Palace Hotel

505-507 City Rd South Melb

Time Out’s ‘Pub of the Year’. We’ll be the fucking judge of that.

There are times when, as a pub aficionado – or “day drinker” – you feel compelled to act. One of those times is when a magazine for people under the age of 30 reckons they’ve found the “Pub of the Year”.

So off we trot to The Palace in South Melbourne.

Apart from your regular reviewers, brothers Quinlan and Bottoms, this day we welcomed a new member to the Pub Reviews team – Hemingway. A writer by trade with a liver of steel.

FIRST IMPRESSION

When people in “Youth Media” talk about a pub, they often don’t mean a pub. They mean a bar. Where people in suits gather to try and fornicate with one another using tactics they picked up in a book that was popular in 2001 called The Game.

Youth Media tells Youth where to go in order to avoid People of Disrepute. But People of Disrepute are our people.

So it was to our delight when we got to the The Palace and discovered that it looks like a pub. The sort of place that’s filled with booze-related artwork. A front bar that’s crammed with shit. That looks like it sells chicken several ways and hasn’t bothered to learn about tofu (we’ll get to that). It looks like our kind of pub.

When you walk through the doors, there’s a sign behind the bar that says “Take a good hard look at yourself”. It’s a test. If you read that and you don’t respond with “I’m good”, then you should piss off to Sumo Salad for lunch. If you respond with “I’m good”, then pick a tap and get involved.

Straight away we got a greeting like they’ve known us for ages. Bloody right on. This is going to be a good day.

GENERAL PUBBERY

Mark (Pratty) and Jess (the owners) have created a place that’s not only a great pub but that’s got a proper sense of humour. All pubs should really. They were friendly, people in the back smoked darts relentlessly (fuck you, Sydney) and there are two beer gardens. That’s like saying “Come to my house, I’ve got two sheds – one that I’ve converted into a bar and another that’s a Shane Warne themed bar.”

One of the genuine highlights of the outside area are the little painted signs that say “beer” with helpful arrows. They’re small, but incredibly useful. Other artwork is mostly old posters, coasters and merchandise from booze brands as well as signatures and words of wisdom that people have just scrawled on the walls. A bit of sporting stuff too.

Jess pointed out one of her favourite pieces, a commemorative poster that said GLENN ARCHER – 300 GAMES. Under which someone wrote OF RUBBISH. Apparently Arch himself saw it and had a laugh. See? Sense of humour.

On their menus, they also highlight their areas of expertise. These are (in order):

• Fox Footy
• Dog Friendly Garden
• All Sports
• Changing Tap Beers
• Functions

If you can find one other thing you need in a pub, we’ll buy you a beer. Because if you can’t strike up a conversation about footy in the dog-friendly beer garden while drinking a new beer with someone (and their dog) who’s sneaking a dart at Nan’s 90^th, then it’s not the sort of pub we want to frequent.

It’s a genuinely friendly place too. We were upfront with Jess that we were reviewing the place and – despite our lowly following on the social medias – she went out of the way to have a chat. Not in a sycophantic, say-nice-things-to-get-things-back way, but in a “you like pubs and so do we” kind of way.

A final note, we heard Johnny Cash, AC/DC and the Oils over the PA. If that doesn’t say ‘Strayan pub, then nothing does.

You know what Time Out? You’re spot on so far.

9 pots out of 10

THE DRINKS

A great selection of beers here. It’s always a treat to see lots of beers you’ve never heard of. Means they give a shit. Upon entering I enquired about the Kaiju Tropical Ale. Pratty graciously gave me a taste. Fruitier than Con the Fruiterer at a Peter Allen concert. Not for me. Anyway there was Carlton, a whole lot of Coopers (including Dark Ale!), Holgate, Tiger, a couple of unknowns and a cider. Plenty to keep you interested.

So wine…. Well it was a warm day, and when we drink wine at lunch on a warm day we go to bed at 6pm so we didn’t touch it. But it looks reassuringly unfamiliar. Local, NZ and European labels across a whole stack of varieties. When we get back there (and we WILL get back there), we’ll get stuck in. But for now…. Just ask the bar staff. They seem knowledgeable.

8 pots out of 10

THE FOOD

Imagine a threesome between Margaret Fulton, Action Bronson and a barbecue that got a little out of hand. Anyway the barbecue wound up pregnant and had a baby. Now imagine that baby wrote a menu. The menu itself was also infused with this rapidly escalating sense of humour. On it was an ad old ad for cocaine. A cartoon of a lady kissing some beer hops. Anyway, look at the food – South Melbourne Market Dim Sims, Bacardi Fuego (red cinnamon rum) infused BBQ Pork Ribs, Buffalo Wings, pizzas. Go on then.

