MOVIDA NEXT DOOR

1 Hosier Lane, Melbourne - ph: 9663 3038

http://www.movida.com.au/docs/next_door.htm

I have been looking forward to visit MoVida for a while. Tried getting reservations into the MoVida restaurant a few times, but you need to call with a lot of advance to secure the booking, so I haven't been successful in my last minute attempts.

Then I read a post the other day from fellow blogger The Food Blog: MoVida Next Door does not take reservations - first in, first served!

So I chose a quite day in the office to go with a friend straight after work. We got to MoVida Next Door just after 6pm and there were still a few tables left. Surely enough, the place was full before 7pm.

So, to the food: since it's a tapas bar, the idea is to order small portions to get a taste of as many things as possible. The waiter pointed out to us the specials for the day and we chose a few of them.

We started with quail skewers braised with garlic, pepper and coriander (???? - pretty sure it was coriander, although it could be some Spanish variety... - please correct me if I'm wrong here). All I can say is that they were rich, beautifully cooked.

Next dish was their famous Jamon Serrano, cured in the Spanish style without artificial additives. Suffice to say I could come back here JUST to eat this ham - a plate full of it. Easy.

Jamon Serrano ($14)

Next in line was the calamari 2 ways: the body was grilled and stuffed with leek and potato and the tentacles were lightly battered and deep fried. The dish was great, but probably a bit overshadowed by the powerful flavours of garlic on the quails and ham eaten before. In hindsight, we should have started with the seafood.

Calamari ($16)

Still not satisfied, we ordered one more Racion or 'large dish' of tuna belly salad. This dish was a bit of a disappointment, unfortunately. The salad was beautiful: perfectly seasoned fresh tomatoes, palm hearts and red onions. The tuna, however, tasted a bit dry and overcooked, which can easily happen with tuna, I suppose.

Tuna belly salad ($16)

We couldn't finish the meal without a desert. My friend picked the Cream Catalana, the Spanish version of a creme brulee. It's basically a soft custard infused with lemon and cinnamon. It was delicious and fun to watch being blow torched in the kitchen!

Cream Catalana ($12.50)

Interesting to note that when I went back to MoVida's website to check their description of all the courses we had, some of them had already been replaced by new dishes. I love restaurants that change their menu often. It means you can keep coming back and without ever growing tired of it. I'm sure MoVida with be one of these.