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When? - 19th of May, 2010
Where? - The Quiet Man Irish Pub, 271 Racecourse Rd. Flemington
Price? - $18.90
Barry? - No
Website? - http://www.thequietman.com.au/
Reviewers - Adam Y, Adrian, Bec, Cale, Daniel, Emma, Glen, Janet, Jarrad, Kathleen, Lauren, Lee, Luke, Matt, Nikki, Pete, Rob, Shanan, Stefo, Tanya, Tony Q, Tony S[/info]
Top of the mornin to ye! and welcome to our review of The Quiet Man Irish Pub, located just a stones throw from where we recently sampled The Doot’s parma, The Quiet Man was an easy choice, nice and local to a majority of the reviewers (a welcome change from last weeks hike to Kew to try the Skinny Dog’s offering). We had heard a couple of recommendations in favour of it, so off we went to see if The Quiet Man could deliver us a pot o’ gold … in parma form.
The Quiet Man is all Irish from the moment you walk in the door, complete with Irish bar staff, ‘100 pints of guinness’ club & copies of the ‘Irish Echo’ newspaper available in the lobby, this place is exactly what you want from an Irish pub, in fact …
Just some music to get you in the mood (I am aware this is Boston-Irish and not Irish, but its still a bloody good song)
We took our seats in the bistro and waited for everyone to arrive, the menu had an interesting little story about the history of the pub on the first page which made for some good reading … probably the only thing I read on the menu as we all knew exactly what we were getting. The Parma.
I thought our review team at the Skinny Dog was big, but this one tipped the scales at 22 reviewers, so understandably it took a little longer for our parmas to arrive, but that wasn’t much of an issue as the pints of Bulmers and $6 pints of coopers (their ‘beer of the month’) were going down very well, we also lucked out as we happened to be there on the same night as a local live music/poetry reading class were having their monthly meeting in the bistro, good old fashioned entertainment!
Damn thats a lot of cheese!
Parmas on the table, full pint of Bulmers beside it, it looked a little on the small side, but that is definitely an excusable sin if the parma is quality. I was feeling good until (while taking the above photo) I heard one of the other reviewers say ‘wheres the chicken?’ not a good sign!
I cut my first slice, and I assure you the chicken was there, a little on the thin side of things but an ok quality piece of breast, the problem was in the crumbs though, they were very processed and seemed to fall away from the chicken at the slightest movement, leaving exposed breast and crumbs on the plate - a sure sign of pre-processing. But it wasn’t all bad, it had a decent taste to it, some nice tomato salsa (according to the menu),plenty of mozzarella cheese and a hearty slice or two of virginian ham, some bites were a little overpowering on the cheese/ham front with no taste from the chicken. but it was an ok parma … not bad, but not great.
The chips hiding under the parma were again, so/so. The menu clearly advertised them as ‘chunky chips’ which they were definitely not, just standard chips. Tasty, but no chunks at all.
The salad is a very hard one to judge at The Quiet Man, purely because of its inconsistency - My serving was very nice, a mixture of rocket, lettuce, onion, tomato, capsicum & carrot which (while a little oily) had a great taste to it and complimented the meal very well. However other reviewers seemed to get different salads, ranging from one missing ingredient to one that was purely rocket and nothing more inconsistency killed it unfortunately, if the other reviewers had’ve gotten the quality salad that was on my plate I think it would’ve scored much higher!
This review seems to have come off pretty harsh, so I’ll clarify by saying it wasn’t a bad parma, its just not great! it has some issues but overall it had a good taste to it. There were a few issues with consistency of size (some people got small parmas, other people got, um, very small parmas) and salad so it was definitely a tough one to review as there were many varying opinions!
The one thing I love about the quiet man is the pub itself, it has a great atmosphere, delicious (and sometimes very cheap) drinks on tap and is definitely a cozy place to gather with your mates and enjoy a pint. The parma isn’t bad but it could be better, it seems to be a gamble when you arrive whether or not you get a good one … just hope the luck of the Irish smiles upon you.
Parma - 5.9
Chips - 6.2
Salad - 4.6
Value - 5.9
Total - 5.74
The search continues …
