about 12 or 13, coming back from a weekend at Daylesford with my parents we decided to stop in at the Keating Hotel in Woodend for a Sunday lunch. I ordered the parma, we got our meals and I tucked in to discover a horribly burnt schnitzel with a bright pink, completely raw centre. I thought I was going to die from eating raw chicken and I’m pretty sure I cried. It was not a fun time.

I’m in my mid 30’s now and still think about that horrible parma to this day, and subconsciously its probably the reason I have devoted my life to ridding the world of shitty parmas.

I knew the Holgate Brewhouse had been in Woodend for a while now, but I never made the connection that the Holgate building was, in fact, the old Keating Hotel until I was chatting with my parents recently and they brought up how horrible that parma was (I must have caused a scene for them to remember).

I had heard good things about the Holgate parma in the past and this past Sunday I found myself with nothing to do for the day, so we took a drive out to Woodend to check out the Holgate Brewhouse!

Arriving at the Holgate Brewhouse I was amazed at how much it doesn’t feel like a brewery. It’s got the vibe of an old school country pub. A country pub currently running a Holgate tap take-over maybe, but just a country pub none the less. I was expecting more wank, but what I found was a down to earth, cosy spot to grab a beer and a feed.

It was about noon on Sunday when we arrived and the pub was filling fast. The dining rooms were already packed so we managed to snag a table in the front bar and check the menu…

$27 for the parma and $2 if you want some aioli to dip your chips, of course we chipped in the extra for the aioli, what sane person wouldn’t, bringing our total for the parma up to $29 each.

I’m sure it will come as no surprise that the Holgate Brewhouse has one or two Holgate beers on tap at the bar. Rather than make a decision on which to try we decided to go for a tasting paddle instead…

From what the supplied “beer guide” told me the tasting paddle covers 8 of the 13 beers available (If I remember correctly). Personal highlights would be the Mt. Macedon Pale Ale and the Hop Tart Sour. Highly recommended.

No more than 10 minutes after placing our orders (I remember because I was only 2 beers into the paddle) our parmas arrived from the kitchen…

So as I said the Holgate Brewhouse gets super busy on weekends, and where we were seated by the bar we could hear what pretty much everyone was ordering - And pretty much everyone around was on the parma. Our parmas arrived in less than 10 minutes and the schnitzel was … I’m not gonna say cold, but It was definitely not piping hot, leading me to believe that Holgate are pre-prepping their parmas during busy periods such as the weekend lunch shift.

Other than the temperature it was a great quality piece of chicken. The crumbs were crunchy, everything seemed to be of the highest quality - Now I will warn you that when the menu says that this parma is “Kiev Cut”, other than being thick and un-flattened like you would expect a chicken kiev, this is a bone in parma, something we have come across fairly recently. I’m not gonna pass too much judgement on bone-in parmas. Personally I’m not a big fan, but to each their own.

The toppings were pretty great. The ham was super flavoursome and laid on thick and the napoli was rich & chunky, very rustic with an almost home-made feel. The cheese was probably the weakest of the trio. It started out fine but didn’t have a great half-life, Going a bit hard and rubbery when I was only halfway through the parma.

If it weren’t for the delicious garlic aioli the chips would have been a let down. They were unseasoned and, like the parma, seemed a little bit old. Luckily the $2 worth of aioli worked as a fantastic chip dip which I would highly recommend you fork out the extra cash for should you find yourself at the Holgate Brewhouse.

The salad was fine. Mostly mixed greens generously tossed in a creamy dressing. Worked well as a palate cleanser. Nothing too showy but not bad at all. I don’t have a whole lot to say about it to be honest!

“Nice crunchy crumbs and rich, flavoursome napoli, however it was served a little cold and I’m not big on bone-in parmas”

— Nikki

Value is a tough one this week! I’m not in love with the Holgate parma however I can see that it was prepared with a focus on quality ingredients in mind. With a few minor tweaks at the production end could be fantastic. $29 with aioli is quite pricey - If the aioli was included in the original price tag I would be much happier forking out $27 for what we received but as it stands I think this one falls just on the wrong side of the value proposition for me. No special parma nights on the books that I am aware of!

Compared to the life-alteringly bad parma I had in the same pub as a teen the Holgate Brewhouse parma is streets ahead. If you feel like a Sunday drive a day trip to Woodend and a visit to Holgate is a great way to kill an afternoon. The parma uses high quality ingredients, and if you don’t mind a bone in your parma this is definitely one to try, The sides could use a little love and I’d rather wait for a fresh parma than get a pre-cooked one quickly, but there is a lot of potential for a great feed at Holgate.

Parma - 7.50

Chips - 6.50

Salad - 6.50

Value - 6.50

Total -  6.90

The search continues...

#382 - 'The Moonee Ponds Club'

Where - 622 Mount Alexander Rd. Moonee Ponds

Price - $22 Members, $24 Visitors

Website - https://www.mpclub.com.au

Reviewers – Lee, Nikki & Stefo

The Moonee Ponds club, in some form, has been around forever. We first tackled it back in 2012 when it was known as the North Suburban Sports Club (which you can read about Here). The parma wasn’t bad when we reviewed it seven years ago - it was fine, but forgettable.

So when word came down the grapevine that the North Suburban had had a name change, some renovations and a shake up to the kitchen staff I made a note to check it out.

Which brings us to this week. After a run of frozen parmas, rustic parmas and parma pizzas I was craving something traditional. I wanted a no frills, no fuss, quality feed - So when I was going over my list of recommended parmas The Moonee Ponds Club stuck out as somewhere that might be able to scratch that itch.

To quote myself from the review of the North Suburban “If you’ve ever been to an RSL, you’ve pretty much got the atmosphere of the North Suburban down. Pokies up the front, pool room to the side, restaurant up the back and a bar down the middle, complete with a club keno screen to finish everything off”. It always had a bit of a “footy club” vibe that didn’t seem to be connected to any particular club.

Walking in to the Moonee Ponds Club last night I was amazed how things have changed…

Gone is the footy club feel, this place actually feels like a real pub now. The bistro up the back has been completely re-done, with added fireplaces, lighting fixtures, exposed brick walls and large booths lining the room. They have added a lounge area with plump leather chairs along with some bookshelves with a decent selection of reading material - If I were a little bit more local I could definitely see this becoming a home away from home.

Rather than venture into the bistro we grabbed a table at the main bar and checked the menu for this week’s parma…

Now as you may have guessed, the Moonee Ponds Club is a “Club”, so from the beers to the food everything is priced for either Members or Visitors. As lowly visitors we were charged $24 for tonights parma, and on top of that we splashed out an extra $3 each for a side of gravy, bringing the total for our meals up to $27 a piece.

If you’re after a fancy selection of tap beers on your visit to the Club you’re going to be disappointed. Carlton, VB, Cascade and Great Northern was all that was available on tap at the time of reviewing - However I was surprised to see a relatively decent range of beers available in the fridge. Stone & Wood, Lord Nelson, Moo Brew, Feral and Kona Big Wave to name a few. Not a ground breaking selection by any means, but definitely more than I expected to find available at the local club.

As is tradition with reviews for places we have been before, first we will look at the 2012 North Suburban Club Parma…

Before tucking into the 2019 version…

What a change! First up they have switched from a thinly hammered schnitzel to this chonker, opting for thickness over size, which I am all for. The crumbs were crispy and other than the chicken being a little dry it was very well cooked - served piping hot and steaming.

