The first thing that I noticed at this place was a fair amount of food abandoned on vacant tables which sounded warning bells in my head. Service was happy to seat us and clean up a table with some sort of chemical in front of us so it effectively smelled like the back room of the dry cleaner. Perusing the blackboard specials and also drinks menu did settle me down a bit and the fatigue from the 10km stroll started to set in. We ordered a litre of the Bluecorn Punch, which was a concoction of vanilla tequila, midori, (fresh) strawberries, pineapple and soda ($24.50). This drink had a bit of a kick and provided the needed refreshment and courage that I needed to order one of the specials - a chorizo and scallop taco with chipotle salsa ($14) which honestly scared me. The "taco" wasn't presented as a traditional taco which you can pick up and eat, but more like a tostada, where so much product was placed on top of the fried dark corn tortilla that you had to eat 50% of the fillings off of it before you had any chance of picking it up. When I finally got the "taco" into a manageable state, I picked it up but a fair amount of juice from the scallops and chorizo started running off and onto my plate. This was a messy dish and obviously not meant to be finger food. The substantial amount of product made for a hefty salad-esque start though. The chorizo was fine, as were the scallops however I got the feeling that these two elements were paired for dramatic effect and not because they taste good together.
Wanting to try more flavours with the litre of beverage, I ordered the "sizzling 'chile' chicken enchilada with guacamole and sauce" ($28) and wondered how a simple enchilada could cost so much. In fact, this is the first time since I started writing this blog that I mused that everything was just so expensive. When this dish was presented I understood why it cost so much, it was massive amount of food. Like the taco, which was really a tostada, this enchilada was not presented like an enchilada, but a burrito, with red sauce around it. I cut into this burrito of sorts and started eating the chicken filling, beans and rice and found it tasty at first but after the twentieth taste, I started to get bored. This is a vexed problem with the restaurant that I found. Massive amounts of food are served with an equally high price tag. It is nearly impossible to enjoy any sort of variety because of the sheer volume of food associated with each dish so you are constrained to one or two dishes at most.
My dining companion ordered the Chicken fajitas ($30.50) and also was not able to finish the dish. When we finished the alcoholic punch we were unable to get the attention of service to get a refill so we decided to pull up stumps and waddle out with full stomachs and much poorer for the pleasure. The one thing that annoyed me is that along with the high prices, when you pay with a credit card, regardless of type, you will incur a 2% surcharge. After spending $97 on three dishes and a litre of beverage, I wasn't too pleased about this.
We understood why so much food was abandoned on the table by other patrons. It isn't because it was bad per se, but because of the amount that you are provided. I really hope at some point that this restaurant decides to cut the portion sizes by half, along with the prices so customers can enjoy more of this Tex-Mex fare with a California twist but until then, I will find other places to placate my need for the fare.
Bluecorn Mexican Restaurant
205 Barkly Street, St Kilda VIC 3182
(03) 9534 5996
My Rating: 10.75/20
Service: 2.75/5
Ambiance: 3/5
Quality: 3/5
Value For Money: 2/5
Twitter: @epicurean3006
e-mail: epicureanofsouthbank (at) gmail (dot) com
At the time of this post, 83% of the reviewers on Urbanspoon like Bluecorn.
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