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When? – 13/09/2012
Where? – Pint on Punt, 42 Punt Rd, Windsor
Price? - $18.90 normally, $12 on Thursdays when you buy a drink, $2.50 extra for Aussie or Mexican
Website? - http://pintonpunt.com.au/
Reviewers – Fridge, Janet, Lee, Luke, Nikki, Stefo[/info]
**EDIT - The Pint on Punt has closed its doors, this review is no longer valid - Word has it there's a new pub opening in its place that will have a parma on the menu ... will do our best to check it out once available!
I just found this picture of a quokka with a leaf.
Look at him! Cheeky rascal.
He’s so damn happy with himself!
Whenever I see a quokka I think about those little charity things they have in Red Rooster (although they’re probably gone now, I haven’t set foot in a Red Rooster since they got with the program and adopted Drive-Through).
You’d put in a coin and it would travel down to the picture of a quokka, hit a switch and a little quokka joey would poke its head out of the pouch. Lord, I must’ve put ten grand of my mother’s spare change into that thing!
Hm, gotten off topic, It’s okay I can save this. Quokkas … Red Rooster … Chicken … Chicken Parmas!
One thing I have noticed as the parma hunt has continued this year has been the ever so slowly rising price of the heavenly dish. When things started out a parma between $10 and $15 was the norm, but as time has moved on the price of the parma has risen!
$18 became the norm, then $20, these days we are hovering around a $21/$22 average, with our most expensive tipping the scales at $28.
This just wont do!
So this week I set out to find a cheap parma, a risk as “cheap” usually means “cheap and nasty’” but none the less I logged onto the The Happiest Hour and tracked down a parma special that not only looked decent, but was easy on the wallet as well… The Pint on Punt
We arrived at the Pint on Punt, ordered some drinks and took a seat in the bistro out the back. Classic Irish pub fare, lots of dark stained wood, green carpet, open fires and a heap of crap nailed to the walls that look like it came off a farm - you know the drill. Being a backpackers as well as a pub also gives it a fun atmosphere, I don’t think I heard an Aussie accent while I was in there, Including from the bar staff.
When we sat we realised we had stuffed up - the $12 deal only applies if you order a drink at the same time you order your parma.
We finished our first drinks as latecomer Reviewer Luke arrived. He went to the bar to get a drink, ordered it, turned around and saw we were also ordering so he said “oh can I also order a parma”, the order was put through but as the drink and the parma weren’t in the same transaction he had to pay full price. A bit harsh, I’ve gotta say.
We sat down, spoke for literally 3 minutes and the first parma emerged from the kitchen. Speed does not bode well when it comes to parmas, the old addage ‘good food takes time to prepare’ is more than apt. They must be pre-cooked we all thought. So with great trepidation, we dug in.
Quite surprisingly, it was good! The chicken breast, while a little small on circumference, was as thick as a … I can’t think of anything to compare it with, but it was damn thick. Check the ParmaCam, I made sure to rotate the parma a lot so the thickness would show up.
It didn’t taste pre-cooked either, our hypothesis being that as it’s Parma Night the chef can always afford to have some breasts cooking and they won’t go to waste. A great strategy.
The napoli was chunky with plenty of flavour, the ham was thick and smokey and the cheese did its job without much fuss. For a full priced parma, it was okay. For a cheap Parma Night parma, it was damn good.
[youtube id="2wWNoiYLfWY" width="580" height="337"]
The chips were standard, nothing to write home about yet nothing offensive, In need of a shake of salt and the bottle of sauce that was brought to the table with our meal was definitely appreciated.
The salad, in a seperate bowl, was quite tasty. Standard garden salad with a creamy mustard dressing that really made the dish. Quite a lot of tomato for me, but I’m not a fan of raw tomato, I’m sure others would have greatly enjoyed.
Like I said, at full price this is an okay parma, not bad but definitely nothing to write home about. Yet at $12 this is quite a gem, especially on a Thursday night when parma nights are hard to come buy (they are usually a Tuesday or Wednesday kinda deal).
The pub was warm and cosy on a cold Melbourne night, I’d be happy to travel 5 or 10 minutes out of my way to get this again, I’d also be keen to try the Aussie and Mexican varieties, they sounded scrumptious.
I probably wouldn’t go back for a full price parma, but I’d definitely try it again on a Thursday night, coupled with many more pints at the Pint on Punt.
Parma - 6.92
Chips - 5.83
Salad - 6.67
Value - 7.17
Total - 6.7
The search continues…