The ham, like the chicken, was stacked thick. It didn’t carry a whole lot of flavour but at least they weren’t tight with it. Good coverage of cheese, a solid, flavourful blend that browned up very well (albeit a little oily).

The napoli was the contentious part of the dish. It was rich, thick and chunky how we like it, however it carried a sweetness that was hard to pin down - Until we found the fennel seeds. We have come across this before and it has never been well received. It didn’t ruin the dish, however the strong liquorice taste of the fennel was strong and definitely detracted from the other flavours of the dish. Some people might like it, I personally could do without it.

The chips were kept crispy in their own mini fry basket. A pretty generous serving size, they were well cooked but needed salt. I highly recommend getting a side of gravy for some chip-dippage as the flavoursome gravy definitely helped elevate these chips from “Just Okay” to “Yum!”.

The salad was fine. Nothing exceptional about it but at the same time I’ve got nothing negative to say about it either, just your standard garden salad. It did it’s job.

“Quality piece of chicken and served piping hot just how we like it. Was not a fan of the fennel in the napoli however the gravy was pretty good!”

— Nikki

“The Napoli on this one was rich and flavorsome. Chips were basic however nicely presented along with a basic garden salad. It wasn’t bad at all, but there is certainly room for improvement”

— Stefo

I’d gladly fork out another $24 for the parma we were served. Despite a few mis-steps it was an overall quality dish. If you are after a true bargain however, head down to the Moonee Ponds Club on a Tuesday night, when word has it they offer up both their traditional parma and a rotating novelty topped parma at a very tempting price..

The Moonee Ponds Club has had new life breathed into it. I love the new look and feel of the place, its a cosy spot with a real local pub vibe. I started this week craving a no frills, well done parma and that is exactly what I received. Definitely worth a visit if you are nearby.

Parma - 8.00

Chips - 6.33

Salad - 5.83

Value - 6.67

Total -  6.97

The search continues...

Special Attempt: Frozen Supermarket Parma Round-Up

So a couple of weeks ago when I visited Coles to try their Parma Pizza I mistakenly found myself in the frozen foods aisle, not realising the pizza was in the “fresh but cold” section of the supermarket (commonly known as a refrigerator). I noticed that there were two types of parma available at Coles, then a few days later while trying to find a cast iron skillet I had seen advertised at Aldi, I saw that they too have their own brand of frozen supermarket parma.

A plan formed in my head. A silly plan, but a plan none the less … Would I be able to try all three frozen parmas back to back and pick a winner to be crowned the best frozen parma available in Australian supermarkets?

You already know that’s exactly what is happening.

First up before you type your comments yes I am already aware that there are YouFoodz or LaManna parmas that are probably better - However they tend to also err on the side of refrigerated and not frozen, and yes meal delivery places like Lite n’ Easy also do a frozen parma - But they are not readily available to grab from a supermarket easily. So we’re sticking to frozen supermarket parmas for this Round-Up.

Although there were oven directions in most of these I used the microwave instructions an all of them to keep the playing field level. Three steamed parmas. At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localised entirely within my kitchen.

Alright. Let’s get to it.

On first bite into this parma one thought struck me - “Damn it’s going to be difficult to write full multi paragraph critiques on all of these”.

The “On The Menu” Chicken Parma (available from Coles & Woolworths, This one cost me $4.80) seemed like all the others, yet it is the only one of the three that advertises ham on top of the chicken, which probably makes it “purest” Aussie parma of the bunch (and possibly how it fell into the “Pub Favourites” category.

Now all three parmas were sided by frozen peas and carrots. I’m not going to waste any more time beyond this paragraph talking about the peas and carrots because … Well they're peas and carrots. You know what they taste like, they tasted identical across all three parmas and probably taste exactly the same anywhere you would encounter microwaved peas and carrots across the multiverse.

The On The Menu parma advertised “real chicken breast” and to be honest I was surprised at how much texture the chicken actually had. It felt like it could have, at one point, actually been attached to a chicken.

Now although there were only a few slivers of ham on the parma itself the On The Menu parma did carry a smokey ham flavour throughout. Handy, as the napoli was super watery and there was barely any of it.

In fact of all three this one was the most stingy on the toppings. The Napoli probably covered half of the chicken and I think at one point there may have been some cheese in the same room as this parma, but by the time it arrived in front of me it was all but gone.

I was a bit excited for the wedges, but it turns out steamed wedges aren’t really the same thing as properly cooked wedges. I’d complain more, but complaining that a microwaved meal is soggy is like complaining that water is wet.

On to number two!

Ahh McCain … You’ve done it again! (and we’ve done it before!).

The McCain parma has been around forever, as evidenced by this commercial from the ‘90’s..

And to be honest, the parma looks exactly the same today as it did then. Oh, and not to be a marketing shill or anything but that ad was the inspiration for our Chicken Pyjamas T-Shirt … Buy yours today! (Please someone buy one. I need to justify to my wife the cost of commissioning that artwork. Sales have been … Lets say “lower than projected”)

Also back in 2011 we spent an Australia Day party microwaving a large stack of McCain parmas for review. Now from that review I have always remembered the McCain parma as “not terrible”, however that opinion was formed after the consumption of many, many beers so I may not have been in the clearest state of mind to pass judgement.

I whacked it in the microwave and waited for parma #2 to be done.

The McCain parma, like the On the Menu parma, came from Coles, however at a hefty $6 this was the most expensive of the three, and to be honest it was the least authentic.

Gone was the semblance of chicken texture from the On The Menu parma, we’re in full giant chicken nugget territory here. The crumbs were thick and spongey and the chicken was relatively thin in comparison.

At least there was more napoli and cheese on this one, the increase in flavour for the toppings kind’ve making up for the quality drop in the chicken.

I’m no microwave scientist however I think the smaller cubed potatoes in lieu of the larger chunky wedges actually helped keep them crispier, the smaller surface area meaning they actually felt closer to the real roast spuds they were trying to mimic than the On The Menu parma did with the wedges.

The McCain time had a longer cook time than the other two by a full minute and a half, which I think worked in its favour as the dried out toppings caked to the bottom of the container actually turned into tasty little cheese chips, and the one or two potato cubes that had some cheese splashed on them were absolutely delightful (Yes, I’m aware at how silly that sentence sounds. The bar for “good” is so low right now that burnt toppings and cheesy potato cubes actually are a highlight)

Alright, let’s bring this train wreck home.

I have never felt sadder in my life than being a lone man waiting at the Aldi checkout with a single frozen off-brand chicken parmigiana slowly shuffling along the conveyer. It was like something out of a Darren Aronofsky film. I wonder what the guy at the cashier thought my life was.

The International Cuisine parma was $4.66, making this the cheapest of the bunch by a whole fourteen cents.

When I opened up the International Cuisine parma I was honestly shocked at how much it looked like the On The Menu parma, to the point where I checked the box and googled the manufacturer to see if they had any connection … I couldn’t find one, but other than the lack of ham on the International Cuisine parma they looked shockingly similar.

After 6 and a half minutes in the microwave parma #3 came out looking something like this…

As you can imagine by my third consecutive frozen parma I was getting a little bit full at this point, But I picked up the cutlery and dove in.

As suspected the “real” chicken texture from the On The Menu parma was back. I don’t know if it was parma induced stockholm syndrome setting in but I kind’ve enjoyed the International Cuisine parma. The crumbs were thinner and less spongey and the napoli sauce was more generously applied. Could have used some more cheese of course and I genuinely missed the ham wafts of the first one - But compared to the giant wet McNugget that was the McCain parma this one didn’t inspire active hostility as I ate it.

