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
