Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Discovery XVIII

Inspired by the Parma Daze review of the Bridge hotel, just over the bridge in Bridge Road Richmond, a depleted set of discoverers arranged to meet at 7.00 pm. On ringing to make the usual booking in the name of Boris, I was told that bookings in the dining area could be made only for 6.00 or 8.00 pm, but that we were welcome to try our luck in one of the bar areas.

And thus we met in the loft, where there were plenty of high tables and chairs. We chose a table with a view across Richmond towards the city. As the dusk settled in we were looking forward to our meal.

View from the loft at the Bridge hotel
From the Bridge
Mr 28 chose the grilled chicken and bacon burger with chips, lettuce and tomato with "seeded mayonnaise"; the other choices were veal schnitzel with coleslaw, beer battered chips and mushroom sauce; and the eggplant parmigiana (hey, it's parma special Tuesday! only $13!) for me.

The first disappointment was the burger, which was devoid of lettuce or seeded mayonnaise, whatever that is. Maybe the chef didn't know either. The second disappointment was the mushroom sauce. According to my trusty discoverer companions, it tasted weird. The third disappointment was the eggplant parma. I should have been paying attention when I read the menu description, but what on earth are they thinking? Why would anybody prefer to eat soggy turkish bread rather than chips with parma? The other discoverers kindly chipped in with contributions of beer battered chips from their own plates, but sadly these chips were barely warm. The only good thing that can be said about them is that they were better than the eggplant, the burger and the schitzel.

The eggplant parma was presented as four rings of eggplant topped with napoli sauce and cheese, on a bed of salad with a couple of pieces of charred but soggy Turkish bread leaning on top. Two of the eggplant segments were fine, but the other two were cut so thick that they were uncooked and inedible. And there was no evidence of any nice crumb coating on any of these sorry vegetables. However the rocket salad was very tasty and I ate it all up.

I've enhanced the following photo using the new inbuilt editing features of FlickStackr (thanks for this update - it's great!) so it probably looks better than it really was. And remember the chips were not in the original.

Picture of eggplant parmigiana
When is a parma not a parma?
The only consolation to look forward to was the special Tuesday parma price.

Imagine my shock then on bring presented with the bill and discovering that the parma had been charged at full price! I was informed that the special parma deal only applied to chicken parma - eggplant parma didn't qualify. Well sorry guys, but don't mess with an angry vegetarian who has just endured an inedible eggplant parma without chips. It took a visit from the manager, but finally justice was restored and the discount was applied.

The best discovery of the night was yet to come. Mr 28 suggested a detour to Dan's on the way home. I had no idea that the Bridge Road instance of the discount liquor store chain boasted a secret car park, complete with lift access right into the store. Worth celebrating with a case of Coopers to help take away the nasty taste of undercooked eggplant!

Bridge Hotel on Urbanspoon

 

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