I wasn’t looking forward to the wedges, but I think these were a little better than the first lot, There were a few smaller chips that let me taste the seasoning a bit better. Other than the couple of bigger ones that were another sog-fest they were actually tastier. A bit of salt and they might have been bordering on enjoyable.

So how to wrap this up? Of the three I’d have to give the prize to Aldi’s International Cuisine parma. The chicken was the most flavoursome, it had decent topping coverage (The McCain one had better, but their schnitzel was garbage), and although I enjoyed the cube spuds from McCain’s one more I think the International Cuisine parma offers the best all-round package of the three. And it’s the cheapest! Can’t go wrong (well, I mean, you can. I wouldn’t call any of these good by any means).

Okay. It’s over. You can go now. The search continues or whatever… I need to lie down.

#381 - 'Robert Burns Hotel'

Where - 376 Smith Street. Collingwood.

Price - $24

Website - https://www.robertburnshotel.com.au

Reviewers – Lee & Nikki

As you could probably guess I spend a lot of time on social media looking at pictures of chicken parmas - On Instagram especially there are series of tags that I watch consistently, waiting patiently for the next big thing to appear.

So when this photo popped up on my feed…

Its safe to say my interest was piqued!

I didn’t know much about the Robert Burns, other than it being “that pub near the Birmy that doesn’t do a parma” … Or didn’t do a parma as far as I was aware. I guess I just needed to look a little more carefully.

Either way that looked looked like a quality dish - A little unusual, not what we would normally try, but a quality dish none the less. So last night we loaded up the parma bus and headed to Fitzroy.

I honestly didn’t know what to expect walking in to the Robbie Burns, but what we found was a pub dripping in old school charm. Walking in the door took me straight back to my childhood of counter meals in country pubs. Dimly lit, open fireplace, bistro out the back. The Robbie Burns has a fantastic old world vibe that you just don’t see often any more.

We grabbed a seat in prime position in front of the fireplace and checked the menu…

Now although the menu doesn’t state it the parma does come with chips, but we’ll cover that a bit later. We ordered our parmas at the bar and kicked back in front of the fire grooving along to the tunes of the in-house DJ. I was really digging the vibe of the Robert Burns and had my fingers firmly crossed that I wouldn’t have to give them a negative review once the parmas arrived.

As far as beers go the Robert Burns has got you covered. The rotating tap list offering breweries such as Hawkers, Sample, 4 Pines, Stone & Wood, Urban Alley, Young Henry’s, Grifter, 2 Birds Capital Rock and more, as well as an impressive range of tinnies in the fridge.

After about 20 minutes our parmas arrived from the kitchen…

I knew from the outset that we were not in for a traditional parma experience with our trip to the Robbie Burns, so I did my best to keep an open mind. One thing I did not notice from their instagram post was that this is a bone-in parma, our first bone-in parma in fact. I am not a fan of chicken on the bone in many circumstances so I wasn’t huge on this idea - However the bone was unintrusive, easy to cut around and overall didn’t detract from the dish as much as I thought it would.

Other than that this schnitzel was top notch. The unique toppings allowing the quality of the schnitzel to star. Well cooked, super crunchy and delicious.

I’m not a big fan of buffalo mozzarella at the best of times. I find it doesn’t really have much of a flavour at all, however I didn’t mind it at all on the Robbie Burns parma. The dusting of parmesan added some much needed bite. To be honest I could have used a little bit more napoli and prosciutto (I am a prosciutto fiend though, they could stack it a foot high and I wouldn’t be satisfied) but overall it was a super tasty dish.

Anyone who reads ParmaDaze with any sort of regularity will know that I am not a fan of shoestring, or “Maccas” fries. I think that a parma belongs beside a chunky chip and any parma we’ve had with shoestring fries has ultimately let the dish down in the long run.

Well I’ll be damned if we haven’t just found the exception to the rule, as the bowl of hand-cut shoestring fries accompanying the Robert Burns parma were some of the best I’ve ever had. They were hot, they were well seasoned, they were bursting with flavour and most of all they had an outstanding crunch that I couldn’t get enough of. A serve of some sort of dipping sauce on the side and we’d be looking at a perfect 10 for chips, and that’s something I never thought I would say about shoestring fries.

Now so salad is included with the Robbie Burns parma, however they do have an extensive menu of sides on offer…

We opted to try the Simple Green Salad and the Creamy Mash, chuck them in the middle and call them the “salads” on which we would base our score (Sure mashed potatoes are a salad. If pasta salad can be a salad then runny potatoes can definitely be a salad too!)

And I’m glad I did as I’ll be damned if they weren’t the best mashed potatoes I’ve ever bloody had. I’m sure they were absolutely horrible for me, filled with cream, garlic and butter, but god damn they were good. If you venture to the Robbie Burns for the parma you need to treat yo’self and get a side of creamy mash, you won’t regret it.

When they put the “Simple” in “simple green salad” they weren’t lying. Lettuce leaves tossed in oil is about as simple as it gets. It was fine, a good palate cleanser, but definitely not $7 worth of leaves.

“I wasn’t a huge fan of the bone and it could have used a bit more napoli, but overall it was a unique & tasty parma in a cool, cosy pub. Definitely recommend! ”

— Nikki

Value on this one is a tough one to gauge. $24 is a pricey parma but there’s no doubt they used high quality ingredients which sort of justifies the price - However if you want more than fries and start adding on sides the price can shoot up pretty quickly. I was happy with the price of pretty much everything, with the exception of the simple green salad. No parma nights on the books that I can see, however there are a few happy hours you can keep a look out for!

Update! Robert bUrns have just anNounced a $20 parma & pot special on wednesdays. Definitely a bargain.

The Robert Burns Hotel is literally 150 metres from the Birmingham, our current highest rated parma of all time therefore anything the Robbie Burns put up would undoubtedly be compared to the Birmy, so the fact that they did something wholly unique with their parma makes me happy.

I really enjoyed our whole experience at the Robert Burns. The food was great, the atmosphere was fantastic, the beers were quality and even the staff were super friendly, chatty and welcoming. If you’re getting tired of the same old parmas and feel like trying something different, rustic, yet still super high quality then I definitely recommend giving the Robbie Burns a crack.

Parma - 8.35

Chips - 9.00

Salad - 7.50

Value - 6.75

Total -  7.99

The search continues...

Special Attempt: The Coles Chicken Parma Pizza

The great Mel Brooks once said “Sex is like pizza. Even if it's done bad, it's still pretty good."

In case you missed it the internet was abuzz last week with news of the new Coles Chicken Parma Pizza, News.com.au, Triple M, Pedestrian.TV, Nova 100, LADbible and MediaNet all ran stories on the release, and that’s just the first page of Google results for “Coles Chicken Parma Pizza”. The ParmaDaze social media pages were flooded with links and tags. Everyone wanting to know more. It couldn’t possibly be any good… could it?

First up, a bit of history. The first “Parma Pizza” we ever came across was during a road trip to our 200th review back in 2014. On the way to the Shamrock Hotel in Echuca we stopped at the fantastic Tooborac Hotel and stumbled upon their version of the parma pizza, and to be honest it was glorious…

Things went quiet for a few years on the parma pizza front after that. Then in 2018 our friends at the Imperial Hotel decided to change the game up and launched their version of a Parma Pizza (which I still call a Pizza-Parma because that makes more sense). That used a flattened out schnitzel as a base to the toppings above.

We did a video review on the Impy’s Pizza Parma, which you can watch here…

So as you can imagine, the pressure was on. This week I headed down to Coles to try and source a Parma Pizza.

