MoVida Original: Mayor cantidad de comida española, por favor

Photo credit: The Urban List

I couldn’t have timed my visit better. After leaving the canopy of Victoria’s National Gallery, the lashings of Melbourne’s autumn rains subsided. Not that I am uneasy about such things - I am from the UK, after all, and rain is as normal as milk in tea. After crossing a busy street amidst a sea of tourists, I reached MoVida. I had been saving this particular visit since the first week I arrived; as time was running out and the days growing ever shorter, I thought that now would be a good opportunity to sample some of Melbourne’s finest tapas.

MoVida is a small place, although spread over a number of locations. It has a small bar next door, incidentally called “MoVida: Next Door”, and another restaurant uptown called “MoVida: Aqui”. This is sensible as it gets notoriously busy at times; bookings are highly recommended if dining in groups, or pairs for that matter. Luckily, once again, the single diner need but walk through the door and take a seat at the traditional wooden bar. Inside, I feel as if I am back in a bodega on Calle Rodrigo Caro in Seville - if any of them have the luxury of such a large bar. The surface runs the entire depth of the room, all the way back to the hatch kitchen where I can see half a dozen chefs working industriously to prepare ingredients and components for the evening rush. I enter the restaurant just after 4pm - they’re currently only serving tapas, but bigger dishes are promised to me after 5pm.

The menu, at time of snacking, has tapas and racion sections. The snack menu offers seven small options, ranging from croquetas to cold-smoked mackerel. After ordering a ginger beer, a young woman who I recognise from the gallery sits across from me; she smiles in the way that two people do when they accidently lock eyes. She also giggles as I proceed to pour too much water into my glass and it cascades over my section of the bar - this happens a lot more often than I’d like, usually with Chinese tea. I order everything on the tapas menu, in stark comparison to her bottle of stout and goats cheese. She must not be a food blogger or, if she is, not a very thorough one.


The barkeep brings the first course to bear; an anchovy of Cantabrian descent is laid delicately on top of crisp crouton, with a small rocher of smoked tomato sorbet. The dish is finished with a handful of mini capers. I am instructed to smear the sorbet over the entire crouton; I do so and bring the mouthful home. The first thing that hits me is the crunch of the crouton - a crouton so thin you’d need a micrometer to measure it. It is crisp, retaining its structural integrity under moisture. The next is the saltiness from both the anchovy and the capers. I’ve complained about both a lack and an excess of salt over the last few reviews - and intend to keep complaining about it in an upcoming project - but the balance is perfect on this occasion. If the ingredients are naturally salty, saltiness is implied. The smoked tomato sorbet serves to cleanse the palate and bring some sweeter notes to the ‘dish’. (As a side note, I  say ‘dish’, but the majority of things I ate on this occasion were more ‘mouthfuls’). The smoked element of the sorbet lingers on the tongue for an appropriate length of time, before allowing the tomato flavour to soothe any remaining excess salinity.


The croquette of Manchego and spinach comes next. The usual stodgy bechamel centre I’ve had previously in bodegas around the world isn’t there. Instead it is replaced by a creamy, cheesy centre with a few whole spinach leaves inside. The whole leaves add some extra texture which croquettes can lose - more often than not they are simply a blob of bechamel with a crispy exterior and a solid centre. A few bites of tender stem adds some extra interest for the teeth to get themselves around. It’s a good croquette, but a croquette it remains. I doubt it will make it onto my top five dishes of all time, but it serves its purpose.


A marinated mussel from Spring Bay is brought up. It sits on a potato paper, topped with whipped cod roe, salmon caviar, and I want to say samphire but it looks bigger. The mussel itself is large enough to be sliced into two pieces, a very good sign indeed. I remember eating a marinated mussel in Grenada one sunny afternoon - that one was shite. Over oily, and probably came from a tin. This one, however, is fresh and light. It has none of the olive oil slick that other marinated mussels I’ve eaten had. The soft textures on top contrast well with the crunchy undercarriage. The potato paper shatters under pressure, making for messy eating. As some marinade dribbles down my chin, Gallery Girl laughs once more. I have really stuffed this one up by this point. After cleaning up, I savour the fresh pops of fish-essence from the combination of cod roe and salmon eggs, the latter bursting in the mouth like the dynamite used in South East Asian Blast-Fishing. This dish is incredibly well balanced, both in terms of texture and flavour. The flavours are bold, brazen and unapologetic - everything that Spanish food should be.


Next up is a course of goat-cheese shaped as a cylinder, wrapped in quince jelly. Gallery Girl promises me it’s good cheese, which it is, but again it is just a cylinder of goat cheese. It’s small and dainty, with a good amount tartness to offset the fattiness of the cheese. Although the portion is small, I still have to eat it in three bites - the richness simply won’t allow me to wolf it down any faster. In terms of menu construction, I think two rich cheese courses is a bit excessive - the vegetarian sympathiser in me craves for something with a bit more variety. There is already a cheese croquette to contend with which has a balanced richness. To me, a second one is cheese overload.


I like steak tartare quite a lot and I tend to order it if I see it. The tartare here is spicy and packs a fair bit of punch for a plate so small. The crouton is sliced thin and toasted in olive oil until crisp, and topped with the chopped beef. The beef itself tastes beefy, as opposed to a lot of tartares which taste only of cornichons, capers and a generic brand of hot pepper sauce which shall remain nameless. The pickled peppers add some acidity and freshness to cut through the fatty meat, and seem to be a clever alternative to cornichons. The lack of size on the dish means that there is little room for manoeuvre, and adding gherkins would remove too much beef. The chefs here have been clever, reducing the ingredient count by one but using an ingredient - in this case pickled pepper - to add sourness and spice. There are two small yellow spheres on top, which seem to replace the traditional egg yolk for appearances sake. They turn out to be hot pepper sauce. Emphasis on hot. The spiciness compounds with the heat from the pickled peppers too - not in a “this will probably hurt in the morning” kind of way, but more along the lines of “it’s warm in my mouth; I know I’ve eaten something quite spicy.” All in all, the tartare has added another dimension to the meal; it’s another mix of textures and flavours that work well together, though perhaps a bit too overbalanced in favour of spicy.


