Breakfast Creek Hotel

I've lived in Brisbane for nearly eight years and this is the first time I've ever been to the Breakfast Creek Hotel. I've heard before that it's awesome and great and somewhere you have to go, but for some reason just haven't been, until today.

It's a beautiful, sunny, autumn day in Brisbane today and what better place to spend it than outside in a beer garden, eating chicken parm and drinking XXXX out of an f-ing wooden keg!! Beer off the wood!!! We got there at about midday and the place was already pretty lively. We took our seats, got a few drinks and ordered lunch.

Does the Breakfast Creek Hotel do a chicken parm? You bet they do. Before I show you the picture, I just wanted to say how proud I am of these ones. The somewhat new DSLR camera of the better-half was used to take these. It sh!t's all over what my little iPhone 3G can do.

For $29.00 it's well and truly up there is the price stakes, rivaling the cost of some of the steaks on the menu. But the service was pretty good and the food was ready pretty quickly. You order/pay at the bar, the staff give you a beeper and you go collect your meal when it's cooked and ready.

Funny thing about the ordering. When you go out for chicken parm there aren't really many choices to make, "I'll have a chicken parm please". When you go with someone getting a steak, hoo boy, "fillet mignon, medium rare, jacket potato and salad, put the sauce on the side, and wave it in front of a registered JP, to make sure its legit".... Pretty sure I'll get in trouble for this comment, haha.

How was the parm though? 

Size: Large bit of chicken. Chips were on the smaller side, could have done with another 50% helping. Salad was a good size, but salad is a salad, not too fussed about the greenery.

Chicken: Delicious. One of the best cooked bits of chicken I've had since starting this blog. Cooked perfectly, was a uniform thickness all the way through, juicy and succulent and crumbed to perfection. Hats off to the mother chicken, you did well.

Ham Bacon: Great pork product. Worked really well with the meal. Cooked so it was crispy but not over the top to be brittle. 

Cheese: Large amount of cheese, was slightly dominating the flavour in the middle of the chicken but worked well. Better too much than not enough, at least in this case.

Sauce: Not much sauce, but the extra cheese and the tasty bacon helped here. Would have been a more balanced and complete meal with more sauce I think. Or even sauce with a bit more flavour.

Chips: The disappointment of the day. Chips were plain and boring. And not enough of them to really help with the chicken. I did however dunk a few into the chilli sauce on my partners steak. That's some really great sauce. Whoever decided to pair chilli sauce and steak together is a genius.

Salad: Nice salad, had a mustardy vinaigrette on it. Plus all the "bits" were cut up really small (shredded), well except for the massive tomato, but that made it easier to push to the side. 

Here's another picture of the meal.

All in all, I enjoyed my chicken parm experience from the Breakfast Creek Hotel. If they could make their chips more interesting and mabe lower the price of the parma by $5 I would highly recommend it to anyone. As it is though, I would only go there again if there was a proper reason to.

Talking of reasons to go back though, the XXXX in the wooden keg was awesome. Less than $6 a schooner, and tasted much nicer than regular XXXX, smoother and more gentle... Love it!

I want one for home!

Until next time (tomorrow, it's Parm Sunday).

-Dave the Mega-Parm

Quick Post: Coffs Hotel

Quick parm update. Spent the weekend in Coffs Harbour. On Friday night (after a fair few beers) we went to the Coffs Hotel for dinner. Here's a picture of the chicken parm!

I don't remember a huge amount about it but I do remember it was pretty nice. Very small bit of chicken though. Would certainly go back and try it again in a more sober state.

-Dave the Mega-Parm

ps. YOU DON'T KNOW MY NAME

Ribs and Rumps - Fortitude Valley

Ribs and Rumps holds a special place in my heart. Every time we travel to Sydney (which isn't enough) we share a meal with a long time friend and his wife at the Ribs and Rumps in North Ryde. To learn that there is a Ribs and Rumps, not only in Brisbane but in Fortitude Valley and walking distance from where we live was just too much. We had to go.

Ribs and Rumps are well known for their great steaks and amazing ribs. If I wasn't doing this blog I would certainly have gone with a Ribs and Rump combo but there is a chicken parm on the menu, and that's what I had. Picture below.

At $19.95 it was a middle of the road priced parm. While we got there just as it opened the service was very good with the drinks coming out shortly after ordering and the food coming out not too long after that. Was also nice to get a 568ml Little Creature Pale Ale for less than $10 to go with the chicken. Not my favourite beer but still very nice.

How was the parm though?

Size: Medium sized chicken parm. Good amount of chips. Salad just right too. I was completely full at the end of the meal.

Chicken: Good thickness to the chicken, consistent over the whole piece. Was cooked really well. The chicken was juicy and the crumbing was just right.

Cheese: A lot of cheese on the chicken, and it was very oily. Could have done with either a little less cheese or a bit more time under the grill. The cheese (and sauce) didn't reach the edges of the chicken either. Kind of pooled up a bit in the middle of the parm. Tasted good, although I don't think my heart will be too happy at all.

Sauce: Nice sauce, chunks of tomato in there, great flavour. Not enough of it though, and was overpowered by the cheese.

