Paco’s Tacos
Level 1 500 Bourke St
Melbourne VIC 3000
+61 3 9663 3038
http://www.pacostacos.com.au/
I’m supposed to be packing for Cairns but because I’m lovely and because I love you, my dear readers, too much I decided to write a quick blog before I go. Ah, the things I do for you guys. Okay, on with the story. When I heard that my beloved MoVida Terraza was closing, I wept like a mofo. But when I heard that the MoVida guys were replacing it with a taco kiosk, my mood instantly lifted. Tacos on a terrace? Can’t argue with that!
The taco kiosk, called Paco’s Tacos, is supposedly named after a Mexican revolutionary. This seemed apt to me, seeing as Australia is currently going through a Mexican cuisine revival where people are so over Taco Bill et al and in response, we’re seeing good quality Mexican restaurants and cafes popping up around the Eastern states of Australia. ‘¡Viva la Revolución!’ I say! Paco’s Tacos is open for lunch during the week, with extended hours from Wednesday to Friday to cater to the end-of-week drinks crowd. I had a day off the other week and so did Dave so we decided to catch up over some tacos.
At Paco’s, all tacos are ‘only’ six dollars. This is probably laughable if you’re coming from the US of A and are so used to 99 cent tacos that are actually GOOD but hey, this is Australia so it’ll be a while (if ever) before we can see cheap and good quality tacos. But anyway. I ordered two tacos, the chorizo taco and the carne asada taco.
The chorizo one, a new addition on the menu, consisted of chopped grilled chorizo pieces, grilled corn kernels, and jalapeno salsa. Fresh sprigs of coriander and chopped spring onions completed the package. To be honest, I can’t say that this taco was particularly fantastic. The soft shell corn tortillas tasted and felt like they weren’t lightly toasted like they SHOULD be, and in fact, were verging on dry – like they had been sitting in room temperature for some time. This, of course, ensured that the tacos weren’t fantastic to begin with, but the filling did little to redeem it – I felt that the elements didn’t mesh well together at all.
The same went for the carne asada, which contained braised beef, chipotle and pico de gallo. The description was enough to make me go loco but sadly, I was let down. The braised beef came with its stew, a runny mixture of spices which would have tasted alright – just not on tacos! The juices made the taco shells soggy, and ripped it apart before I was even a third of the way into my taco (which had already fell apart). It was frustrating getting juices all over my hands – and it was a damn shame they didn’t have cutlery either.
I ordered a piece of BBQ corn ($6) on the side. One big ear of corn, held together by wooden skewers, landed in front of me drizzled in chipotle mayo, queso cheese and lime. Given my lacklustre tacos, I wasn’t expecting much but to my surprise, I found myself enjoying the corn more than the tacos. I’ve yet to try Mamasita’s much-lauded version of the same dish but I would imagine that it’d be as good as this. I loved the lovely combination of creaminess, saltiness aided with a bit of acidity and smokiness with each bite of corn. My only complaint? It was too friggin’ big, and I struggled to eat the whole thing (this was after I ate my two tacos which weren’t enough to fill my stomach up) – I think Paco’s should cut the corn in half, charge $3 (or even $4) for them so that they are more manageable to eat.
Dave had two tacos to start off with, the camarones (prawn, pepita sauce and salsa verde) and the pescado (marinated fish, chipotle and radish). Unfortunately, the lack of cutlery and the easy-to-fall-apartness of the tacos made it extremely difficult for us to share so I didn’t get to try his, and vice-versa. I will say that his fish taco looked a lot better than the monstrosity they served at Wahoo’s, though. Meanwhile, Dave’s only comment was that he preferred the tacos they served at Mamasita’s.
He was still hungry after that so he ordered the pato asado taco, something of a ‘gourmet taco’ with its roasted duck, spicy mole and lime-marinated red onion filling. Like the first two he had, it wasn’t too bad – and I made some comment about it probably tasting like Peking duck – but again, Mamasita’s won in the tastes stakes.