The next plate comes as a bit of a surprise to me. Looking at the menu, one could be forgiven for assuming that it is likely to be a small slice of baby gem lettuce with another fillet of anchovy, maybe with some pickled garlic aioli in it. You’d be wrong. I’m presented with a quarter of a lettuce, drizzled with garlic oil, laced with diced anchovies and minced pickled garlic, and sliced pickled garlic. For the first time during the meal, I reach for my knife and fork. This is, as far as I’m concerned, the new benchmark from which all salads will be measured. The lettuce is crunchy and fresh, cold to the tongue as it has only recently left the fridge. The garlic is garlicky in the extreme; the multiple sources of garlic punch their way into your mouth like an MMA fighter and refuse to leave. Primary taste is predominantly that of regret, followed by what only can be described as satisfaction - a satisfaction only warm garlic can bring. The flavour has mellowed through being warmed and steeped in olive oil, but it still kicks like a mule. The garlic still lingers there now like an unwelcome houseguest - it doesn’t leave and, when it does, it comes back a few moments later. I am, once again, thankful to be dining alone - I’d hate to push this allium-based weapon of mass destruction upon anyone anytime soon. The dish, however, is well thought out in terms of execution. The dressing has made its way onto every leaf, with no need to messily dress the salad yourself. The anchovy has, unfortunately, largely been lost amidst the oil, leaving only a lingering phantom saltiness.


The highlight of the meal comes in the form of a small black cloched bowl. As the lid is lifted, wispy tendrils of smoke puff from the bowl revealing clean, bloodless slices of mackerel under a rocher of pine nut gazpacho sorbet, and a handful of toasted pine nuts for texture. The variations on pine nut used here work well, as they add a nut-fattiness that is otherwise missing from the lean fish. Mackerel is usually quite oily, but this fish is as clean as Jeremy Corbyn’s conscience. The slices have managed to absorb a degree of the smoke from the smoke gun, though it is not overpowering or acrid. There is a light dressing that also balances the dish by adding a glimmer acidity which, if it were omitted entirely, would have meant a lot of creaminess from the pine nuts. Greedily, I order this twice.

Photo credit: www.bp.blogspot.com

At this point Gallery Girl leaves, smiling sweetly one last time. I don’t spill or pour anything down myself on her departure, so I’m counting that as a minor victory. A young man of Hong Kong origin (because I didn’t just sound a thousand years old) takes the seat next to me and asks what’s good. I point out a couple of things which I like, and we start chatting Melbourne. It turns out he went to the opera the previous evening, where I will be heading tomorrow. He asks me how long I’ve been here and where else I’ve been. I mention Brisbane and two Melburnians pipe up, telling me they lived in Brisbane for years. “Bloody hot, humid, slow pace of life and no good food,” they say. I’m inclined to agree on the whole, though I don’t mind a bit of heat. One of the best things about this bodega is that it has a sense of community from the moment you walk through the door. Everyone talks to everyone, there are very few insular groups. Everyone comments on each other’s food, giving and receiving recommendations in their stride. It seems as though I have stumbled upon a foodie’s paradise. Just as I finish talking about my mackerel course(s) with my neighbours, the clock strikes 5pm. It’s time to get my racion game on.


I have a look at another menu which the bartender passes to me. I take a look down this second, larger document, and spot a couple of things I have to try. I have a deal with the universe that if liver parfait is on offer, I have to order it. This is a very roundabout way of saying “I like pate”. It is served on toast with persimmon, a combination I haven’t experienced before. Unlike the parfait I had at Embla (review pending), this parfait is incredibly smooth. There is no grainy texture from excess time in the bain-marie, just criminally silky, creamy liver. The persimmon is a little lacklustre in flavour and doesn’t really add anything to the dish; a sweet or sour fruit would serve far better as a fat-cutter, as opposed to the Swiss neutrality of the orange persimmon.


As my last act of gluttony, I order a beef cheek. The meat is served on a generous layer of cauliflower purée, which is laced heavily with butter. This is a bowl full of richness; sticky fruit notes mix with the buttery tartness of the purée, and are married together by the fattiness of the cheek. The cheek is so tender you can cut it with a spoon - I do not touch my knife or fork whilst eating this dish. The meat is stained the colour of molasses after a long braise in Pedro Ximénez, a stark contrast to the off-white of the bed of cauliflower purée. For those not in the know, Pedro Ximénez is a gloriously sweet sherry made from sun-dried grapes, usually served as a dessert digestif.  The fibrous texture of cheek can be more prominent if it dries out, but the current example is still tender. I hate using terms like “melt-in-the-mouth” but it may be appropriate in this situation. I’ll avoid it and maintain my integrity.

After a hard-fought meal I feel surprisingly comfortable. There isn’t the overwhelming feeling of bloatedness, nor am I dreading the walk home, nursing the food baby that usually accompanies a meal of this length. There are some great memories I’ll take from this place, not only for the food, but the conviviality of the establishment. Everyone is friendly, to the point of laughing with you if you cock up pouring water into a glass (seriously, I can’t take myself anywhere), and willing to share their experiences around town. It makes a pleasant change from the often insular dining experiences I’ve had elsewhere in the world. It has to be said that Melbourne is simply a friendly place to eat. And when the food is this good, it reinforces my belief that good eating makes for good people.

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