My first stop (and first mistake) was the freezer section. I wrongly assumed the Coles Parma Pizza was a frozen deal so naturally I went to the frozen pizza section but to my dismay the Parma Pizza was nowhere to be found.

After a little more wandering I came across a staff member frantically restocking the shelves in the fridge section. Kind’ve where you’d find the bags of cheese, garlic bread and Latina fresh pasta.

These things must be going fast as he only seemed to be restocking the Parma Pizzas and not the other flavours. I milled around amongst the cream cheese until he moved on and grabbed my target for the evening.

Interesting to note that these are marked as “Limited Edition” yet at the speed they seem to be flying off the shelves I’m gonna hazard a guess that they will be around for a while.

I made it home, pizza in hand and put the oven on pre-heat. While I waited we had a bit of a photo-shoot.

“Make it a parma night!” I will, box, I will.

Out of the box, still in the plastic. This was a bit of a pain to remove without taking off half of the toppings with it, but with perseverance (and a pair of scissors) I managed to get it out.

Unwrapped and Unscensored! Subscribe to my Patreon for more link in bio.

A close up inspection of the toppings. Everything looks surprisingly fresh! Especially the ham, looks as if it was just carved. Could this actually be good?

After an exhaustive photoshoot it was time to go into the oven. The pizza comes on a little cardboard tray that the instructions say to leave under the pizza while cooking. Into the oven it goes.

Now we play the waiting game. The box recommends 15 minutes at 200 degrees in a fan forced oven, as its cooking from refrigerated and not frozen the cook time is much lower than I would have normally expected.

My timer for 15 minutes went off, I checked the oven and it looked, well, pretty much exactly like the picture above. I shut the oven, left it for another 3-5 minutes and checked again to find…

Other than a bit of a bend in the base it was looking pretty good. I think it was time to plate up this bad boy.

Remember about 10 years ago when everyone was gifting everyone else those bench-top electric pizza ovens? Well I had a pizza stone lying around from one of several of those that I have been gifted over the years, which actually came in handy for pretty much the first time ever…

Out of the oven it actually didn’t look terrible! The cheese was a little crispy on one side, I guess cooking a ready made pizza is a culinary art I have not yet mastered.

I sliced it up and tucked in, and it was … Okay? Acceptable?

Imagine you are eating the pizza pictured above, It tastes exactly how you are imagining it tastes.

As suspected the ham was super fresh and probably the best part of the pizza. It could have used a bit more cheese and more napoli sauce but that was otherwise fine.

As for the popcorn chicken I was actually impressed with how much they put on the pizza. For a $5 pizza I would have been wholly unsurprised if it had 3 pieces in the clear window on the front of the box and none anywhere else - But Coles has surprised me by actually being fairly liberal with their popcorn chicken, I don’t think a single slice went popcorn-less throughout the meal.

How did the popcorn taste? Also fine. I couldn’t really detect any of the southern spices touted on the box. A little bit doughy and over crumbed but not the worst popcorn chicken I’ve ever had.

The most flavour on the pizza actually came from the tomato chunks, which were actually surprisingly good and I could have had more of, while not being listed as an ingredient on the box.

Is it comparable to a parma? No. Is it comparable to a home delivered pizza? No.

Is it good as something to leave in the fridge and chuck in the oven when you get home from the pub at 2am? Maybe!

If it truly is a “Limited Edition” thing then I’d say there’s no harm in picking one up and giving it a crack while you can, worst case scenario you’re down five bucks and you’ll just have a bad pizza which, as they say, is still pretty good.

#380 - 'The St. Andrews Hotel'

Where - 128 Nicholson Street. Fitzroy

Price - $27.90

Website - https://www.standrewshotel.com.au

Reviewers – Lee & Nikki

First things first - We were advised by the (super friendly and attentive) staff of the St. Andrews as we ordered that a new menu was being introduced today. Literally a day after we ate this parma for review. I can’t find details on the new menu just yet but will update as soon as I know whether or not the parma made the cut.

The last few weeks of parma reviews have definitely been interesting here at ParmaDaze. We’ve had a Pizza place, a Parma Festival, A cafe, a food truck and another Pizza place in recent weeks, yet we haven’t had a good ol’ fashioned pub parma since our visit to the Oxford Scholar back at the start of May - And as interesting and unique as this last month of parmas has been, I was really craving a good old school parma at a pub.

So I did what I always do when I’m a bit stuck for ideas. Fired up Google Maps, typed in “pub” and just scrolled around. Hovering over Fitzroy something interesting caught my eye - A pub name I didn’t recognise. The St. Andrews Hotel.

I zoomed in and realised what was up. A pub we had visited in the past has changed its name. Fitzroy’s Pumphouse Hotel has rebranded itself as the St. Andrews Hotel.

I always liked the Pumphouse. You can read about our 2012 visit here. So was curious to see how things had changed. (I also noticed on the menu that they have recently won “Burger of the Year” at the 2018 AHA Vic State Awards for Excellence, so their pub grub can’t be all that bad. We loaded up the Parma Bus and headed to Fitzroy.

The interior of the pub hasn’t changed much since the Pumphouse days. It’s had a bit of a spruce-up but the core layout is still the same - and that’s not a bad thing. The St. Andrews is a warm, cosy pub that you would be happy to call your local.

We were tempted to grab a feed in the front bar, however the call of the cracking open fire in the dining area was too good to resist. We moved through, grabbed a table and checked the menu -

$27.90 is pricey for a parma … St. Andrews better be bringing their A game.

If on the very unlikely chance you aren’t feeling like a parma when you visit the St. Andrews it’s worth noting that the rest of the menu is quite unique, with a large focus on game meats. Venison steaks & buffalo burgers both sounded super tempting, but we were there for a reason and placed the order for our parmas.

The tap list at St. Andrews is fine, Carlton, 4 Pines, Fat Yak, Good Island, Stella Artois, McCracken’s Amber Ale along with a rotating tap. It’s not the craftiest of selections and may leave some people wanting, but should do the job.

I grabbed a pint and waited for our parmas to arrive. After reviewing close to 300 parmas in Melbourne I think its safe to say the average time to put one together and get it to the table is about 20 minutes, give or take. We were the only customers in the dining area at the time we ordered so you would think 20 minutes would be about right.

20 minutes came, and 20 minutes passed. At the half hour mark I started to get concerned, and when 40 minutes ticked by since ordering and the staff, while checking if we needed more drinks, commented that “the food will be out soon” I was getting worried.

At about the 45 minute mark the parmas arrived at our table. As is tradition with visiting a pub we have visited in the past, lets first have a look at our visit to the Pumphouse before moving on to last night’s visit to St. Andrews..

The Pumphouse parma as of 2012 -

The St Andrews Hotel parma as of 2019 -

Well even though there was a wait I could not fault the schnitzel for being cold. This thing was burning hot, to the point that it needed significant cooling before being suitable to eat. Steam billowed out of the chicken breast with each cut - A definite good sign, nothing worse than a cold parma.

The chicken breast was top notch quality. Pure white, juicy, well cooked and (of course) hot chicken breast. The crumbing was sparingly applied and had the potential to be great had it been a little crispier, they were quite soggy and lacked any sort of crunch that you might be hoping for.

Now we get to the toppings, and let me tell you, this is where things get strange.

So as you can see in the photos, above the ham but below the cheese on the parma were some dark slivers. dotted all over the top, as if they had been grilled yet they remained below the layer of barely melted cheese. At first glance I thought St. Andrews were trying something unique, maybe they had dotted some sun dried tomatoes around the parma for a but of a rustic vibe.

