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When? – 26/07/2012
Where? – Chartreuse. 332 Keilor Rd, Niddrie
Price? - $20
Website? - http://www.chartreusecafebar.com/
Reviewers – Fridge, Lee, Pat, Stefo[/info]
** Note ** This location has now closed
Living on Keilor road (well, in a sidestreet meters from it), I’m always saying to the wife “We don’t utilise Keilor road enough”. There’s so many shops, cafe’s and restaurants that I never even consider when the daily question of “Whats for dinner?” arises. The most I probably use K road for late night Maccas runs or pasta from the pizza place near Maccas.
We hadn’t done a local parma in a while so I figured it was time, I was going to finally utilize Keilor road. We have done a couple of parmas in the street with so/so success, so finding a good parma minutes from my front door would be a real bonus.
With the helpfulness of the tram tracker iPhone app, I was out the door and at Chartreuse in about 5 minutes flat, When we arrived (at 7) it was dead quiet, yet that quickly changed, as by the time our parmas hit the table the place was absolutely packed - hopefully that would be a good sign.
Once everyone arrived we scoped the menu and ordered our parmas and a round of beers from the very friendly and helpful staff.
First impressions were good - of the four parmas that hit the table mine was the smallest, and it was still big enough to fill the hole. It came out piping hot with plenty of napoli and cheese (no ham) the chicken was juicy and thick, the napoli was flavourful and the cheese was plentiful!
Our major criticism is with the crumbs - while not being thick the crumbs were a major detriment to the meal, they looked processed, they flaked away from the chicken and they didn’t add any flavour to the dish at all - Reviewer pat likened them to the crumbs you’d find on a chicken nugget. A slight negative for an overall great piece of bird.
Apologies, but a technical glitch means no ParmaCam this week! we are going old school with the cross section. Also, if you’d like me to bring back the cross section alongside the ParmaCam in future reviews, let me know (via Facebook or Twitter).
There were a heap of chips, cooked well and topped with chicken salt, a seldom used spice that really added to the chips flavour. We requested some tomato sauce and were brought a couple of sauce pots for dipping - A lovely touch.
The salad was standard. a very onion-heavy garden salad with carrot, lettuce, tomato and a thick balsamic dressing. Nothing bad, but not noteworthy.
For $20, I’d be back. It’s definitely the best parma We’ve had on Keilor road so far and worth checking out if you’re in the area - although I wouldn’t be traveling more than 10 minutes out of my way to give it a go.
Thats actually a cool rating technique … judge a parma by how far you’d be willing to travel to eat it. Chartreuse I would definitely give a rating of 10 minutes, good thing its close, I’ll definitely give it another shot.
Parma - 7.13
Chips - 6.38
Salad - 5.50
Value - 6.50
Total - 6.53
The search continues…