Nachos Mexican Cantina

Nachos Mexican Cantina
03) 9544 9841
1650 Dandenong Rd Oakleigh

After BlueCorn, I was a bit worried about how Nachos would shape up - in retrospect this worry was fully warranted. Having heard that the nachos from here are legendary, it was right to start with them. The nachos may be legendary, but they're also oily, salty & fatty. For some people this is there thing, and Nachos does have a wide range of beer to wash it down with, but these left me feeling a bit ill. The residual thick layer of oil at the bottom of the plate after we had finished was really a bit much to handle.

For some reason the waitress only took our entree order and not the mains, so there was quite a wait between finishing the nachos and even ordering the mains - time to take in the surrounds. The decor is cute, kind of kitschy Mexican-esque. However there was a quite strange odour (kind of like how cinemas smell) and our diner-style booth was very sticky. It was also VERY noisy even though the restaurant was barely half full. I think the stickiness and the smell may have had something to do with the margaritas - HUGE glasses full of strange frozen ice/slurpee style drinks with really questionable flavour and low-budget alcohol. You expect 'lemon' to taste like lemon, but no.

Our mains arrived eventually - they were ridiculously big, cheesy, beany and odd. I ordered a vegetarian burrito, and the two others who ordered chicken burritos also ended up with vegetarian ones... The oddest thing was the Nachos Mexican Cantina salad's dressing. The actual salad consisted of grated cheese, carrot, lettuce with a very odd & sweet dressing - a bit like a KFC coleslaw dressing with an extra, say, 50% sugar.

After we finished we opted out of desserts and ran away very quickly.

It's also odd that it's so expensive there - with such low quality ingredients it cost around the same as BlueCorn (around $20 - $25 for mains). Don't go unless you are in love with melted cheese, sour cream & dodgy food.

BlueCorn

BlueCorn

205 Barkly St St Kilda

03) 9534 5996

I love Bluecorn. You're reading a review from a long standing fan. I love that it's nice Mexican food that you can eat without feeling like you've consumed a ridiculous amount of cheese & sour cream. We went on a Wednesday night and sat outside out the back which was lovely - it was pretty quiet but gets busier as it gets later (we left by about 9pm).

We didn't get an entree - I got a Blue Masa Goats Cheese Enchilada, and Chris got a vegetarian burrito (can't remember the exact name). They were both lovely - the goats cheese in the enchilada was beautiful, it also had grilled vegies, corn, black (turtle??) beans, with some avocado & chillies. The actual enchilada was yum, it was actually made of blue corn which is a nice novelty. The vegie burrito was also good - it had the stereotypical salsa, avocado, sour cream & cheese but it was nice! I think the big key is that all the individual ingredients are such high quality, how can you go wrong? I've been here several times and it's always good.

Onto the drinks - we shared 2 margaritas (they are huge and awesome). We got a mango one and a strawberry one. They were both fab - we had the sweet mango one with dinner and the less sweet strawberry one with dessert - I reckon you'd be best to enquire as to which would be good with dessert as the strawberry was a bit overpowered. The margaritas all use fresh fruit and really high quality tequila which makes them standout. They're all served in gorgeous, salt rimmer glasses - try one!

Dessert though... hmm. We had chocolate burritos. They were... average?? They tasted like Cadbury milk chocolate wrapped in a hard pastry and baked, with some average vanilla icecream. Netx time I will skip dessert and have an entree instead. I suppose with Acland Street & its famous cake & gelati stores just around the corner there are definitely options.