However once I tucked in I realised they weren’t sun dried tomatoes. it was just more cheese. Crispy, hard, almost burnt flecks of cheese. Under a fresh layer of cheese.

Huh?

I looked to Reviewer Nik and she was not impressed. She had gotten it worse than I, rather than flecks of darkness she had an entire layer of bunt cheese with a fresh layer on it. Then I remembered the 45 minute wait. A 45 minute wait for a veritably empty pub. Something had gone wrong in the kitchen.

Now this is purely speculation as I can’t be sure, but it definitely looks as if the parmas were done, got put under the grill to brown off the cheese, got forgotten about, burnt (as cheese tends to do) but rather than start fresh they’ve whacked a new layer of cheese on top and hoped we wouldn’t notice.

We did notice, and to be honest it took a lot away from the dish.

The ham was tasty, the napoli was fine (although mostly soaked into the crumbs) but the weird cheese kind’ve spoiled the dish for us. Very unfortunate as things had been great leading up to that point, and with the high calibre of ingredients used this definitely had potential to be a great feed.

The chips were basically what you would find at a fish & chip shop. Needed a bit of salt but otherwise fine. Served hot like the parma. Nothing to write home about but at the same time not bad in any way.

The salad was a simple, understated garden salad with cherry tomatoes, onion and cucumber. Fresh and crisp with a liberal dollop of dressing it did it’s job well. Not trying to hard but nailing the simple elements well.

“A parma with potential to be delicious, However I think there may have been a mishap in the kitchen. Wasn’t a huge fan of the Fish & Chip Shop chips either”

— Nikki

I struggle assigning a value rating at the best of times, but this is even harder. $27.90 is getting expensive for a parma, and while I can’t fault St. Andrews on the quality of ingredients used, what we were delivered was sub-par, and paying such a premium I don’t want hurried cover-ups in the kitchen after a mistake.

I was getting impatient after waiting 45 minutes for our meal, however I would rather wait longer and get a well produced parma than get what we received last night. All of the staff members we interacted with last night were great. Attentive and friendly, can’t fault them - If they had come up to us and explained that there was an issue and there would be a slight wait on our meals I would have been happy to kick back in front of the fire with a beer and wait for a well prepared parma to be delivered.

After all that I’d recommend visiting St. Andrews. Its a parma with potential and I’m willing to chalk our visit up to a rare hiccup in the kitchen. Its a great pub with a cosy atmosphere (great for the winter). The score below will reflect the parma that we received last night, however I will definitely consider dropping in again soon to see if what happened was a once off or a continuing issue. I may not be as forgiving a second time around.

Parma - 5.50

Chips - 6.00

Salad - 7.50

Value - 4.00

Total -  5.70

The search continues...

#379 - 'Old School Pizza'

Where - 14-20 Nicholson St. Coburg

Price - $21.90 with one side. Toppings extra (see menu grab below)

Website - https://oldschoolpizza.com.au

Reviewers – Lee & Nikki

I’m getting a bit of Deja Vu writing this review. Last month we visited Albion Pizza, a pizza place at the base of an apartment block next to an IGA Express with a pink neon slice of pizza as their logo. This week we visited Old School Pizza in Coburg, a pizza place at the base of an apartment block next to an IGA Express with a pink neon slice of pizza as their logo.

Old School Pizza seems to be a restaurant designed for the “influencer” crowd, serving up larger than life, insane food products that look just great in an instagram post. Stonegrill steaks, freak shakes, “donut snack packs” and their signature giant “jawbreaker” pizza slice (which I know technically not a slice as it is made that size, not cut from a larger pizza - Don’t @ me).

Day after day I would see new bizarre creations pop up on my Instagram feed from Old School Pizza, so when I found out that they also served up a parma I figured it was definitely an interesting one to check out, so last night we loaded up the parma bus and headed to Old School Pizza in Coburg.

While Albion Pizza was relatively empty when we arrived for the review, Old School was absolutely packed when we walked in the door to the point I was worried we wouldn’t get a table. We pushed our way through the throngs of take away customers, the dine in patrons and the deliveroo drivers to find a table and check the menu for our target…

A few choices to be made here. The standard parma comes with one side included (chips, salad or veg) with an extra costing another $4. Napoli or bolognese sauce is included with the price but Mexicana toppings will cost you $3 extra.

We placed our order, two parmas, one with napoli, one with bolognese and both with chips and salad.

Those feeling like an alcoholic beverage will be disappointed as Old School does not currently hold a liquor license. The glass bottles of Coke went down a treat though (doesn’t Coke just taste better out of a glass bottle?)

about 20 minutes after placing the order the parmas arrived from the kitchen.

First up the schnitzel is real, pure chicken breast. Not the biggest in circumference but thick enough to make up for it. The double crumbing was fantastic - Giving the parma a solid crunch that lasted throughout the entire meal. It was cooked to perfection and served piping hot. A wonderful foundation to the parma.

The toppings are where we stumble a little. Both the Napoli and bolognese were fine. They were there but in the scheme of things a little flavourless. The cheese melt was great. Plenty of cheese and grilled to a perfect gooey golden brown.

The Old School parma, like the Albion, did not have ham, a decision that baffles me.

Update: It has been brought to my attention that Old School Pizza is 100% Halal, hence the lack of ham. The Mexicana does come with Sujuk, which might be worth a try! (Always love a good Mexicana), which they were kind enough to send through a photo of…

The Mexicana at Old School Pizza 

All in all I really enjoyed the schnitzel, just wish the toppings had a little more kick! Maybe the Above Mexican is the one for me.

The serve of chips with the Old School parma was quite possibly the most generous serving of chips we have ever gotten with a dine-in parma. Absolutely massive, served piping hot and dusted with chicken salt. I regret not ordering a side of aioli to help them along but they were pretty great as they were. Could not get through them all as there were so many. Very well done.

The bowl of garden salad was fresh and crisp with the surprise addition of olives. seedless olives at that, I cannot stand when pubs leave the seeds in the olives they put in salads - Luckily Old School had the foresight to not leave tooth-cracking seeds in their salad. It was a fine salad, unless you aren’t a fan of olives, then you would probably be disappointed.

“The schnitzel was tasty and great quality however the toppings let this parma down a little. Could have definitely used a bit of ham to liven things up”

— Nikki

Value is a tough one to judge here. With chips and salad our parmas came to $25.50 each, which is a wholly acceptable price, however I’m not a huge fan of places that nickel-and-dime the sides the way that Old School does. The giant serve of chips was definitely $4 worth, however the bowl of salad, while tasty, was not $4 worth of salad. If the parma was just $25.50 it would have been easier to accept however charging for the items separately draws extra scrutiny on the value of each individual element. No special parma nights as far as I’m aware.

The parma at Old School doesn’t have the outrageous flair that their other items like the Jawbreaker Slice or the Donut Snack Packs have, and I think they could benefit from it. All up it was a decent parma with a massive serve of chips and a pretty good salad but it lacked that “wow” factor that would have really driven it home.

I wouldn’t go out of my way for it, but worth a visit (would be a great one for a delivery order) if you’re a local.

Parma - 6.75

Chips - 8.00

Salad - 7.00

Value - 6.25

Total -  6.95

The search continues...

Special Attempt: 'Parmarama @ The Ascot Lot'

Where - The Ascot Lot.

