Where - 59 Napier St. Footscray
Price - $26
Website - https://thestationhotel.com.au/
In the interest of full disclosure lets ge this out of the way early - I love The Station and have for many years considered it the spot to get one of the best steaks Melbourne has to offer - However over the years one thing always bugged me about them… They never had a parma on the menu. Over the last 10 years I would check the menu every few months in the vain hope that this was the week they serve up a parma, even accosted them on Twitter about it pretty regularly, but with no result.
So of course when I stop reviewing parmas they add one to the menu.
Now it has been a hot minute since I’ve been to The Station, the last time I visited the space that is now the beer garden was a carpark - But despite the lack of convenient parking it is a welcome improvement, being a decent day we grabbed a table where we once parked the car and enjoyed a bit of the great outdoors.
As far as beer gardens go The Station’s is solid. Outdoor bar, plenty of permanent shade to keep it viable in lots of weather conditions and an epic double storey cubby house to keep the kids entertained.
We took a seat and scanned the QR code on the table - This is when I realised that the Station is now owned by the Australian Venue Company, the pub group that owned the subject of our last review, The Imperial, along with an increasing chunk of Melbourne’s pub scene.
What tipped me off that this was an AVC pub? The thumbnail image of the parma that their mobile menu uses is the same photo that the Impy parma used. Not just a similar photo, the exact same photo.
We ordered the food via the app (The novelty still hasn’t worn off on this, it feels so futuristic, like how The Jetsons would order a parma and beers) along with a side of mashed potato for shits and giggles. As far as beer goes the tap list is the same as the Imperial’s, so let me save some time and bust out the old CTRL+C, CTRL V - Furphy, James Squire, Heineken, Balter XPA, Carlton Draught, Brooklyn, Kosciuszko, Little Creatures, Panhead, White Rabbit and Hawkers available on tap at the time of writing.
Interesting to note that along with using the same photo as the Impy parma it seems like the general “template” for this parma is the same as well, and I was interested to see how the two would stack up against each other. Would one be a direct facsimilie of the other? I guess we’ll see.
We didn’t need to wait long to find about because about 15 minutes the parmas fell before us, and I’m not gonna sugar coat it, the result was disappointing.
The schnitzel was decent size, nice and thick, but it was served lukewarm at best and the chicken itself was dense and very dry. You can see from the cross section photo just how dry this bird was. I did appreciate the lemon wedge as a garnish, something you don’t see with a lot of parmas, however starting with a schnitzel like the one we were served as a base this parma was off to a pretty bad start.
Toppings were pretty good all around and did their best to prop up the schnitzel. The ham had a good flavour and was rather thick cut, the cheese would have been nicer had it been hotter. The napoli was flavoursome however somehow even sweeter than the Imperial’s napoli, which we already registered as quite sweet.
As far as potato loaded side dishes go the chips were served hot & fresh. The parma was served stacked directly on top of them, but I managed to save them before too much damage was done. Well salted, crunchy and an all round great chip. While it doesn’t affect the score the side of mashed potato that we picked out was outstanding - I’m pretty sure it contained more butter than it did potato, but no complaints from me. Highly recommended.
The coleslaw to the side was a definite step down in quality from its Impy counterpart. It was very dry and needed much more dressing to try and salvage it. The menu called it a “raw slaw” but after some Googling I can’t quite work out what puts the “raw” in the “raw slaw” (I’m also having trouble determining who put the bop in the bop shoo bop shoo bop, but thats a story for another time).
As far as value goes $26 was a bit pricey for what it was, I could be convinced it was worth the money had we received a fresh one, but as it stands I felt a little short changed. I can’t see any discount parma nights on the menu and the “50% off your whole bill happy hour” deal that was rolled out to all of the AVC pubs expired at the end of January, so at the time of writing it seems like full price is the only option.
All told The Station was a bit of a let down, maybe because we had just come off the Impy parma which is pretty much exactly the same thing but … better. The Station parma felt like the Wish.com version of the Impy parma - Similar in style but lower quality once you look beneath the surface.
I’ll … what is the opposite of a preface… postface? I’ll postface this review by saying that The Station was very busy when we visited, and its possible that this sub-par parma was just a glitch in the kitchen - All the elements of a good parma are there, but just needed to stick the landing a little better. I’ll try and not leave it years before my next visit to the Station and I’ll post an update should I check it out again soon.
And thats it for this week! I’ll try my hardest not to go to another AVC pub for our next review. Unless they trick me again.