linmatey

8.3 Highly Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  9      Service  8      Value  8     

With a 3 month waiting list for a weekend table, Movida has not only survived but thrived on the credit crunch somehow. The food I sampled last week was a testament to its robust nature, with the food similarly hearty and rich, well-suited for a cold and blustery Tuesday night in Melbourne.

We started with a few tapas. Movida elevates the once much-maligned croquette into its signature ‘croquetta.’ These cigar-shaped morsels had a creamy base of béchamel inside, which was flavoured with leek and mahon cheese, all encased in a crunchy crumbed coating. Now I understand why some say these are the best croquettas in town!

Next up were roasted Spring Bay scallops served in the half shell. These were topped with a spoonful of potato foam and some small pieces of jamon. Salty and delicious, the jamon provided a nice contrast to the creamy subtlety of the scallop and foam.

Our final tapa, a serve of piquillo peppers, was right on the money. Each pepper, wearing a little deep fried jacket of crumbs, was smoky from hickory and stuffed with a flavoursome combination of salt cod and potato. They were served with a garlicky aioli. Mmm.

In the way of racions, or larger dishes, we tried the slowly braised beef cheek in Pedro Ximenz on cauliflower puree. The beef was unctuous and fabulously sticky. Paired with a swipe of the creamy cauliflower it was divine. Even better though, was some thinly sliced and cured mackerel with a ‘pine-nut gazpacho sorbet’. It was topped with flecks of micro-herbs. The flavours in this were so complex and delicate!

The only disappointing dish of the night was the fabada (white beans garnished with Berkshire pork belly, chorizo and black pudding). When they say ‘garnished’ they really do mean just that. What appeared was a dish that comprised 95% white beans (which were a tad overcooked in my opinion) accompanied by a tiny stump of black pudding, a small piece of mangled and soggy pork belly skin and the end stub of a chorizo sausage. For a restaurant of Movida’s calibre, that poor unloved pile of muck was a total let-down.

The ending, a hot chocolate ganache pudding with vanilla bean ice cream, put the smile back on our faces. It had a molten, oozing centre and chewy nougat squares on the side which were a nice touch.

All in all, Movida is still a wonderful asset to Melbourne’s restaurant culture. Service was terrific and besides the fabada and the baby boomer couples sitting next to us in the midst of their mid-life crisis bragging about how they saw Eskimo Joe in their hey day, it really was a great feed.

Aug 25, 2009

6.8 Recommended

Food  7      Ambience  6      Service  6      Value  8     

The first time I attempted to go to Old Kingdom, it was 10pm at night and I just wanted some takeaway. ‘We closing,’ exclaimed the owner. Go to Macca’s!’

The second time I went I made sure I did all the right things. I called up a few days before to book and pre-order my ducks (pre-ordering is a necessity. And one duck between two people should be more than enough) and turned up at 7 pm on Friday night with a few bottles of (cheapish) plonk and some friends in tow. It’s the way to do it.

If you want refined table service, go to Flower Drum. And if you want spiffy surroundings, go to Vue de Monde. Old Kingdom isn’t pretending to be something its not, the décor is retro and the duck, if not the best in town, is fine and reasonably priced. You get a lot of it too. The restaurant offers you traditional chinese favourites but as I was unfolding my pink napkin, I noticed it was duck, duck, duck on all the tables, as far as my eye could see. Not too many Asian faces, plenty more Aussies in fact.

The 3 course duck banquet starts off with the famous Peking duck pancakes. The young waiter cut up the duck at the table and showed us how to assemble a pancake in a brisk and slightly show-offy way that almost gave the impression he’d done this millions of times before and was inwardly sick of it. So it goes like this: take a pancake, add a swipe of plum sauce, a sprig of spring onion and a few slices of duck, and bob’s your uncle. The duck was fatty but still had a bit of a crunch in the thin layer of skin as you took a bite. The duck pancakes were plentiful, so plentiful we all started feeling full with two courses still to go!

Next: a fairly ordinary duck stir-fry which consisted of shredded duck meat tossed with bean sprouts and spring onion, served in small bowls. By the time the third course was served, a duck broth presumably made using the bones, I was so full, all I could manage was a small taste. A plate of wok-fried chinese broccoli lay almost untouched that we had mistakenly ordered thinking that the duck dishes wouldn’t be enough!

I noticed that the eccentric owner had brought out a tray of toys that looked strangely like Mr Potato Head to the table next to us. Hmmm. With our bellies full of duck and spurred on by the red wine we had supped on, we burst out onto Smith St, my pocket $40 lighter. I must have suffered a duck overdose because I haven’t eaten duck since.

