Imperial Hotel, Melbourne CBD by Bureaucrat

Although work planning days ain't fun, management usually throws in a free meal to entice everyone to hang around in a 'social' setting in an effort to convince ourselves that we like working with each other.

A free dinner when you're part of a very big group is never going to be memorable unless you're at some seriously swish restaurant and there is no limit to the food budget.  That said, there are other reasons why the meal is memorable.  In this case, this dinner was memorable because some people got sick after being served an under-cooked chicken parma.


But before I get to the salmonella chicken, here are some pics of the properly cooked meals, including the chicken tandoori pizza...


...my steak and veg.  The steak was okay in quality but it definitely was not the best grade of eye fillet... it was a tad rubbery and carpet-like in texture.  The three veg and mash had the hallmarks of being pre-made and sitting in a bain marie.  The quality of the dish is reminiscent of a "beef or chicken" option you'd get at a 1990s wedding reception.


The burgers looked pretty decent in size.


And here is the infamous chicken parma.  About eight people ordered this.  The good points are that it's HUGE.  Definitely get your money's worth in ingredients.  The rocket salad is fresh and the chips are super morish.  Unfortunately, that didn't change the fact that inside the parma the chicken was raw.  We're not talking about a smidge of pink in one of the dishes.  We're talking pink, pink and more pink for all of the parmas... for some of the parmas, the chicken was practically clucking at us.  The management was nice, though, to take them all back and got new ones made up, which were all properly cooked through.  They also didn't charge for those parmas.

Verdict: we wouldn't return.

Overall
Points to the management for rectifying the raw parmas and not charging us for them.  However, while we waited for the new dishes to come out, we couldn't help but check the online reviews for the place... and we found that under-cooked parmas is a speciality of The Imperial Hotel - it's well known for it.  In light of the consistent reviews of the raw parmas, it makes you wonder why the kitchen/management haven't done anything about it.