Birthday extravagance

Aaaah, I love extravagant birthday dinners... an excuse to order anything one wants from the menu and wine list!  We started the evening with a bottle of champagne at Syracuse (www.syracuserestaurant.com.au), one of my favourite wine bars in Melbourne.  It has a touch of old school class to it whilst also being quite relaxed.  From there we went to the new Movida Aqui (www.movida.com.au) on Bourke Street - where upon our arrival the bartender brought over another bottle of bubbles, a gift from my bro and his fiancee in Sydney.  It was such a cool present, I felt like I was in a movie! 


We started by immediately ordering a round of the bocadillo de calamares - miniature ciabatta sandwiches filled with fried calamari and garlic mayonnaise.  I would never have thought to put calamari in bread but damn they were tasty and just what we needed to start soaking up some of the alcohol.  Our first "wave" of food included grilled fish, beautifully tender mussells cooked in sherry, and anchovy fillets with the most heavenly smoked tomato sorbet.  The Tasmanian Holm Oak pinot noir was a good drop and a good accompaniment to the smokiness of the sorbet.  The second "wave" began with bravas potatoes, continued with a salad of pumpkin, eggplant, quince, and green olives (my dish of the evening), and ended with a very rich dish of salt bush goat.  We finished by sharing a couple of desserts.  I'm writing this 24 hours later and I think I'm still full!


Hmmm, so this is the bit where I give my overally review of Movida.  I always find this a little difficult, as no matter where you go it's the company that matters most - and my sister and cousin and I had a fantastic night.  So often even if the food or service isn't perfect, it can still be a magical evening.  Aargh, I'm putting this off a bit, aren't it.  I suppose it's just that I built the Movida experience up hugely for the last week, to the point of having butterflies in my stomach during the day as I was so excited, and after lacklustre service and food which was great but maybe not the transcendental experience I was anticipating, I don't feel I can give it 10 out of 10.  It was still damn good, but I think I set the bar pretty high these days.  I would say the food at Bar Lourinha (www.barlourinha.com.au) or Cumulus Inc. (www.cumulusinc.com.au) is just as good.  However, it is handy being able to book a table unlike the latter places, and the food is still yummy enough that I would happily go back there.


So that's another year, another birthday over.  I'm glad that as always it involved plenty of feasting both in Cape Paterson last weekend and at Movida Aqui last night.  Mmmm, all this talk of food, time to start planning another dinner party again soon methinks!