As Friday afternoon wore on there was a string of emails - What time are we booked for again? Does anyone feel like getting there a bit early? Let me know what time you're ready to leave work. Are you ready yet? I am so ready.
And so we ducked out of work about 4.30, started arriving at Basque Tapas about 5.00, we were all there by about 5.30, and we were finished before 7.00.
It's not our fault, I swear. I blame the kitchen for being so darn fast.
Ahh, the timeless romantic appeal of the south end of Chapel Street.
At five o'clock on a Friday afternoon, the joint was about a quarter full, and not just with people dropping in for an after-work bevvy either. Most of the people were enjoying little plates of food with their drinkies. At the back of the dining room was a family with a young urchin or two. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this exactly how tapas is meant to work? And it's happening in Melbourne!
The space inside has clean, light coloured walls with a high roof, dark ceiling and dark floors. Tables are unadorned dark wood - trendily distressed or just honestly worn and torn with the weight of a thousand glasses of tinto? - and the chairs an ever so slightly baroque wrought iron. The main room has a pleasant and unforced feel to it. The music while we were there was loudish with a wailing guitar theme that treminded me of Chevy Chase in "The Three Amigos". Not unignorable though. Sound levels were at the lively end and I suspect it would be well loud at peak hour.
The first thing we took care of was a big jug of sangria ($29.50 but halved to $15. You gotta love happy hour). Because nothing sets you up for an evening like a tummy full of fizzy sweet red wine and brandy. Actually this was not sweet - the wine was dry, cool and fresh with a strong touch of cinnamon. Kind of like cold gluhwein, said Manto. Kind of, said SMT & me. And every jug was made fresh. Lazy old Ecumer may have been tempted to mix up the spices, brandy and what-not and kept them in a big container in the fridge. But they're made of better stuff at Basque Tapas.
The second thing we took care of was some carbs to take care of the sangria.
The patatas bravas ($8.50) were good. The potatos were fairly crisp on the outside and mealy inside (that's a good thing - the alternative is powdery), there was a healthy scattering of smoky pimenton. The accompanying aioli was fiery hot (menu gripe : you don't need to write "garlic aioli"). We liked them.
Croquetas de con salsa de mojo rojo (jamon croquettes with spicy red pepper sauce, $14.5) were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. The capsicum sauce was smooth and nicely piquant, but the ham in the croquettes was indistinguishable in the flavours.
Tostada con queso de cabra marinado ($12.50) was the standout dish of the night, possibly from surprise effect. From the description ("Lightly toasted goat cheese on house made bread ") I had somehow inferred something heavy, hard and manchego-ish. No no no! Smooth, mild goat's gurd on top of light, crisp baguette-ish bread with some fruity olive oil and a little pesto. Great flavours, very easy on the taste buds. Strong yet accessible. We ate two serves (mind you there were six of us and only two slices per serve. But big slices.)
Salt cod croquettes with potato, pumpkin and fresh herbs & spicy aioli ($14.50) - again, well executed croquettes, crispy not greasy and a nice soft filling. I am a sucker for salt cod and will order it at every opportunity so my opinion is not to be trusted. "I liked them" says the Periguexse. "The fish taste came through nice and clearly and the spicing didn't overwhelm it." The heat from the aioli was prominent - so take a little less aioli.
Chorizo Grillado ($8.50) was okay. It came out with the same capsicum sauce as the ham croquettes, which is fine, and was charrily grilled and juicy. But the flavours of pimenton and garlic were quite overwhelming. If there was any flavour of deliciously smoked pork product in there, as there should be in chorizo, it was lost in the other flavours. Moulard, who is of course an amateur charceuterist, thought they may not have been smoked at all. It was not bad, no chorizo that is not burnt can be bad, but not exciting and we were starting to find the amount of pimenton in dishes a bit wearing.
Pimientos de piquillo rellenos de carne con salsa (Pork and beef filled Spanish small red capsicums with carrot and onion cream, $9.50). We had hoped for crispier peppers; prehaps they waited a while on the pass before getting to us. The flavours of pork and beef and spices in the peppers were balanced and pleasant. The sauce made us all think of our Mums' white sauce with onion. The pumpkin was a mild, barely noticable sweetness in the sauce. I think this would be a great dish with a more exciting sauce, because the stuffed peppers are mild and aromatic on their own; they could use a little help.
Vieras con jamon y salsa de vino tinto (scallops wrapped with jamon with red wine reduction and pomegranate, $14.50). Another nice dish but maybe could have been better. The ham had been wrapped around the scallops and then pan fried on the ham facing side instead of on the scallop facing side. For all I know this is an unchangeably classic way of doing scallops in ham in Spain, but by the time the scallops were done through, the ham had become dry and a bit thready. The flavour was intense and hammy, but had lost the subtle sweet smokiness of good jamon. The pomegranate sauce was nice if you like sweet sauces on meat. I've said before (and will again) that they're not to my taste except with game.
Oh look, more sangria! We only had three jugs between six of us, but every time the waitress went past she asked if we wanted more. Perhaps we looked like we needed it.
Balls, said Manto. And balls there were - albóndigas de carne ($9.50). Maybe we were getting to the end of the meal. Maybe we were getting tapas fatigue. We were unexcited by these. I've never been to Spain so I don't know what albóndigas are meant to taste like. These were moist almost to the point of mushiness and kind of bland. Certaily edible but not a lot to get excited about.
Most of the way through the meal we thought maybe we needed something bulky to fill us up - you can't just eat chunks of protein all meal, now can you? So a chicken and chorizo paella (large, $37.50) seemed the thing. As it turned out we didn't need it, we had ordered so many protein chunks that we were full anyway (but see churros below).
I'm afraid we were underwhelmed by the paella - the rice was properly cooked, the chicken, chorizo and capsicum were all fine, but the flavours were all separate, not combined; there was no depth to the flavour in the dish; and there was no socarrat (crusty smoky goodness on the bottom of the pan. Here at On Golden Fond we are all about crusty smoky goodness). A suspicious mind might suspect the kitchen was taking some shortcuts by adding ingredients to a pre-cooked rice base - a suspicion not supported by any of the other dishes we had.
And so to churros. My, we were full. We had to take most of the paella home in a container. But you can't have Spanish food without churros ($11.00). In hindsight a poor choice - the churros were only just crisp on the outside, soft and doughy inside instead of firm, and the chocolate sauce was sweet and chocolatey but not exciting. We felt the kitchen may have been rushing. Next time we're here we'll get one of the other desserts : chili chocolate panacotta with rasperry sauce sounds good; red wine pears with coffee ice cream ditto.
Overall - good food, well executed. Nice lively atmosphere (and pretty lively volumes) of both dining and service which fits well into the locale. No material service slips (one dish got misordered out of about fifteen and they gave us the extra one for free) and the service was at all times friendly, competent and welcoming. A couple of quibbles about the choices of spicing in some the dishes (excessive use of pimenton?) and undercooked churros, compared to every other dish quick, crisp and flavourful. Half price sangria! And with the discount from the Entertainment Guide (25%) the bill was an absurdly low $40 per person (we tipped on the full price, as you should). A good place to drop into if you're working or living nearby, even travel a bit if there's no good tapas where you live.
So we'll be back. And next time, we'll finish our dinner after seven o'clock.
Cheers,
Ecumer
0 Yorumlar