We also like that when they decide they no longer want to serve that dish or cancel some ingredients they just get out the black texta and cross the fucker out. No menu reprinting. Why bother? Jesus, life’s short enough. It’s literally the CIA method of dealing with pub menus.

So, time to order. Variety was on the cards as there were three of us there on the day. Quinlan, Hemingway and a blow-in who we will call ‘Chad’. Anyway, fucken Chad doesn’t like Buffalo Wings does he? So we don’t order them. Upon clearing the empty plates, Jess tells us we should have had the Buffalo Wings as they are the best around. Later we see Time Out in their 2016 review calls them the best in Melbourne. But we didn’t order them did we? No. Fucken Chad.

What we did have however was still a chicken fest. Parma. Southern Fried Chicken Tenders. Onion Rings. And the chicken special that we only ordered because it was called ‘Chicken Airline’, which Jess told us was a wanky term for a piece of chicken with the wing pointing in the air.

When it arrived it kind of looked like ‘that’ Jack Thompson centerfold from Cleo magazine circa 1972.

The Airline was very nice. Rustic, charred, roasted bird on WAY too many sliced baked spuds and some cursory greens. The parma was a real treat. Best we’ve had yet. Proper ham and cheese. Cooked a tad brown/burnt on the outside but succulent on the inside – flavour and moisture. The salad took up approximately four per cent of the plate. The maximum legal limit.

Onion rings were an 8 out of 10 because they told us so and the Southern Fried Chicken Tenders were most excellent with a proper tangy/spicy sauce that you could slap on pretty much everything. Our recommendation is to dip the onion rings in the chicken tenders sauce.

If we were to summarise the menu and what we had, it was nigh on perfect. None of us live near this pub but if you do, consider yourself very lucky. If the internet goes down forever, as well as the public transport system and Trump’s war with China means every material possession now costs four times more than it did, you can just go here daily and eat and drink well and never get sick of it.

9.5 pots out of 10

LOCAL FLORA AND FAUNA

This is a new section we’re adding in – unique to The Palace.

There’s no polite way to say this: There is a dog that lives in the pub. He’s a legend named Billy. And he has the biggest dog dong we’ve ever seen. Enough that it had three grown men giggling like schoolgirls while this bulldog/cross/staffy/cross/horse strolled around with his knob an inch from the ground.

If there were other dogs in the pub (which there weren’t) they would have been very intimidated. Jesus, we were intimidated. Jess tells us Billy had a nasty stomach illness. An operation was required and involved cutting the tendon that keeps his pecker in. So now he walks around with his junk out of the trunk. If we walked around like that all day long, nobody would notice. Billy doesn’t have that luxury. Apparently they occasionally need to pop Billy’s lipstick back in the purse. That’s commitment.

Billy is why The Palace is Pub of the Year.

11 pots out of 10

WANKFACTOR

None. There was Billy, bad language and darts being smoked by people that didn’t wear suits. The bartenders were friendly without kissing arse and the beers didn’t have any ingredients we felt were out of place in a beer. Like guava. Fuck guava.

The “Snack of the Day” was wedges. Wedges! With sweet chilli and sour cream. That’s been Snack of the Day since 1986.

This pub is literally the opposite of the Prince Alfred Hotel.

10 out of 10 pots

COMFORT STATIONS

Well golly gee we got a surprise when we stepped in here. Lots of clean white tiles like it’s just been built. Very stark and clean and lifeless. Like those Toohey’s pubs of the early 2000s. On one nice clean wall there was a single poster advertising ‘OUTLAW SESSIONS’ IPA. It was like having a Hells Angels sticker on a Toyota Starlet.

Upon exiting we were confronted by the highlight of the bathroom – the hand dryer. Obviously it was new and had replaced a bigger one due to all the exposed glue and crap stuck to the wall. And obviously it was installed by a drunk tradie because it was wonky. Probably a tradie that did it for a free pint.

But the best part was it was unplugged. You want to dry your hands? Then use your wet hands and plug it in to the wall yourself numnuts.

7 pots out of 10

OUTDOORS

Exactly what you want. Two beer gardens. A big one and a small one. There’s more area for smoking than there is for not smoking. If it was any more committed to individual freedoms, it would need its own Constitution.

In the small one is a mural devoted to Melbourne Bitter. A worthy subject indeed. The mural itself, it must be said, probably isn’t the artists finest work. But hey it’s a beer mural in a pub, not fucking Degas.

The other mural is a cracker – the logo of thrash metal legends ANTHRAX, accompanied by a giant depiction of Billy the Hung wearing headphones. Amen and hallelujah. There’s that sense of humour again.

9 pots out of 10

WHAT’S POT?

• The food. Very hard to top
• The sense of humour
• The staff
• The beer
• The ambience
• Billy

WHAT’S NOT?

• The fact that it’s not our local

Overall rating 9.5 pots