Price - 448-462 Mt. Alexander Road, Ascot Vale

Website - http://www.theascotlot.com

Reviewers – Eden, Grace, James, Lee, Nikki, Shanan & Tony,

A few weeks ago, while waiting in the queue for an Espresso Martini at the Ascot Lot, I noticed an ad flash up briefly on the TV screen over the bar. It simply said “Parmarama - 18th of May”.

At the time I didn’t think much of it, pickup up my mint chocolate Espresso Martini and went on my way.

What followed was the most intense social media barrage I have ever experienced. on Facebook, on Twitter, on Discord, Reddit, Instagram and even good old fashioned email I was getting drowned in tags, shares and @ mentions about the upcoming Ascot Lot parma festival. The press this event got was insane, parmas were a hot topic all over TV, the papers and the radio and everyone was keen on the upcoming Parmarama at the Ascot Lot.

I had a problem though, As Parmarama was on the same day as GABS - The Great Australian Beer Spectapular run every year at the Royal Exhibition Buildings, and I already had my ticket for Saturday the 18th.

I wasn’t planning on going to Parmarama, GABS was locked in and I haven’t missed a Saturday session in years. But as the pressure built I cracked and found a compromise. Like the little girl in the Old El Paso ad it hit me … “Why don’t we do both?”

This is a very long intro to say - Yes, we went to Parmarama, but we came straight from a 5 hour long beer festival, so the photos may be a little blurry and I apologise in advance for that.

We arrived shortly after 5pm and the place was packed, We grabbed some beers and started working our way through the available trucks.

First up we had “The Bearded Jaffle’ sandwich truck owned by Melbourne Footballer Max Gawn and his brothers. Their offering for the festival was “The Parma” a waffle filled with dorito crusted popcorn chicken, tomato relish, mozzarella and parmesan cheese and topped off with crispy ham. Sounds delicious? I thought so too!

Unfortunately we arrived just too late, and the Bearded Jaffle had sold out of “The Parma”. Bummer. I hope they keep the parma on the menu as that sounds damn delicious and I would be keen to track it down and give it another try.

Okay, moving on.

Next up we had “Parma Bites”, offering Popcorn Chicken parmas, We had missed out on the “beefy bolognese” style, but we managed to get an order in for the Traditional: Tempura popcorn chicken, mozzarella cheese, classic napoli, crispy bacon bits on a bed of fries. Oddly enough “parma bites” wasn’t that busy, so after a 15 minute wait our first feed of the evening was up.

Ever since KFC brought the concept to the country I have been a sucker for popcorn chicken (even though KFC’s popcorn chicken has turned to crap now), and this was a fun dish. The popcorn chicken balls were crunchy, full of flavour and actually had a surprisingly decent amount of chicken in them. The sauce was rich (could have been chunkier) and it could have been a bit heavier on the parmesan, but the bacon bits really helped a lot. For the first meal of the festival I was impressed. Definitely worth a try.

I’m gonna keep these reviews short as there is a fair few to get through… Next on the docket:

Next up we have “Just Like Nonna’s” serving up the “Italian Snack Pack”, advertised as “Chips loaded with homemade napoli sauce & mozzarella”.

Didn’t get a photo of this one, but to be honest it was probably the weakest of the bunch. It was basically loaded fries with tomato sauce and cheese. I can see what they were going for but I don’t think their offering really fit into the “Parmarama” theme.

Doing a little research it appears they were planning on offering a "Parma Burger” for the day, so I’m gonna chalk this one up to us being too late and missing the main event. A shame! I would have loved to try the parma burger.

Moving on!

“Burrito Bae” were offering up either a “Parma Burrito” or a “Parma Bowl”. Amazingly neither was sold out. I was tempted to go the parma bowl, but after two meals that were basically a parma-esque item stacked on top of chips I opted for the Parma Burrito…

This one was super quick, after 10 minutes I had my burrito in hand. I unwrapped the creation from its foil container and tucked in. Apologies for the upcoming half-eaten food photo but I really don’t know how one is supposed to photograph the inside of a burrito with out it looking at least a little gross.

This one was actually damn tasty. Definitely more burrito than parma with the addition of guacamole and sour cream, but there was an attempt. If they called it a “mexi-parma burrito” it would be much more accurate, as that is what the flavours were leaning towards, but it had chicken, cheese, tomato salsa and it was damn tasty. Would recommend.

Next we have the stars of the evening.

From the time we arrived until the time we left, Jake’s Kitchen were by far the most popular stand at ParmaRama 2019. The line was absolutely massive which unfortunately meant a long wait for the parmas

The queue didn’t get any shorter than this the entire time we were there.

They were absolutely slammed, but for good reason. I did a deep dive on the Jake’s Kitchen parma a few weeks ago which you can read about by clicking here. But basically these guys have cracked the code on how to present a portable parma. A sliced pure chicken breast atop a pile of chips coated in “Jake’s special paprika seasoning”. An absolute delightful meal. My photo from the night is quite horrible (many, many beers had at this point), so here’s a repost from the last time we tried it -

Finally, we have this guy…

Good ol’ fashion Mr. Whippy, slinging soft serve ice cream since the dawn of man.

“But ParmaDaze!” I hear you ask “How can Mr Whippy join in a parma festival? You can’t make a parma Ice Cream!”

Well, dear reader … You’re half right.

Mr Whippy’s ParmaRama item was “Mr Whippy with Chicken Crimpy” Aka soft serve ice cream topped with crushed chicken crimpy Shapes…

It was … Interesting. To be honest it tasted exactly how you are currently imagining it would taste.

It was fine, crunchy, I was definitely happier once I had eaten through all the shapes and just had delicious Mr. Whippy left.

I think the concept could have been tuned a little. Yes Arnotts Shapes come in chicken flavour, but they also come in cheese flavour, cheese and bacon flavour and lets not forget everyone’s favourite - pizza flavour. Rather than just sticking to the chicken I reckon a mix of chicken, cheese & bacon and pizza shapes would have really captured that parma vibe and been a worthy addition to ParmaRama.

But in the end it was ice cream covered in crushed biscuits. I don’t think anyone was taking it too seriously.

And that’s it! We did miss “The Pickle and The Patty”, the permanent burger-slinging structure that The Ascot Lot has on the other side of the carpark, but after all of the above food and a long day of drinking we were absolutely stuffed and needed to head home for a long nap.

I would call ParmaRama a success though, The Ascot Lot and all of the participating trucks did a fantastic job of bringing their version of a parma to life. Everyone got on board and had a lot of fun with it. Was an awesomely fun evening with some great food and I really hope they bring it back for another round, definitely recommended.

The search continues…

#378 - 'Sir Duke'

Where - 99 Puckle Street. Moonee Ponds

Price - $24 ($12 on Tuesdays)

Website - https://www.sirduke.com.au

Reviewers – Lee & Nikki

Puckle Street is a weird spot. For many years it kind’ve just existed. It was a long street of various shops yet there wasn’t really any reason to actually go to Puckle Street. It was a street of niche homewares shops, out of style fashion shops and florists. Other than hitting up Sims Sports to pick up the latest pair of Air Jordans Puckle street always felt like a bit of a limbo of nothingness.

However, with the boon of apartment buildings springing up all around Moonee Ponds, Puckle Street has undergone a bit of a rennaisance … a “Pucklesance” if you will, and a weird influx of eateries has started to take over. Don’t get me wrong, they are mostly burger joints or variations on burger joints, but an interesting cafe culture has also sprung up during the pucklesance… Which brings us to Sir Duke.

After a suggestion or two on social media Sir Duke landed squarely on our radar. It was a cafe, but they were open late, they served beers and seemed to be pretty keen on their parma - Offering not only a standard every day option but a $12 parma night on Tuesdays that looked pretty solid.

