ParmaDaze crew say Melbourne’s best parma remains unbeaten
LOVERS of crumbed chicken rejoice, a crew of diehard chicken addicts with a taste for the best are making their way across the state to find Melbourne’s perfect parma.
North West
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A CREW of crumbed-chicken fans with a taste for the best haven’t let the burning down of their favourite pub get in the way of finding Melbourne’s perfect parma.
It’s been almost 10 years since the best pub in Melbourne for a parma burnt down — that is according to a group of Moonee Valley chicken enthusiasts.
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ParmaDaze believed the Ascot Vale Prince of Wales hotel pub served the best parma in the state, but after it burnt down in 2009 due to an electrical fault they set about finding Melbourne’s next best offering.
For the past eight years, the team of five have been on the hunt for Ascot Vale’s equal.
They started the parma review site ParmaDaze and have chewed and judged more than 400 of the classic Aussie meal.
The team travel to a restaurant every Thursday to rate the parma, including the salad and chips and come up with an overall score. But they’re yet to find a 10/10.
Lee and Nikki Hinkley, James Ford, Stefan Olszewski and Adam Thompson said the fire at the Ascot Vale’s Prince of Wales Hotel wasn’t just a loss for the owners, it was a devastating blow for their group, who had dubbed the pub’s parma the best in Melbourne.
“It still is,” Mr Hinkley said.
“It had great quality ingredients, they sold 120 of them on an average night, it was great value at $15, including chips and salad.”
The team have been on the hunt for its match since 2010 and said some had come close but the Prince of Wales parma was like no other.
One defining factor on the plate was the stella trio of salads.
“It had three; potato, pasta and garden,” Mr Hinkley said.
It was so good, the team arranged for the chef to cook up parmas for Mr Hinkley’s bucks party a few years later.
Right: Lee Hinkley, Nikki Hinkley and Adam Thompson.
The crew’s official parma testing number was sitting at 355, but that didn’t include ‘special editions’, such as parmas overseas and interstate.
Like true Melburnians, their reviews may be slightly skewed; they all live in Moonee Valley and tend to stick to Melbourne’s north and the CBD.
They venture south as much as possible and have even driven to rural Victoria to try parmas at The Wandiligong Hotel and Harrietville Snowline Hotel in Alpine National Park, and The Old Hepburn Hotel in Daylesford.
I joined the ParmaDaze crew on a recent review at the refurbished East Brunswick Hotel to witness the process first-hand.
While we eat, we discuss. The chips came first.
“Good chips,” Mr Olszewski said.
Everyone agreed — they were golden and crunchy.
But the parma was sitting on them — an instant red flag.
Putting hot, crumbed chicken on crunchy chips inevitably leads to soggy chips. I salvaged most of mine by furiously pulling them out from suffocation.
“Chips in a bowl is best,” Mr Olszewski quickly tells me.
The parma is worth twice as much as the other elements when calculating the entire rating.
One major, overlooked element that can pull an 8/10 down to a 6, is the salad.
A traditional parma comes with a simple, garden salad, but as in life often the simple things are the easiest to mess up — like including aniseed and fennel in the side salad.
“It’s strange with a parma,” Mr Olszewski said.
That particular parma was from Abbotsford’s Eureka Hotel, and after the review was published, the chef asked them to come back.
They would, but there’s a year long wait between re-reviews.
And if you think breaded chicken breast topped with tomato sauce, ham and cheese is hard to mess up, you’d be wrong.
“We’ve had lots of terrible parmas,” Mr Olszewski said.
“You know when it’s processed chicken, you can tell when it’s napoli sauce out of tin, cheap cheese, bad chips.”
But they’re not snobs, they’ll finish the bird if they’re hungry enough.
While the Prince of Wales remains unbeaten, The Birmingham Hotel has sat at the top of the ladder for almost three years with a score of 9.1.
The bottom on the list for 2018 was The Prince Alfred Hotel, the parma was so bad the night ended with the pub giving them a refund and the crew have said they’re willing to wave the 12 month re-review wait to give the pub a second chance.
If you think they’re wrong, you can suggest a parma on the ParmaDaze site or their Facebook and Twitter.
And remember if you call it a parmi, you’re doing it wrong.
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