Although I was initially excited about this taco kiosk, I ended up leaving disappointed – disappointed that I will never have a delicious lunch at MoVida Terraza again and disappointed that six dollars will give you a less-than-awesome taco in Melbourne. ‘Oh, but you’re paying for authenticity!’ one might argue. A roast duck taco? I don’t think so! It’s fine if they tasted good, but not if they’re mediocre. Meanwhile, you get places like Guzman Y Gomez in Queensland and New South Wales that sell three tacos for $10.50 – and not only are they fantastic, their soft shell ones don’t fall apart either. Oh, and they actually fill you up too.
So while most people are happy with with Mexican revival business going on, I think I can speak for most when I say that said revival needs to bring in GOOD food.
Mr Tulk is an oldie but a goodie, a place where I’d sometimes grab a delicious latte to take away en route an exam at the Royal Exhibition Building. Funnily enough though, I’ve never actually sat down to have breakfast there. This is somewhat strange for someone who loves libraries (the café is attached to the State Library of Victoria and named after its first librarian, Augustus Tulk – what a boss name!) and who spends most of her waking hours in the city.
The place was dead quiet when we rocked up just before 10pm. Understandable, because it was a weeknight and Gold Coastitutes tend to have early ones but on the other hand, it was Australia Day Eve so I did expect to see more people there. Oh well, more room on the communal table for us, I thought to myself as I sipped on the margarita which was refreshing and delicious, though the alcohol content negligible. As much as I like to diss Taco Bill, they do make the most awesome frozen margaritas – and they put plenty of alcohol in them.
Gotta love the really funky bottle – the beer didn’t taste bad, either.
We shared some soft shell tacos (three for $10.50). Given that places such as Paco’s Tacos in Melbourne charge $6.50 for arguably substandard tacos that fall into a limp, soggy mess as soon as you touch them, I thought the price tag was extremely reasonable. I’m not normally a soft-shell taco person (I go hard all the way – wahaha, that sounds duuurty) but I was glad that each taco shell managed to retain their shape. While Marty enjoyed his spicy pork chipotle and his spicy chicken guerrero tacos, both of which he thought were very good, I attacked my beef guerrero taco with intense ferocity. Packed with slow-roasted marinated tender beef, black beans with a healthy lashing of pico de gallo, it was a taco that I would happily hand over $6.50 in Melbourne.
We were both still a bit hungry after that so I ordered a serving of GYG’s famous nachos ($10.50), with beef guerrero topping. The guys at GYG use a gluten-free corn tortilla so don’t expect tasty Doritos-style corn chips, but rather something that’s a little more bland on the tongue. Doesn’t matter though, the chips soaked up the flavours of the black beans, beef, cheddar cheese, pico de gallo and guacamole brilliantly. It was a dish that could have stood on its own as a main and in fact, we couldn’t finish the whole thing so we took it home … and had it the very next day for breakfast. Strangely enough, the nachos tasted a LOT better after sitting in the fridge overnight before being heated in the oven for several minutes, as opposed to being served fresh from the store. Yum.
Located in the heart of Broadbeach, within walking distance of various nightclubs, Ming Palace has been serving Gold Coastitutes for a number of decades. This is evident in the outdated decor, the tired walls and carpet and the extremely full dining room of punters who looked like they had been coming to this joint for many years. As quasi-regulars, Marty and our friend, Amiee, often come here for late-night bitch fests over steamers of hot dim sum. On my visit here, I instinctively thought of Supper Inn back home – one, because it’s open until late and two, you have to actually climb up a long flight of stairs to get there. The climb at Supper Inn, however, is worth it but here at Ming Palace? Not really.
We played it safe by ordering har gow (prawn dumplings, 4 for $5.80). They weren’t the biggest and they had ridiculously thick skins to boot (good thing? bad thing? I say ‘bad’), with a decent-tasting filling that was generous on the prawns. This was probably the only ‘good’ thing I ate here, though.
