Regular readers will remember our review of the parma at the Hotel Albion, Where a few of our dedicated review team attempted to finish the Albion’s “Grandeoso Parma Challenge” of a double stacked parma with chips and salad, on that first night everyone who attempted the Grandeoso finished it, we spun the prize wheel and walked away victorious.
The Hotel Albion has been one of Parma Daze’s biggest supporters since we put up our review, going as far as linking our review on their pubs website, So when I saw an article in the Herald Sun a few weeks ago saying that the Albion had a new challenge - a ‘Man vs. Parma’ Triple stacked parma challenge, I knew Parma Daze had to step up and give it a go.
Before we get started, Here is a scan of part of that article, where they show the nutritional value for the triple stack -
Ouch! The article goes on to say that the stack itself comes to about 2 kilograms of chicken, not including the chips and salad. The double alone nearly killed me so lets see how we went on the triple parma challenge.
Of a table of about 15 guests only three had the cojones to order the triple - Myself, Adam Y and newcomer Nat. A few other attendees got various varieties of double and a couple of singles were served up as well, After a relatively short wait the monster arrived and was slammed down in front of me. It was a monster.
Below are three photos - one for each layer of this behemoth
2 Different angles and a cross section, hopefully this will properly convey the size of this beast.
This is normally the part of the review where I describe the quality and taste of the parma - but when you are dealing with a challenge of this magnitude taste isn’t really a factor. I picked up my knife & fork and tucked in, making sure not to drink too much or too little, eating as fast as I could to beat my brain’s hunger mechanism and trying to trick myself into thinking I could still eat - but alas when you are stuffing that much chicken down your throat no trick will help you, by about the halfway mark I was starting to enter struggletown. I stopped for a breather, drank a few sips of beer, finished my chips and my salad (they had to be finished for the challenge to be complete) and continued with the parma, But I couldn’t do it - with sweat pouring down my brow my hands were starting to tremble as each bite came up to my mouth - I slowly worked on for as long as I could, but when my body’s swallow mechanism simply stopped functioning I had to throw in the towel (or napkin, as it were)
I’m sorry, gentle readers, I have failed you.
With about a quarter of my meal remaining I had to call it quits for my own health. I even attempted cutting it all up into bite size portions so I wouldn’t have to focus on anything but eating, unfortunately all that did was spread the parma further around the plate, giving me insight as to how much I actually had left and how hopeless my struggle was. I was beaten. I am sorry. I had failed.
But this story is not without a happy ending - as my two other Man Vs. Parma challengers were still going strong. There were a couple of near spews and the waitresses even brought ice buckets to them in case of emergency but Great Scott … they did it.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you Adam and Nathaniel - the first and only two people in history to complete the Man vs. Parma Challenge.
And what good would a ‘before’ shot be without an ‘after’ shot!
Those boys really don’t look too well!
I welcome any challengers to come and attempt to do what those boys did - but be warned, it isn’t an easy undertaking! at $47 its a pricey attempt at glory, but well worth it.
This weeks review was more about the challenge itself and not the score, if you’d like to see a less insane review of the Albion please feel free to check out our last attempt. I hope you enjoyed this special edition of Parma Daze, we will be back to regular reviews next week. So stay tuned!
The search continues…
