Last week was a terrible week at work, but this weekend definitely made up for it. First, my NZ visa application was (finally) submitted last Friday. Here's hoping they process it quickly now. Next, Brendan came to visit me in Melbourne!
We had a fantastic weekend. We had drinks with some friends, hung out in the city, had a lazy breakfast, had excellent but very over-priced beers, had a very average and over-priced Mexican meal, and went gliding. I will have to do a separate post about the gliding once I find the cable to download the pictures from my camera, but for now I will just say it was amazing.
Now, back to the average and over-priced Mexican meal - I was sadly disappointed by our meal at Mamasita, a relatively new Mexican restaurant on Collins St in the Melbourne CBD. My disappointment most certainly stemmed from the anticipation leading up to our meal: we have read and have heard fantastic reviews about it, we had been talking about going for months, we had walked up a couple of times to try it only to find the line out the door...
This night, the line was also out the door, but for some reason (probably me not being as hungry as I usually am and both of us being drunk enough to be amused by the situation), we decided to stand in line. We listened as people left a call-back number for a table as far as 3 hours out! Normally we would walk away at this point, but we figured it would only take us a few minutes to get an answer, so we stayed. Only being a party of 2, we were immediately sent inside to stand on the stairs leading up to the restaurant. We were told it would be approx. 30 minutes, but that they would try and get us standing space in the bar for a pre-dinner beverage sooner than that.
Sure enough, they got us into the bar, where we were asked whether we minded eating in the bar. No dramas there, so then we were placed behind two people (with seats at the bar) who were just finishing and told that those were our seats once they left. How incredibly awkward to order drinks over top of and then stand immediately behind another couple who was trying to enjoy the last few sips of their (undoubtedly over-priced) margarita. It did not take them long to leave (as it did not take us long to leave after we finished eating since there are people hovering over top of you for your seat), so we got two bar stools and, I must say, fantastic service at the bar. No bad marks for the service. The food, however, was disappointing. We knew going into it that it was expensive, but I was willing to overlook that for the taste. I found the overall taste experience to be quite bland though and to lack the overall freshness that I love about hispanic food.
So, in summary:
- I definitely grade Mamasita down for its seating process. It's fantastic that they are doing a booming business and I accept the fact that they do not feel the need to do a reservation system (because people will obviously stand in line). But the bar seating... either it should be open seating (first come, first serve), or it should be sat like the rest of the restaurant (none of this queuing people up behind you).
- I grade Mamasita up for its alcohol selection. While Brendan and I did not partake, they do have an extensive mexican tequila, margarita, sangria, and beer menu. It's pricey, but I blame Australia for that, not Mamasita.
- I grade Mamasita down for its food. It was just incredibly average.
- I grade Mamasita up for its service. The staff behind the bar took extremely good care of us once we made it into the bar. We even got to sample Mamasita's sangrita simply because we asked a question about it.
Overall, I doubt I would ever go back and I doubt that I would ever recommend anyone to go there unless they were (only) looking for a good selection of tequilas. I'm glad we did it, because at least now we know, but I think I would have enjoyed our plan B option better, which was dim sum in Chinatown. Our money certainly would have gone further...
Despite this lengthy post about an average meal, I still had an amazing weekend with Brendan, so cheers to him for coming across the ditch. Hopefully I will see him again soon!
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