Where - 25 Little Bourke St. Melbourne
Price - $27.50 for a chicken parma (any variety), $30 for Veal, $24.50 for Eggplant
Website - http://www.mrsparmas.com.au
Reviewers - Adam Y, Carly, Daniel, Eden, Fridge, Kim, Lee, Maree, Matt, Nikki, Pat, Rob, Shanan, Stefo & Tony
Mrs Parmas was the pub that started it all. You all know the story by now but after a fire at The Prince of Wales in Ascot Vale, the home of the perfect parma, we kicked off our hunt to find a replacement weekly feed that would fill the POW parma sized hole in our hearts.
That was 400 reviews ago. 400 reviews and 10 years to the day since our first visit to Mrs. Parmas.
So what better way to celebrate our 400th review than by heading back to where it all began? Sure we did a revisit in 2012 but it has still been a good seven or eight years since I had set foot in Mrs. Parmas for a feed. Had things changed at all? It was time to find out. So, for the 400th time, we loaded up the parma bus and headed to Little Bourke Street.
Our question was answered pretty damn quickly - No. As far as the appearance of Mrs. Parmas goes it looks exactly as it did 10 years ago. Right down to the “Satay Parma”, which I believe was the parma on the specials board back then as it was this past weekend.
But there’s nothing wrong with that - They’ve got a winning formula at Mrs. Parmas. I said in our 2010 review that I appreciated the lack of pretension that Mrs. Parmas exhibited for a pub in the middle of the CBD and I stand by that. Its a great spot to relax, grab a beer and apparently kill time between acts 1 and 2 of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, as when we arrived the place was packed with throngs of people in Gryffindor and Slytherin scarves smashing parmas before heading back to finish the performance.
We grabbed a seat and checked the massive parma menu that loomed on the wall above…
Inflation has definitely hit Mrs. Parmas, chicken parma prices rising $4 since our last visit. I was very tempted by some of the novelty options on offer at Mrs. P’s, however to keep things on a level playing field I opted for the original, with some of the other group being a bit more adventurous and trying some of the other, fancier options.
As far as beers go its hard to fault Mrs. Parmas. Since opening their doors they’ve had a philosophy of being an all-Victorian beer bar, exclusively stocking only 100% Victorian microbrewery beer, and it definitely wasn’t a short list. on tap they had their own “Mrs’ P’s Lager”, Fury & Son, Stomping Ground, Kaiju, Fixation, Cavalier, 2 Brothers and pages more in either bottle or can. Can’t fault them here and, parmas aside, worth stopping in just for a beer.
20 or so minutes after ordering our parmas started filing out of the kitchen. It was a big turnout this week, with 15 people in our crew it look a bit of time for everyone’s food to arrive, so have to cut them a bit of slack as it was such a large order.
If you like continuity in your life then there’s no place better than Mrs. Parmas. It has been 10 years and their parmas look exactly the same today as they did in 2010.
Its a unique style that you don’t see very often. Rather than going for thickness (which, I will admit, scores well at ParmaDaze), Mrs. P’s is a flat schnitzel, opting for plate real estate over thickness, which definitely helps with an even cook as all of Mrs. Parmas schnitzels are pan fried rather than deep fried.
And they’re pretty tasty! the chicken breast was pure white and juicy, the crumbs were a little soggy but packed with herbs, really adding to the flavour profile of the dish.
The toppings were pretty solid as well. Solid coverage of cheese grilled to perfection, and a healthy serve of flavoursome ham that really nailed the flavours of a good parma.
As far as criticisms go I could have used a bit more napoli, and mine did come out a little on the cold side, but again I attribute that to trying to wrangle 15 parmas out of the kitchen at the same time.
I always say that novelty toppings on parmas are great as long as they can produce a solid standard parma, and Mrs. Parmas delivers just that. They don’t use the novelty toppings as a crutch to hide a poor schnitzel, they use a quality schnitzel and build on top of it. The result is a unique yet traditional parma that I’d happy have again any day of the week.
Now on to the sides, where things get … controversial.
