The Pancake Parlour Restaurant
Bourke St Mall, Melbourne, Victoria
On another stupidly hot shopping day in Melbourne (we weren't trying to punish ourselves - we just visited in the middle of a heat wave) we were looking for a cool place to have a drink and some lunch and I remembered that we had both liked this place on a previous trip, and suggested it. We decided to give it a go. Obviously I couldn't get any pancakes, so I decided to have...surprise, surprise, the caesar salad!
This time I remembered to get a photo of the menu, but I think there was a fingerprint on the lens of the mobile phone's camera, because it came out very blurry.
Just in case you can't read that it actually says
Crumbed chicken pieces, a hard boiled free-range egg, crisp bacon bits served on a bed of cos lettuce with anchovy dressing and shaved parmesan cheeseEntree...$15.90 Main...$23.90
Obviously, the crumbed chicken pieces were going to be a bit of a problem. I asked if the chicken could be done without the crumbs due to my gluten intolerance, and was told that no, the chicken was pre-prepared with crumbs. The waitress said that she would go check, and when she came back she said it was possible to have the chicken sans crumbs.
Here is a photo of the salad:
As you can see, it is nicely presented, so I gave it full marks on presentation. I also scored it full marks for taste, as it was delicious.
Now we get to the tricky bits. I have given this one zero for value for money. Priced at $23.90 it was too expensive. While it was very tasty, I didn't feel that it deserved its price tag. I would consider paying that price for a salad the quality of Elaia's, but this one wasn't that good, and as far as quantity goes, it wasn't any bigger than any of the $15 salads I've had.
For ingredients, most were very good. The egg was boiled, but as it was advertised that way, I'm not deducting anything for that. What I am deducting half a mark for is the chicken. I suspect that the pre-prepared crumbed chicken had its crumbs washed off before cooking. There were some chicken pieces that looked like they had crumbs on them, which I cut off before eating them. For that reason, I'm also deducting half a mark for service. I would have preferred being told that the chicken was not an option for me rather than being left with the uneasy feeling that maybe I shouldn't be eating it.
In total, this salad scores 8 out of 10. Well done.
Score Summary
| Taste: |  | |
| Ingredients: |  | |
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| Service: |  | |
| Value for Money: | ||
| Total: | 8/10 |
2 comments:
Great Scott, $A23 for a salad?!? Even as a main even in Melbourne that must be a breach of the Hague Convention on Salads and Side-orders Named After Great Military Generals Distribution and Pricing (1947).
I agree the whole chicken thing sounds a bit crummy. If their chicken is precrumbed, well, they should 'fess up frankly. In a world where people can have very extreme physiological reactions to even trace elements of particular foods, chicken not crumbed during preparation and chicken decrumbed hurriedly in the sink are not the same thing.
Nice photo, looks large but to be honest it was a little difficult to tell. I would suggest you carry around a 30cm ruler which you can include in-shot to give your readers a point of reference. Well ok that or a coin or something.
Incidentally, in Japan they sometimes include a coin actually -in- the salad. The tradition hails from Osaka apparently, not sure of the exact origin but it could be similar to the penny in the pudding thing they have in the West at Christmas.
Har har April Fools. -capers about like a demented gnome-
You're a difficult man to please qeyla. Putting a coin in the photo might be a little difficult, as would the ruler! I'll think on ways to compare sizes.
Thanks
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