Ham: I'll let this picture do the talking...

Chips: Good chips, crunchy and well cooked. Though probably not exciting enough for a chicken parm. If they were paired with a juicy steak and gravy or ribs with BBQ sauce they would be perfect, but there just wasn't enough sauce with the parm to bring them the extra flavour they need. Certainly serviceable and they were all gone at the end (though I did steal some of my partners tangy BBQ sauce).

Salad: Surprisingly I really enjoyed this salad and aside from some strips of carrot at the end I ate it all. A really sweet sort of honey like dressing on top. Really tasty.

All in all, the parma at Ribs and Rumps was good. If they got the balance of cheese and sauce right it would have been amazing, oh and something extra for the chips. Not sure what, just something to bring them up a bit. I had a bit of edge chicken with the tangy BBQ sauce and it was amazing. A parm with that instead of napoli sauce, and maybe some bacon would be awesome.

Lastly, they have a massive red coloured bull out the front. I wanted to start the blog with a picture of its face and end it with a picture of its arse but didn't have the balls to take the second photo. Here's the head.

Until next time.

-Dave the Mega-Parm

Beach House Bar & Grill - Brisbane CBD

For the office secret santa last year I was lucky enough to get a $20 gift voucher for the Beach House Bar & Grill. After sitting in my drawer for the better part of two months it finally got used last night at their Brisbane CBD restaurant.

It's always busy at the Beach House Bar & Grill so we went after work during the week. The service was good and the food came out pretty quickly. Jugs of beers are dangerous at $13 and we were lucky to get one of the raised up stool tables giving us a nice view over the railing. It's a pretty open place, even had a small bird fly past our heads during the evening.

The Beach House Bar & Grill do a few varieties of parmas. I went with the "standard" parm however others at the table had the Green and Gold (chicken with cheese, avocado and sweet chilli sauce) and the Sand Castles (chicken with salt and pepper squid on top). By all accounts both alternative parms were pretty good.

I can only comment on my own parm though. Picture below.

At $20.90 it's a fairly well priced parm. The meal is much larger on the plate than it looks in the photo. Certainly large enough to not be hungry at the end and pretty good value overall.

Chicken: Looks a little burnt but didn't have a burnt flavour, nor was it too dry. Not a very thick piece of chicken but it tasted very nice. Worked well with the other ingredients (which were the star of this show).

Ham: No ham on this parm, nothing to see here.

Cheese: Excellent cheese and a lot of it. Could have done with a little bit longer under the grill but worked perfectly with the sauce. Would have liked the cheese to go all the way to the edge though.

Sauce: Great sauce. No, amazing sauce. Chunks of tomato in there, tasted home-made like nonna used to make. As mentioned above it could have gone all the way to the edge of the chicken but it did spread out pretty easy once I started eating. The sauce was the highlight of the meal.

Chips: Nice chips, but I've had better from the Beach House before. Maybe they needed more seasoning. There were so many under the parm too, it was like a little mountain.

Salad: Avid readers will know I'm not a huge salad fan, but this was pretty good. Definitely in the top 5 chicken parm salads I've had (not that I really keep a record). Huge amount of salad too, and most of it got eaten.

All in all, the chicken parm experience from Beach House Bar & Grill was a good one. It's been a long time since I've eaten there and it lived up to the memory.

-Dave the Mega-Parm

The Tempo Hotel

Tuesday was a busy day, we're currently in the process of moving house and after spending a solid six hours in packing stuff up, moving and putting stuff away I decided it was time for something to eat (and to drink). So I walked up to The Tempo Hotel at about 12:45, hoping they had chicken parm on the menu. They did. I was happy.

Picture below.

At $16.50 it is a pretty reasonably priced parma. And the meal came out very quickly, but how was it?

Size: Good size meal, certainly enough to be full at the end. Actually to be honest I wimped out and didn't eat all the chips (or salad). For $16.50 it is great value.

Chicken: Crumbed very nicely, and was nice and juicy. The only gripe with the chicken is that it was very thin. Could have done with being a couple of millimetres thicker all over.

Cheese: A good amount of cheese on top, and it was tasty. Could have done with a bit more cooking of the cheese though, it wasn't oozing and kind of held itself together.

Ham: My goodness, there was a lot of ham on this parm. It was tasty and nice shredded ham but there was so much. I had to take an extra picture of it. See below.

It wasn't bad though, actually worked really well with the sauce.

Sauce: Very mild sauce, had chunks of tomato in it that were delicious. The saltyness of the ham turned the mild sauce into something really nice.

Salad: Boring, dry and uneventful, but who cares about salad?

All in all I was pretty happy with the parma from The Tempo Hotel, plus they had Miller Draught on tap so that was pretty good. Will certainly go there again!!

-Dave the Mega-Parm

International Hotel

On what is pretty easily the crappiest Brisbane weather day in at least the last year we headed off to the International Hotel for lunch and a few beers. It's no secret to anyone that knows me and the team at In Parms Way that I we're huge fans of the International Hotel but this was the first time we've been there for lunch.

A quick picture to show why we hold the International Hotel in such regard.

