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Venue: The Grand

Location: 499 Nepean Hwy, Frankston

Date: Monday August 19th, 2024

Website: https://www.grandhotelfrankston.com.au/

Reviewers: Stephen, Laura, Russell

So we’re taking a big swing here. I won’t lie, The Grand in Frankston isn’t a venue that I’m expecting to find the best Parma that we’ll ever sample. However, circumstances led to it being this week’s venue of choice. Despite having grown up in the area, The Grand isn’t a venue I ever ventured to a lot. I used to sometimes come here for a Friday Pub lunch at my old work approx. 20 years ago, but that’s about it. Would I of had the Parma back then? Most likely. Did I remember it at all? Nope, so that doesn’t bode that well. However at least I didn’t remember it for being particularly bad.

Walking into The Grand, the layout is how I remember, however the décor itself has clearly been updated. Wrap around dining area complete with fireplace (one of my favourites in winter) and a side sports bar complete with TAB machines etc. The place is clean and bright, not the poorly lit hole that my memory serves. Drinks are reasonably stock standard, but there’s something there for everyone. Though if you’re after a strong array of craft beers, then this isn’t the venue for you. Wines, spirits though are reasonably stocked.

Seats taken nice and close to the fireplace, and we looked over the menu. It was at this stage that we realised that The Grand is a venue under the umbrella of the Pegasus group, which also manages The Cove which we previously reviewed here The Cove. This means that the menu followed The Cove beat for beat which was interesting to see. Now the Parma at The Cove wasn’t bad, though it certainly wasn’t one of our best. Would this Parma follow suit, or would it show that two Parma’s under the one Umbrella can differ? They had a few different options of Parma on the menu just like The Cove, however we all opted for the traditional Parmas.

Parmas hit our table and the first thing I thought was, this is one big Parma! The Parma took up half our plate, however it had reasonable coverage with the Cheese, ham and Napoli sauce all visible. So to start off with the positives, the cheese was amazing! It was thick, it was blended (three cheese I believe), melted just enough so it wasn’t runny and had great stretch in it and flavour that carried on throughout the dish. The Parma itself had decent thickness, however as far as the positives go, that was close to about it. The Chicken was quite dry and carried little flavour. This was an ongoing issue throughout the dish, as while the ham and Napoli were both there, they didn’t add much to the dish. The Napoli was quite sweet, however was spread quite thin and the ham just had no flavour. The crumb was also coated on a little thick for my liking. Yes, there was crunch there, but a little too much for what I would say is normally ideal for a Parma.

Generally speaking, the chips were a letdown. Starchy, slightly undercooked, the needed rescuing with salt and dipping sauce. Once those elements were added, the chips became much more pleasant, however they were still very forgettable. As far as the amount of chips on the plate go, they were also lacking a little in that regard. I wasn’t left hungry or anything like that, and given they weren’t that great, I wasn’t looking for more. But for those of you chip fans out there, this probably isn’t the venue for you.

Like the chips, the salad was not anything to write home about. Lettuce, onion and shredded carrot, however it was quite dry and had a weird, sweet dressing applied. I’m not sure if it was some twist on a French dressing, however it did very little to compliment the dish as a whole.

As you can probably tell, our impressions weren’t that great, however our thoughts and scores were as follows.

Laura: Great cheese saved this Parma. Chips were bland and salad had an unpleasant sweet dressing.

Russell: Good coverage of cheese. Parma was ok, but nothing stood out.

The Scores:

PARMA: 6.17/10

CHIPS: 5.93/10

DRINKS: 7.47/10

ATMOSPHERE/EXPERIENCE: 6.90/10

SALAD/VEGGIES: 4.27/10

OVERALL: 6.23/10

So while The Grand looks pretty nice on the inside to what it once was, I would describe the Parma here as a classic forgettable Pub Parma. You won’t feel the need to ask for your money back, but you won’t exactly leave feeling like you’ve had a good Parma either.

Till next time.