Convinced it was one to check out, last night we headed to Puckle St. to see what Sir Duke had to offer.

We grabbed a seat and checked the menu. As we weren’t in on a Tuesday unfortunately we missed parma night, but the standard parma was readily available…

We placed our order and eagerly awaited the arrival of our dinner.

As Sir Duke is more of a cafe/restaurant than a pub , there aren’t any beers on tap available in house. There are, however, a decent range of bottled beers to keep your thirst quenched. Thunder Road, Sun Cat, Boatrocker, Two Birds and Urban Alley to name a few, not the biggest range but should be enough to find something you like amongst what is available - The cocktail list is pretty impressive as well.

About 25 minutes after placing our order our parmas arrived from the kitchen…

The schnitzel was good quality. Big enough, thick enough, and good quality chicken. The pan fried crumbs had an amazingly strong crunch which lasted the entirety of the meal - As far as foundations for parmas go this one was pretty solid.

The toppings were a mixed bag. It definitely looks impressive, however I’m not sure the dollops of bocconcini add much to the flavour of the parma - But that’s just a personal preference, I’m not a big bocconcini fan in general. The rest of the cheese was solid. Great coverage and good melt. Served hot and delicious.

The biggest fault of this parma, however, was the passata. There just wasn’t any. I could see remnants on the plate, indicating that they didn’t forget it entirely, however in tasting the parma we could not detect the passata at all, and as this was a parma without a slice of ham we were pretty much left with a schnitzel & cheese. It was tasty, but could have been so much better with a bit more of the red stuff.

The chips were spot on. Not too thick, not too thin, served in a seperate bowl, well seasoned, hot, with a bonus pot of aioli on the side. I mean … That’s a tick in every box isn’t it? A delightful side to the parma.

The salad was fresh and full of flavour. I enjoyed the shredded carrot and the capsicum slices throughout really beefed up the flavour profile - However the dressing that was used was a little flavourless and far too heavy handed on the oil.

“Would have been great had they had more passata on the parma. Was not detectable at all on the plate. Great chips though! ”

— Nikki

I wouldn’t run back to have this parma again at $24, However, seeing as most of my issues with this dish were with the toppings I reckon that Parmarama $12 Tuesdays is definitely worth checking out. The schnitzel was quality, and this is a parma that can only be improved by some variation in the toppings, and for twelve bucks its hard to go wrong.

All up I think Sir Duke was a mixed bag. Overall it was a pleasant experience, however there were a few elements that took me out of the experience. Ditch the bocconcini, pump up the napoli, add a slice of ham and I reckon it would be a winner. I’m curious to see how they go on a Tuesday so if you check it out be sure to tag me. Worth a crack if you’re in the immediate vicinity, but I wouldn’t travel for it.

Parma - 6.88

Chips - 8.00

Salad - 6.38

Value - 6.75

Total -  6.98

The search continues...

#377 - 'The Oxford Scholar'

Where - RMIT University Building 81 (427 Swanston St. Melbourne)

Price - $24.50

Website - http://theoxfordscholar.com.au

Reviewers – Lee, Nikki & Stefo

A lot of people reading this review right now will have fond memories of the Oxford Scholar. Either you were an RMIT student or had a mate that was an RMIT student that dragged you down on one day or another for their cheap beers, big TV screens and one of the many cheap food nights on offer to feed the starving uni student.

We visited the Scholar back in 2013, a couple of years before they closed their doors. It was cheap and nasty (Monday was $12 parma night and it was $16 usually) yet it always had a bit of charm. Always welcoming, It was a cosy dive that stressed out students could grab a beer, watch the footy and get a cheap feed if only to escape from their annoying roommate for a few hours.

Then in 2017 the Scholar closed its doors, (apparently) due to works on the Metro tunnel driving away their clientele they just couldn’t afford to keep the doors open.

But like a phoenix from the ashes, the Oxford Scholar has returned. With new owners The Mahony Group (the same group behind The Windsor Alehouse on Punt Road, another spot we need to check out soon) taking the reigns, giving the old girl a facelift and (as of the end of April 2019) opening her doors once again as a second home to Melbourne’s RMIT Students, along with anyone else who may wander down Swanston Street in need of a beverage.

As soon as I heard about the re-opening I knew we had to visit ASAP. I always had a soft spot for the Scholar, so was genuinely curious to get a feel of the new digs. So last night we loaded up the Parma Bus and headed back to school at the Oxford Scholar.

While the exterior looks pretty much the same, the interior of the scholar is entirely unrecognisable. Completely gutted and stripped back to the brick the dank has been cleared out and a bright, airy new pub with a lot of wood, greenery and an (image-changing wall at the entrance that has to be seen to be believed) has been put in its place.

We arrived at about 6pm on Thursday night to an already busy pub, Along the A’Beckett Street wall a line of pretty large booths has been installed so we snapped up one of those as quickly as we could, checked the menu and located our target for the night…

The Scholar was always known as a spot to get a cheap feed, so seeing $24.50 on the menu (not exactly a bargain) gave me pause. On one hand I’m a staunch believer of “you get what you pay for” and I’d rather spend a little bit more to get a quality feed - But on the other hand that is quite pricey for a uni pub. I know times change and you can’t live in the past (and inflation is a bitch), but I feel like having more expensive food is kind’ve going against what the Scholar used to be about. We placed our order and very eagerly awaited the arrival of our parmas

Never really being a “craft beer” sort of pub, I was impressed with the new lineup at the Oxford Scholar. 12 taps ran the gamut of a variety of beers and styles with the addition of a few more options in the fridge. To make it easier (on myself) I’m gonna grab a screenshot from the Oxford Scholar website as opposed to listing each tap individually…

While not having any super deep cuts that’s a tap list extensive enough that I’m sure everyone would be able to find something on which to wet their whistle. I will say the Miss Pinkie by Boatrocker went down an absolute treat.

After a surprisingly speedy 10 minute wait our parmas arrived at the table.

As is tradition with pubs we have visited in the past, lets take a quick look at the 2013 Oxford Scholar parma before moving on to its 2019 counterpart…

The Oxford Scholar Parma, circa 2013

The Oxford Scholar Parma, circa 2019

The schnitzel was big enough, mine was one solid piece while others around the table had a couple of smaller schnitty’s stacked together. The chicken was great quality - gone are the Coles deli window schnitzels of old and in their place a quality, chicken breast schnitzel. Everything was well cooked and the crumbs delivered an outstanding crunch. Big improvement over 2013, that is for sure.

The toppings on the Scholar parma were applied extremely liberally. First up the ham was sliced so thick it felt like Christmas lunch stacked on top of a parma. The cheese was a fine melt and full of flavour. The only stumbling block I thought was the napoli - It was quite strong and overpowered the taste of the rest of the dish, absolutely eclipsing the flavour of the super thick ham. Minor nitpicks to an enjoyable meal.

The old Scholar parma was an example of how to do a cheap, processed schnitzel parma well enough to disguise the fact that it was a cheap, processed schnitzel parma. The new Scholar parma throws that out the window and delivers a dish made from quality ingredients with a price to match. It was good, but could be outstanding if they balanced out the rich napoli with a more prominent, smokey ham (loved the thickness of the ham though). Still worth a visit.

When I first saw “Salt & Vinegar french fries” on the menu I was damn intrigued. Although I’m not huge on McDonalds style french fries, who doesn’t love salt & vinegar chips? Managing to capture the essence of a salt & vinegar chip in french fry form would be quite the achievement for the Scholar. The end result was unsatisfying. As far as fries go they were fine. Served hot, away from the parma and plenty of them, however the “Salt & Vinegar Fries” had no trace of either salt nor vinegar.