Apr 18, 2009

8.3 Highly Recommended

Food  8      Ambience  9      Service  8      Value  8     

With a 3 month waiting list for a weekend table, Movida has not only survived but thrived on the credit crunch somehow. The food I sampled last week was a testament to its robust nature, with the food similarly hearty and rich, well-suited for a cold and blustery Tuesday night in Melbourne.

We started with a few tapas. Movida elevates the once much-maligned croquette into its signature ‘croquetta.’ These cigar-shaped morsels had a creamy base of béchamel inside, which was flavoured with leek and mahon cheese, all encased in a crunchy crumbed coating. Now I understand why some say these are the best croquettas in town!

Next up were roasted Spring Bay scallops served in the half shell. These were topped with a spoonful of potato foam and some small pieces of jamon. Salty and delicious, the jamon provided a nice contrast to the creamy subtlety of the scallop and foam.

Our final tapa, a serve of piquillo peppers, was right on the money. Each pepper, wearing a little deep fried jacket of crumbs, was smoky from hickory and stuffed with a flavoursome combination of salt cod and potato. They were served with a garlicky aioli. Mmm.

In the way of racions, or larger dishes, we tried the slowly braised beef cheek in Pedro Ximenz on cauliflower puree. The beef was unctuous and fabulously sticky. Paired with a swipe of the creamy cauliflower it was divine. Even better though, was some thinly sliced and cured mackerel with a ‘pine-nut gazpacho sorbet’. It was topped with flecks of micro-herbs. The flavours in this were so complex and delicate!

The only disappointing dish of the night was the fabada (white beans garnished with Berkshire pork belly, chorizo and black pudding). When they say ‘garnished’ they really do mean just that. What appeared was a dish that comprised 95% white beans (which were a tad overcooked in my opinion) accompanied by a tiny stump of black pudding, a small piece of mangled and soggy pork belly skin and the end stub of a chorizo sausage. For a restaurant of Movida’s calibre, that poor unloved pile of muck was a total let-down.

The ending, a hot chocolate ganache pudding with vanilla bean ice cream, put the smile back on our faces. It had a molten, oozing centre and chewy nougat squares on the side which were a nice touch.

All in all, Movida is still a wonderful asset to Melbourne’s restaurant culture. Service was terrific and besides the fabada and the baby boomer couples sitting next to us in the midst of their mid-life crisis bragging about how they saw Eskimo Joe in their hey day, it really was a great feed.

Aug 25, 2009

6.8 Recommended

Food  7      Ambience  6      Service  6      Value  8     

The first time I attempted to go to Old Kingdom, it was 10pm at night and I just wanted some takeaway. ‘We closing,’ exclaimed the owner. Go to Macca’s!’

The second time I went I made sure I did all the right things. I called up a few days before to book and pre-order my ducks (pre-ordering is a necessity. And one duck between two people should be more than enough) and turned up at 7 pm on Friday night with a few bottles of (cheapish) plonk and some friends in tow. It’s the way to do it.

If you want refined table service, go to Flower Drum. And if you want spiffy surroundings, go to Vue de Monde. Old Kingdom isn’t pretending to be something its not, the décor is retro and the duck, if not the best in town, is fine and reasonably priced. You get a lot of it too. The restaurant offers you traditional chinese favourites but as I was unfolding my pink napkin, I noticed it was duck, duck, duck on all the tables, as far as my eye could see. Not too many Asian faces, plenty more Aussies in fact.

The 3 course duck banquet starts off with the famous Peking duck pancakes. The young waiter cut up the duck at the table and showed us how to assemble a pancake in a brisk and slightly show-offy way that almost gave the impression he’d done this millions of times before and was inwardly sick of it. So it goes like this: take a pancake, add a swipe of plum sauce, a sprig of spring onion and a few slices of duck, and bob’s your uncle. The duck was fatty but still had a bit of a crunch in the thin layer of skin as you took a bite. The duck pancakes were plentiful, so plentiful we all started feeling full with two courses still to go!

Next: a fairly ordinary duck stir-fry which consisted of shredded duck meat tossed with bean sprouts and spring onion, served in small bowls. By the time the third course was served, a duck broth presumably made using the bones, I was so full, all I could manage was a small taste. A plate of wok-fried chinese broccoli lay almost untouched that we had mistakenly ordered thinking that the duck dishes wouldn’t be enough!

I noticed that the eccentric owner had brought out a tray of toys that looked strangely like Mr Potato Head to the table next to us. Hmmm. With our bellies full of duck and spurred on by the red wine we had supped on, we burst out onto Smith St, my pocket $40 lighter. I must have suffered a duck overdose because I haven’t eaten duck since.

Apr 18, 2009