If you are unaware Mrs. Parmas have a shared sides system. The parmas come out as pictured above, on a big plate, all alone. Then you are delivered your sides - A bowl of salad and a bowl of chips - However they aren’t your chips and salad - They are the communal chips and salad for the table.
And for 10 years the shared sides at Mrs. Parmas has been their biggest issue.
The sides are good! The chips are hot, liberally salted with chicken salt, crunchy on the outside and crisp on the inside - Honestly top notch chips, and the salad is everything you would want from a garden salad to break up your meal a little.
Rather than re-tread the same content, I’ll just copy a paragraph that I wrote when we visited in 2012
The whole act of sharing two bowls of chips between seven people is just awkward. Sure we’re all friends, but putting communal chips brings up all sorts of social questions - are fingers okay? What if I take too many and don’t leave enough for everyone else? who gets the last chip? can I put sauce on them?
To keep the obscure movie references going I felt like I was in a cruel “Cube“-like social experiment where one wrong move could get my face burned off with acid.
First of all, how good is Cube? Such a good movie and still holds up.
Secondly, the sentiment above still stands. I feel like the experience at Mrs. Parmas gets less enjoyable the more people you have in your party as the more people you have the more the shared sides system is exacerbated. We had 15 people in our party and we were served with three bowls of chips and three bowls of salad, and they were emptied within minutes, leaving some people in our group who didn’t act fast enough without anything.
Now, I have always been told that refills on chips and salad are free, last trip we didn’t say anything and waited to see if we were offered a refill … that refill never came. So this time around we actually asked for a refill of our chips.
And to Mrs. Parmas credit, they came, three (smaller) bowls of chips were delivered to the table - However it took them a good 15 minutes to arrive. The extra chips arrived after we had finished our parmas, after the staff had cleared our plates.
I’ll go deeper in this in the “Value” discussion below, but for $27.50 shared sides just seems like a bit of a rip off and after 3 reviews of Mrs. Parmas now it still doesn’t sit well with us.
And now for some thoughts from the others around the table …
“Parma was okay, Shared salad and chips no good.”
“Shared sides is a downer. Company was great. Good times!”
“Chicken was good, might have been an alright meal if they didn’t make us share chips and salad. Rort for $27.50.”
“Parma was good but pretty pricey. Overall an expensive meal. ”
“ Shit show, who the f@$k serves chips and salad between a table of 15 by 3 bowls of each to share.”
“I hate sharing ... especially food!”
“Parmageddon was extremely hot. I was looking forward to a spicy meal but “kick” what a kick I wouldn’t like to think what the “supergeddon” would be.”
“A tasty parma, other than being a bit cold it was hard to fault. Shared sides still causing dramas 10 years later. ”
So … yeah, A lot of strong opinions on the shared sides.
Funnily enough while we were eating our meals a table of six sat down behind me and I overheard one of them say to the other “now, the parmas are good but they do something weird with the chips” - confirmation its not just us that thinks its an off-putting system.
The value score definitely took a hit because of it. I’d consider a $27.50 parma expensive at the best of times, but a $27.50 parma with shared sides? its a turn off that harms an otherwise great meal.
I think I could live with shared salads. Leaving salad on your plate is pretty common, not everyone eats it and in the interest of reducing food waste I reckon I could get behind a bowl of salad and personal chips … but c’mon. Chips are integral to the parma experience and forcing us to share is just cruel and unusual.
I really like Mrs. Parmas. I like the venue, I like the all Victorian tap list and I really enjoy the parmas they push out. They’re one of the only pubs in Melbourne that offer a gluten free parma and they have the option for eggplant parmas on all of their novelties so its easily one of the most enjoyable by everyone parma venues out there. It’s just a shame that every time we go we get bogged down in this shared sides debacle. At the very least this trip we confirmed that you can get a free refill if you request it, it may be like getting blood from a stone… but it is possible.
I’d say every parma fan needs to visit Mrs. Parmas at least once. They do some interesting stuff, and if you can get over the shared sides (as we clearly can’t) then they put out a solid feed.
Thanks for sticking with us for 400 reviews!!