Tapas - RedTounge, Brunswick Street

I ate: Mixed tapas plate
I drank: one skinny cappucino, two glasses of house red (and plenty more later at the corner. my liver aches.)

After wandering Brunswick Street from Alexandra Ave to Gertrude Street, at that terribly inconvenient time of day when lunchtime cafes are closing and dinner restaurants are yet to fling wide their doors, I stumbled across this little cafe.

Outdoor seating was fab, until the rain started pouring down and tables needed to be rearranged, but the heavy-duty umbrellas pretected me from getting wet (*looks smug*). The service was quick and attentive, especially to the poor buggers who were caught in the rain and needed their tables moved speedily.

The tapas menu has 7 options, and can all be ordered seperately, or mixed plates containing your choice of 3 or 5 of the tidbits can be brought out to your table, and the portions are quite hefty.

I chose:

Marinated bocconcini and olive salad
Parmeasan and herb crumbed mushrooms
Lamb kofta served with Tzatziki
Mild chilli fried calamari with lime and coriander mayo
Crumbed deep fried sardines with a napoli sauce

It comes out presented in one massive three-part-connected bowl and a couple of smaller side plates, and the combination of the flavours over the five dishes was really quite special. The calamari by itsef was perhaps a bit bland and average, but the flavour of the mayo it came with complimented not only the calamari, but the sardines, the bocconcini and the mushrooms as well. The bocconcini marinade was perhaps a little too mild for my tastes, I generally feel that the best was to marinate bocconcini is with vinegar, loads of it, preferably balsamic, as it helps cut through the fatty creamy taste of the cheese. This is a personal gripe though, and the olives and tomato combination in the rest of the salad was a winner.

The sardines were amazing, and I haven't ever eaten sardines before. They were always something Mum used to eat on toast when she couldn't be arsed cooking, and they looked and smelt horrible (much like her other staple can't-be-fucked meal - baked beans. I still can't eat those horrid looking fuckers). They were salty, and tasty, and with the crumbed-ed-ness and the napoli sauce, almost looked like miniature chicken parmas. Sardines are now added to my list of approved foods.

The mushrooms looked dry on the ouside, but were very succulent and tasty when I bit through the outer crumbly layer. The koftas (I love that word. Kofta. Say it aloud!), while there were only two of them, were quite large, and very yummy, I can't quite place the spices that were used to flavour them. The tzatziki looked like it came out of a Chris's Dips tub, but as I love tzatziki (another fabulous word), that's not really a complaint.

All in all a great meal, though would have been better without the rain, for more people watching, or with a mag. Eating alone can get a bit boring.