Burleigh Heads Hotel

On a fine Autumn day in South East Queensland we made the trek down to the Gold Coast for markets and lunch. Our destination for lunch was the Burleigh Heads Hotel. I'd done my parm-research before hand, knowing full well they served chicken parm, and that is what I had.

So how was the chicken parm? I'll start with the picture.

We got to the hotel at about 12:20pm and the place was nearly full. Only a handful of tables inside and out were available with a few more having reserved signs. If we were another 15 minutes later I don't think we would have gotten a table straight away. Not that it would have been a bad thing, they have Sail & Anchor's Monkey Fist beer on tap and I would quite happily have sat there drinking away until a table freed up.

But we got our table, took a look at the menu and Mrs In-Parms-Way went and ordered our food. About 25 to 30 minutes later the food came out. Something we all noticed about the Burleigh Heads Hotel is the size of the meals. The prices are slightly higher than you'd expect for "pub-grub" but the meals were massive. One lady near us had a Cesar salad that was larger than her head. And her head wasn't overly small, was normal size. Just an enormously large salad.

Anyway.

Size: As mentioned above, it was massive. By far the largest chicken parm I have eaten. And they didn't skimp on the chips or salad either. For $24 it was well worth it. I'd say a couple could pretty easily share this for dinner.

Chicken: Perfectly cooked, succulent and moist in the middle. The crumbing was thick but tasty. Slightly overcooked on the edges but only just. One could even argue that is more preferable for a bit of extra crunch.

Cheese: Just like the chicken, the cheese was perfect. Heaps on there, went near close to the edges all over and they even let some fall onto the hot plate and get all crispy. Was delicious.

Ham: Fairly non-existent. Was small bits of shredded ham. Didn't add too much to the overall flavour of the meal.

Sauce: Lots of chunky tomato sauce under the cheese. Was quite mild in flavour and a little bit sweet. I prefer parm sauce to be a bit higher in the flavour mix, but the tasty chicken and cheese helped bring the sauce up.

Chips: Standard pub chips. Were very lightly seasoned and needed some help from the salt shaker. Was plenty of them on the plate and under the chicken. I didn't get close to finishing them.

Salad: As far as the green accompaniments go, the salad here was pretty good. Shredded beet, green leaf stuff, mild vinaigrette and what I've never seen before, sweet potato chips. All little and over the top of the salad to bring some delicious flavour and crunchiness to it. Good work Burleigh Heads Hotel, no salad has excited me like yours did.

All in all we had a great lunch at the Burleigh Heads Hotel. Service was good, drinks were cold and the food was nice. Burleigh Heads is a long way for the In-Parms-Way crew to travel but I'd certainly recommend it to anyone in the area.

-Dave the Mega-Parm