This pic is pre-renovation, its more of a creamy white colour now! I just couldn’t find a new pic. If you’ve got one shoot me an email!
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When? – 28/09/12
Where? – The Bridge Hotel, 624 Bridge Rd. Richmond.
Price? - $19.90
Website? - http://thebridgehotel.com.au/
Reviewers – Ahmad, Cale, Fridge, Janet, Lee, Nikki[/info]
The new voting system has thrown me for a loop - normally the first paragraph of a parma daze review is the story of how we came across the Bridge, but now that it’s in the hands of the readers every review is probably going to start with the same paragraph.
Everyone voted. The Bridge Hotel won, so thats where we went!
The recently renovated Bridge Hotel is a sight to behold, “Eclectic” doesn’t even begin to describe the amazing facelift this pub has had, the first thing you will notice upon entering The Bridge is that once you go inside, you are outside again… It’s an Outside-Inside pub! Someone has been stealing ideas from the Butabi brothers.
Did you just grab my ass?
I can’t explain the Bridge Hotel without sounding like a lunatic (“so, one wall, is like, covered in cameras, but the cameras are actually lights”), so I’ll let my friend Google Image Search help me out …
Don’t go thinking this is a beer garden, this is inside the pub.
Thanks to Broadsheet for the pics, Top website.
Anyway, we took a seat and ordered over the bar, $19.90 for the regular parma and $18.90 for the vego eggplant option, before long our meals were trotted out of the kitchen…
It was insanely dark in our little corner booth, so I had to max out the brightness on the parma photo and ParmaCam to make them visible! So apologies for the crappy quality - here is a much better photo I found on Urbanspoon…
The parma was quality - thick, juicy and unprocessed chicken with standard but not overly thick crumbs. I had great coverage of toppings, golden brown cheese, plenty of ham and lovely napoli.
Technically and visually this was a top notch parma … however myself (and a few around the table agreed) that it lacked a “wow” factor - I can’t put my finger on what was missing, and I’ll be clear that its a very minor complaint, but it just needed that extra kick to raise it from a “very good” parma to a “holy shit thats good!” parma, It’s almost as if someone turned the volume down on the flavour of this bird.
Once again I apologise for the quality of ParmaCam - Daylight savings kicks in next week so this should be the last of the after-dark parmas!
[youtube id="SO5s4FhqBAc" width="580" height="337"]
The chips were great, we haven’t had a good beer battered chunky chip in quite some time and these definitely fit the bill. If they needed any improvement I’d say a bit more seasoning wouldn’t go astray, and nobody would complain if some form of chip dip made it onto the plate (be it tomato sauce, perinaise or aioli)
The salad, like the parma, lacked that wow factor - Standard garden salad with plenty of dressing certainly filled the whole, but didn’t leave me quite satisfied.
I am on the fence with this parma. It was great, it was all great, and it should have ranked higher! But the general consensus from everyone on the table was - while everything was in place for a top notch parma - it was missing that kick.
The pub is truly outstanding, I have no qualms in saying its one of the prettiest pubs I have ever been to, and It’s definitely worth checking out if you’re in the area, just make sure to bring an umbrella if you’re planning on sitting inside!
Before I finish up just want to say that voting on the location for next week’s attempt will be live pretty much as soon as this review is! So head over to the Facebook page and let us know where we’ll be heading next week! Until then…
Parma - 7.00
Chips - 7.00
Salad - 5.17
Value - 6.58
Total - 6.55
The search continues…