This is a pint of their Indian Chief. Yes, the International Hotel has it's own micro brewery and yes that beer has a slice of lemon in it. The first sip of the Indian Chief is quite bitter but it has this delicious citrus after note, even without the slice of lemon. After a brief chat with the bar staff I learned that there is also orange in the beer. Quite interesting. I've even had dreams about this beer with today being the third Sunday in a row that we've been there for drinks.

But, we also went there for lunch and you know what that means, chicken parms to be devoured. How was it? Picture below.

This wasn't your standard chicken parm, it's the Mexico variety, and boy it was nice. The meal came out pretty quickly, we waited about 20 minutes from ordering to the plates coming out to the table. The price was pretty good too at $19.90 for the parm.

Instead of the normal cheese, ham and napoli sauce the Mexico has jalapeno's, pepperoni, roast peppers, Mexican salsa and guacamole. You can also see they've stuck corn chips into the top of the salsa which was a fun touch.

Size: While the chicken wasn't huge in area, it was quite thick. Definitely a meal that made me full at the end. There was also a fair amount of chips sitting under the chicken. The salad was huge but came in a separate bowl so was easy to remove (except for the leaves that fell onto the plate).

Chicken: Very nice, cooked pretty much perfectly and it looked/tasted like a lot of effort was put into the crumbing. You could see the herbs in the crumb too, something that I like.

Cheese: There was a small amount of cheese on there which was nice. Fairly neutral but helped hold it all together.

Jalapeno: Delicious and hot. My first bite had two bits of jalapeno and I think set the scene for the rest of the meal. There is never anything wrong when chicken and jalapeno's are mixed.

Pepperoni: Not too many on the dish, but they added a nice texture and flavour component. Could probably have done with a few more on the plate. I think ham works better on a meal like this because you can have a lot more on the plate without it taking over the meal completely. But the pepperoni worked really well.

Roast Peppers/Mexican Salsa: I'm going to combine these are they were pretty much mixed together. The salsa was delicious and so were the roast peppers. Did the job of the sauce just as well as napoli does. You can never go wrong with roast peppers and they were great. Cut up into small strips, small enough that you didn't have to worry about getting too much on your fork at once.

Guacamole: I'm not a huge fan of guac but it worked well with the corn chips and the salsa, had a few bites of chicken and corn chip too. Very good, fun addition to the meal.

Chips: Standard beer battered chips, didn't bring anything exciting to the meal but were good none the less. With the all the other flavours going on it wasn't missed but I think with a standard parm if might have been different.

Salad: Pretty boring and unexciting. At least it came in a separate bowl. Moved it away and forgot about it. Had what I think was a lemon vinaigrette on it.

Another member of our lunch team got the Ploughman schnitzel. I took a photo before he started eating it. Looked pretty damn awesome.

Bacon, creamy mushroom sauce, mushroom and cheese. I'll get that next time!

Overall I was very happy with my lunch. Nice food and excellent beer. It doesn't really get any better. If you're in the area (or even if you're not) I highly recommend a visit to the International Hotel. For $5.50 per pint of beer there's no reason not to go and check it out.

-Dave the Mega-Parm

Glasshouse Mountain Tavern

First parm review of the new year. A few weeks in I know, and I apologise. Parm reviews will become more frequent now that the team at In Parms Way are getting back into the swing of regular life (and not the fun times of the holidays). Today we ventured up the coast with another couple to visit the touristy town of Montville and the rather ho-hum (but somewhat interesting) town of Maleny. On the way back we stopped at the Glasshouse Mountains Tavern for lunch and a few beers. Does the Glasshouse Mountains Tavern do a chicken parm? They sure do!

Picture below.

At $18 it's a lower than average priced parma. The restaurant was nice and the service was quick. No problems at all there. Though they did have a small issue with the Extra Dry tap, but it was fixed pretty quickly.

Size: A standard size chicken breast with a good amount of chips. They went well under the chicken. Salad was also quite large (but who cares?).

Chicken: Very nice chicken, well cooked with a nice crumbing. The thickness was standard throughout too. No complaints at all.

Sauce: The highlight of the meal, awesome sauce. Was tangy and sweet yet had a punch of flavour that made it amazing. There was a just the right amount of sauce for the dish. Wasn't a puree, had noticeable bits of tomato with some onion and a hint of garlic. Awesome.

Ham: Didn't see any ham on the meal, nor did I taste it. If it was there is was very subtle. It wasn't missed though.

Cheese: Nice tasty cheese and was quite thick. Cooked just right. Complimented the sauce and chicken perfectly.

Chips: Beer battered and cooked well. Nice and crunchy and heaps of them.

Salad: Standard parma salad with a french dressing. Would have preferred the salad in a separate bowl as the dressing tainted my chips at the end. Didn't detract from the meal too much though.

All in all a pretty good parma, was full at the end and if I was ever out that way and looking for a meal I would go there again. It was the first time one of our party had eaten chicken parm too, was exciting to be part of it.

Oh, our table also won the meat tray raffle. We spend $20 on tickets and won a $25 meat tray. But it was good fun, and good to help the local touch football team (touch football right?).

-Dave the Mega-Parm