Where - 169 Wheatsheaf Rd. Glenroy
Price - $22.90 plus delivery fee if getting delivered
Website - Facebook Page
This week’s review has really highlighted something for me that I had been denying to myself since we started. “Crossing The Road” reviews began as a way to try take-away parmas, the parmas that might not normally get a look in as they aren’t your standard pub that we can drop in on a Thursday night, grab a few pints and a feed.
We have had some good ones since starting Crossing the Road, however they are few and far between, with the majority of the home delivered parmas falling squarely into the category of “meh”.
What our visit to Nonna Rosa this week cemented in my mind is that the “meh” is not coming from the restaurants themselves (mostly), but from the transportation process. Parmas don’t travel well at the best of times, and what you are about to read is the perfect case study of how one tiny decision can produce two vastly different parma experiences.
Let’s be honest, there’s another reason that Crossing the Road exists - It exists for the weeks when I’ve had a long day, the weather is shitty, there’s a good episode of Survivor on 9Go and I just cannot be fucked going out for a parma that week. Last night was one of those weeks (except for the Survivor, the whole “Island of the Idols” gimmick this season really isn’t doing it for me this season, but I could write a whole seperate blog on my opinions of Survivor and now isn’t the time). I finished work, put on some trackie dacks, cracked open my phone and had a look around for a parma that would come to me with minimal effort … And I found it in “Nonna Rosa”, an Italian Family Restaurant in Glenroy.
I found it on Uber Eats but as you can see above the Google reviews were also very favourable.
I scrolled through the menu to find our target for the evening…
They have the option of a Standard parma or Nonna’s parma, but to be honest it sounds like Nonna is trying a little bit too hard to be special, with the addition of Mushrooms and Pineapple in amongst the napoli and cheese.
Neither option had ham, so Reviewer Nikki and I just went for a standard parma each, with a stick of garlic bread and some drinks thrown in for good measure.
Uber Eats used to offer a flat $5 delivery fee, but lately they’ve changed it to be distance-based, the further away the restaurant is the more they supposedly charge - Seems like a bit of a scam to me, to be honest, as I have restaurants on my list that I know are closer than others, yet the delivery fee doesn’t properly represent the distance travelled.
I hope you liked that bit of Uber Eats bashing because this is where things get interesting.
The parmas were actually picked up rather promptly. The driver arriving at the restaurant about 10 minutes after we ordered and it didn’t seem like he hung around for very long after arriving at the restaurant. It took him another 15 minutes to drive from the restaurant to my house - Not an ideal amount of time, but not terrible either.
the parmas arrived just under 30 minutes after I hit the order button, I unpacked them and set them up for their photoshoot…
The foil containers felt hot in my hand. The smell was wafting through the room, I was hungry, I peeled back the edges of the containers and flipped back the lids to reveal … Oh no.
Oh no.
complete topping removal. One of the parmas was fine the other, the one that travelled on the bottom of the stack, was a chicken schnitzel that once had some toppings on it - all of the toppings had been peeled of and were stuck (and stuck hard) on the lid of the container.
Now because I’m a good husband I gave Reviewer Nikki the non mangled one. I scraped off the toppings that I could from the lid of the container and did my best to reposition it on top of the parma, but the damage was done to be honest. the cheese had totally dried out and re-solidified once it attached to the lid, leaving me with a schnitzel that had some hard cheese chunks scattered on top
And now we get to the point of this week’s article. Nonna Rosa did nothing wrong, yet due to how the parma was handled on the trip I had quite a sub-par experience. I ate most of my schnitzel and tried some of Nikki’s and they were definitely different experiences.
As for the elements in Nonna Rosa’s control I was pleasantly surprised. The schnitzel was actually quite good. A little dry, sure, but big enough conservatively crumbed, not too thick but enough that it doesn’t seem like they’re trying to get away with anything. What I ate of the parma with toppings was quite tasty, although a slice of ham and a bit more napoli sauce definitely wouldn’t have gone astray.
The chips were good, but soggy. The smaller crispy ones were much better than the bigger boys. Well seasoned and flavoursome.
The salad was your standard “Every pizza place in existence does this salad”. Massive tomato chunks, olives, capsicum, onion, carrot and a heap of balsamic. It was fine, not great and it really irks me when places use olives that still have a seed in their salads.
The non-wrecked Nonna Rosa parma was fine for what it was, a home delivered parma that would get you over the line if you’re really desperate for a parma fix but not in the mood to put on deodorant and/or pants. If you live in Glenroy and can go pick it up yourself (or even better, eat in) I’d say its worth a shot.
As for Uber Eats and future Crossing the Road reviews? I don’t know. I feel like all 9 reviews we’ve done so far have been tainted by the delivery process. It feels like a losing battle and last night’s utterly destroyed parma was the straw that broke the camels back for me.
I don’t know the solution. Maybe future Crossing the Road reviews will be pick-up only, so the only person to blame for a fuckup is myself and I’m not at the mercy of how Uber Eats is feeling on that particular day. Time will tell I guess! There won’t be another one for a while, Back to regular, less ranty pub reviews next week!