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.

Chocolateria San Churro

Chocolateria San Churro

277 Brunswick St Fitzroy

03) 9419 9936

It's been a fortnight of Mexican... some excellent and some that makes you want to be sick. I'll go chronologically, even though I want to leave Blue Corn till the end as it's the best.

Went to Chocolateria San Churro for dessert after Red Rice. You're really not stuck for dessert choice on Brunswick St, but I wanted to go as I'd never been and it was my birthday, so we went. It's usually packed when you walk past - it's TINY inside. There were 6 or 7 of us and it was hard to accommodate! We ordered the regular churros and a couple of drinks and chocolates. The churros were yum - like warm crispy straight donuts for the uninitiated. They came with a yum and extremely rich chocolate sauce... it's all good. We shared one serve between us and it was all good, but you wouldn't want to have to eat a whole serve by yourself.

The drinks were nice, hot chocolate, chai, coffee etc. The chocolates were also good, a little bit overly sweet and not as high quality as some of the other chocolate shops around Melbourne.

Good for chocolate lovers (especially given they only serve chocolate).

Food Inn - Indian Dine

Food Inn - Indian Dine : 1224 Glen Huntly Rd, Glen Huntly 3163

Wanted to start the blog with a rave review - here it is. Food Inn is a cute, super cheap North & South Indian Restaurant in the shopping strip along Glen Huntly station. They're open weekday evenings (except Monday) and in the weekends are open for lunch and dinner. We went Saturday lunch - Sunday they have an all you can eat buffet that's around $13.

Their North Indian menu is pretty standard-ish, there's all the usual meat curries, as well as a large vegie menu. I like the South Indian part because I like South Indian food, and it's also a bit more difficult to find in Melbs.

Today I got Dosa, Vada, Iddly and a Meetha Naan (yum). The Dosa was fabulously crisp, the potato filling was lovely, and it comes with Sambar and Coconut Chutney. The Meetha Naan was great - I haven't had one before (I'm a garlic naan kinda gal) but it's like a regular naan stuffed with fenugreek leaves and then cooked. It was super! The fenugreek is a bit spinachy, with a faint trace of maple syrupy smell (tastes better than I'm making it sound). My only issue with Food Inn is that they do use quite a bit of ghee - not the best if you're a reformed vegan and it also makes the food quite heavy. Apart from that it's all good. Other good recommendations from the menu that I've had previously are the Mushroom Curry (which they can make mild for you if you're a chilli-baby like me), Samosa with Mint sauce, and Palak Paneer.
I give it 9/10.

Veg-ometer - nice. (huge vegie menu, but perhaps not the best for vegans)
Prices - $12 - $15 for mains, $3 - $8 for snacks (Cheap!)

Red Rice

Red Rice - 193 Brunswick St, Fitzroy

I wanted to choose a restaurant for a birthday dinner with friends that would have a nice atmosphere and be fairly cheap, but not be all rushed out the door as soon as we'd finished eating. Red Rice does have a great atmosphere, it's decorated very ornately and even has a miniature fish pond surrounded by ferns through one of the windows.

The food we ate was lovely... we got all vegetarian food and shared it between us. We started with spring rolls and rice paper rolls. The spring rolls were heaps better than most veg spring rolls are, and the rice paper rolls were satisfying but maybe not the most spectacular.

For mains we had the grilled eggplant dish, the tofu stack, and the vegie curry. These were all lovely. The eggplant was soft and not too oily, with a little side of pickled carrots for balance. The tofu stack and the vegie curry were similar, the tofu in the stack was crispy and surrounded by a curried sauteed vegies. The vegie curry dish was for me the best dish, the coconut sauce was great - a little bit sweet & sour - like a Thai red curry but not as in your face.

The rice is the most memorable dish - I figured it was Red as in the kind of pinky rice you can get at healthy restaurants (such as Lentil as Anything). But no, it's BRIGHT red, coloured with some kind of plant extract and cooked in garlic and chicken stock. It really is exceptionally red.
The staff were all lovely, and it definitely fulfilled all my requirements!

Cost - Starters - $6 - $8, Mains - $15 - $20

Vegie friendly - 6/10. Not a huge selection, but good food.

Overall - 7/10

Food Inn - Indian Dine

Food Inn - Indian Dine : 1224 Glen Huntly Rd, Glen Huntly 3163

Wanted to start the blog with a rave review - here it is. Food Inn is a cute, super cheap North & South Indian Restaurant in the shopping strip along Glen Huntly station. They're open weekday evenings (except Monday) and in the weekends are open for lunch and dinner. We went Saturday lunch - Sunday they have an all you can eat buffet that's around $13.

Their North Indian menu is pretty standard-ish, there's all the usual meat curries, as well as a large vegie menu. I like the South Indian part because I like South Indian food, and it's also a bit more difficult to find in Melbs.

Today I got Dosa, Vada, Iddly and a Meetha Naan (yum). The Dosa was fabulously crisp, the potato filling was lovely, and it comes with Sambar and Coconut Chutney. The Meetha Naan was great - I haven't had one before (I'm a garlic naan kinda gal) but it's like a regular naan stuffed with fenugreek leaves and then cooked. It was super! The fenugreek is a bit spinachy, with a faint trace of maple syrupy smell (tastes better than I'm making it sound). My only issue with Food Inn is that they do use quite a bit of ghee - not the best if you're a reformed vegan and it also makes the food quite heavy. Apart from that it's all good. Other good recommendations from the menu that I've had previously are the Mushroom Curry (which they can make mild for you if you're a chilli-baby like me), Samosa with Mint sauce, and Palak Paneer.

I give it 9/10.

Veg-ometer - 8/10 (huge vegie menu, but perhaps not the best for vegans)

Prices - $12 - $15 for mains, $3 - $8 for snacks (Cheap!)