If the vinegar was lost we definitely found it in the salad. This garden salad of lettuce, cherry tomatoes & cucumber slices was absolutely soaked in balsamic. I’m not complaining, I love a heavy hand of balsamic on my salad. A bit wilted but a good palate cleanser overall.

“So close to being an amazing parma. The ham looked impressive but lacked flavour. Some house made, chunky napoli would have really helped this parma shine. Great renovations though - A really cool pub”

— Nikki

“Hey Maccas! The Oxford stole your fries! Seriously though, I like fries but I feel a parma is worthy of something more”

— Stefo

Would I be happy to pay $24.90 for this parma again? Yeah. I’d be happy with that. The ingredients used were top notch and generously applied (especially the ham), hard to say its not a value for money meal as I doubt you could walk away from this one unsatisfied. Now although I didn’t see any specific parma nights advertised anywhere yet (although I wouldn’t be surprised if they pop up - it is still early days. The Scholar does offer 15% off across the board for RMIT students and staff, which would bring the cost of the parma down to about $21 (20.825 to be exact), as well as beers - So that’s not too bad at all.

Despite being located literally on the grounds of RMIT I don’t think the Oxford Scholar is targeting students anymore (unless students have all become millennials in their mid to late 30's). Other than the student discount and the wall piece that occasionally flashes the RMIT logo I feel like they have definitely pivoted to a different crowd than the Scholar of old. Don’t get me wrong, the new look scholar is a great pub. It looks fantastic, the staff were super friendly and the parma was a tweak or two away from being great, however it has definitely lost some of the dive bar charm I used to love.

Worth a visit if you’re in the area.

Parma - 7.83

Chips - 5.50

Salad - 6.67

Value - 7.00

Total - 6.97

The search continues...

Special Attempt: 'Jake's Kitchen @ The Ascot Lot'

Where - It’s a food truck - Check their facebook for current location!

Price - $16

Website - Facebook, Instagram and we found them at The Ascot Lot

Reviewers – Lee & Nikki

The food truck parma is an elusive, almost mythical beast. Many have tried before however when the issue of how to actually serve a parma in portable can-eat-standing-up form most go the easy route and chuck it in a burger, wrap it in a tortilla or stick it in a pie. I have searched for them in the past, however a food truck that could crack the code of how to whip up an easy to serve, easy to eat portable parma has eluded us.

Well as the wood carving in your weird Aunt’s home office/art studio says - Miracles come when you least expect them. Last Saturday I found myself at the food truck park known as The Ascot Lot on Mt. Alexander Road in Ascot Vale, they were launching a range of 5 different flavours of $10 espresso martini in an event dubbed “The Espresso Yourself Festival”, and as Reviewer Nikki runs an espresso martini review Instagram account known as The Espresso Chronicles it was her duty to head over and try all of the five new flavours, and I tagged along because (if you hadn’t guessed) I enjoy beer and food.

If you want a further rundown of the espresso launch click here, give them a follow and earn me some brownie points for plugging my wife’s Instagram account.

The Ascot Lot is a food truck park. Basically an outdoor area where a rotating array of food trucks can park offering different foods alongside a container bar for drinks and a crapload of outdoor seating. I’ve got nothing but good things to say about the Ascot Lot, they’ve got a fun little setup and having some beers alongside wandering from truck to truck seeing what goodies are on offer is a great way to spend an afternoon.

After scoring a picnic table in prime position and starting on our first of the five flavours of espresso martini I took a lap to see what trucks was on offer. This particular Saturday at the Ascot Lot offered up a Mr. Whippy Van, A souvlaki truck, a curry truck, a dumpling van, a burger joint and tucked away in the corner was a spot curiously known only as “Jake’s Kitchen”, advertising that they served pasta alongside the quite ambiguous “Gourmet Cuisine”.

My curiosity piqued, I headed over to check the menu, and you’ll never believe what I found … Actually you probably will believe what I found. You know what website you are on and I’m not gonna surprise you and say “JK! I had a Philly cheesesteak lol”.

… Anyway, they had a parma.

The decision was made for me at that point, I placed an order and was asked to come back in 10 minutes.

Now Jake’s Kitchen doesn’t serve any drinks beyond some cans of soft drink, however The Ascot Lot had me covered. The outdoor container bar (pictured above) has a few different taps of beer (I spotted Furphy, Byron Bay, Panhead and what I believe was an in-house brew), the aforementioned range of espresso martinis with a few other options in the fridge below. There’s a second bar inside that might have some more options but to be honest I didn’t venture in to see what was available in there (competition for our table was fierce and I didn’t want to lose it).

10 minutes later I wandered back to the truck and picked up our first ever food truck parma…

I got back to the table and inspected what was served. While it may not look like it at first glance this is most definitely a chicken parma.

Now those purists who hate the parma on the chips might not be impressed but I think it was necessary in this case. What Jake’s Kitchen has done has basically made a parma, pre sliced it for one-handed consumption, and stacked it on top of a large tray of chips - Basically making what you could call a “Parma HSP”. I picked up my supplied fork and tucked in.

First up, the schnitzel quality was top notch. Pure white, freshly sliced chicken breast. well cooked and crumbed (the fresh crumbs had just the right amount of crunch to them). Size-wise the schnitzel is a bit small, but they were most likely a bit hamstrung by the size of the container, and there were plenty of chips to make up for the smaller serve of schnitzel.

The toppings were in abundance. Plenty of gooey cheese and rich napoli sauce did a surprisingly great job of holding on to the schnitzel slices as I ate. The napoli sauce was definitely a highlight. Bursting with flavour (and peas … an addition I didn’t think I would like yet works surprisingly well here). It was thick, fresh and tasty.

No ham on this parma I’m afraid, but other than that the toppings were outstanding.

Holy crap the chips were good. If this were a scored review these would definitely be close to a perfect score. Well cooked, crunchy, piping hot and liberally coated in a spicy seasoning (which I have discovered they refer to as “Jake’s special paprika seasoning”) that really gave them a kick and finished off the dish nicely.

It’s pretty clear that when you’re working towards a portable parma that isn’t some form of schnitzel burger or wrap then the salad is going to be the first casualty. As much as I would have loved to see some sort of salad incorporated into this parma (and no, the peas don’t count) I can see why they left it out. Maybe they could squeeze some coleslaw in there somehow if they were going for top marks, but to be honest I was fine without salad this time around!

Prices for food truck food is always a little bit inflated from the norm, but to be honest I’d pay another $16 for this parma any day of the week. Yeah the schnitzel was a bit small compared to what I’d get at a pub, but, as I keep saying, it has to be portable to work out of a truck, and a smaller schnitzel just has be expected when trying something new like this.

LAST MINUTE UPDATE: A little birdy now tells me that the Saturday we tried the Jake’s Kitchen parma was actually the first time it had been on the menu, and that they have plans to expand the menu to include some more “loaded parma” options … So definitely keep an eye out!

When heading out for some espresso martinis that afternoon I was not expecting to stumble on our first ever food truck parma, but I was glad I did. The “Parma HSP” style that Jake’s Kitchen have come up with is a unique and novel take on a parma that I enjoyed more than I expected I would. It wouldn’t be fair to compare this parma to a regular pub parma, but if you find yourself near Jake’s Kitchen (or Jake’s Kitchen finds itself near you) it is definitely one worth giving a crack.

The search continues...