Marty normally rates the siu mai (pork dumplings, 4 for $4.80) and I have to say that they were of decent size. Again, they were generous with the filling – the pork seemed to be on the verge of bursting. I didn’t like them as much as the har gow, though. The pork meat and pork fat ratio was off – they put too much of the fat in – so the filling emitted a bit of a nasty smell when you bit into it.
I made the mistake of ordering the next two dishes. In hindsight, I didn’t even know why because they’re not normally dishes I would order – I think it was because the yum cha menu was so limited and I felt pressured to order them. I don’t know. But anyway. First up, the deep-fried prawns (4 for $5.80). Oh man, they were awful. They obviously used the frozen stuff as was obvious by the lack of taste, and how dry the meat was (obviously from having nuked it in the microwave after they had fished them out of the freezer – and left them in the microwave for too long). I don’t understand the need to use frozen stuff when one, Queensland’s famous for its abundance of fresh, good quality seafood and two, they used fresh prawns in the har gows. Meanwhile, the batter was limp and tired – and not the least bit crunchy – and given the amount of oil that was left on the paper doily, the kitchen dudes had forgotten all about draining.
Our deep-fried scallops (4 for $5.80) fared much worse. Again, the frozen stuff was used and again, the whole thing – soggy batter and all – was just nasty, nasty, nasty. Yuck.
We were served a small selection of complimentary side dishes, including the obligatory kim chi (which was decent as far as kim chi goes – which isn’t saying really much since I’m not a fan of it), sweet potato and seaweed. I couldn’t fault any of them. We got also a bowl of miso soup each which I thought was quite strange because, hello?! we’re not in a Japanese restaurant?! But eh, whatever, it was free and tasted alright so why complain for?
We ordered some dumplings to start off with. First, a serving of steamed man doo (six for $6.50). The surprisingly robust skins held a pork filling that was tasty and married well with the sesame soy dipping sauce provided.
I normally prefer fried man doo over steamed ones so I was surprised to find that I actually liked the steamed ones better. Sure, the fried versions (also six for $6.50) were great and all but they could have done with a bit more crisp.
Our meals arrived pretty quickly after that. My dolsot beef bi bim bap ($10.90) arrived first, the contents sitting prettily and piping hot in a stone pot. There was the option of having the bi bim bap in a normal ceramic bowl for $9.90 but I believe that you can’t have a bi bim bap if it’s not served in a stone pot – the best bit is scooping all the crunchy bits of rice at the bottom of your bowl towards the end of your meal. Yum!
I have to say that this was the best bi bim bap I’ve had – and trust me, I’ve had heaps of them in Melbourne for it is my ‘go to’ dish whenever I eat at Korean restaurants. The portion size was perfect, and there was a fantastic ratio of marinated beef strips, rice and vegies. I eagerly mixed everything up – gooey fried egg and all – with the pepper sauce that came with it. I liked that the pepper sauce was not too spicy, and thus did not overpower the rest of the flavours contained in the stone pot. The whole thing was just fantastic; so full of beautiful flavours and colours. I was left feeling more satisfied than a Korean chick in a K-drama series who had just landed the hot guy.
It was a particularly rainy day when we rocked up to the restaurant, which was surprisingly quite busy for a midweek lunch sesh. Those of you who have been to a Sizzler restaurant will know the concept – you can pay for the salad bar buffet ($17) which gives you access to whatever you want from the buffet tables, plus a serving of cheese toast (squee cheese toast!), or you can select a meal from the list of mains which include calamari and chips, steaks and more, all of which hover around the $15-20 mark. If you’re ordering a main for lunch, you only need to chuck in a few coins to gain access to the salad bar. As for drinks, unlimited soft drink, coffee and tea refills are available for $3.50. Marty and I decided that the mains surely ain’t worth paying for, so we decided to go the salad bar option each, plus the option to get unlimited soft drink refills.
When I was a kid, I thought the then-$10 salad bar buffet was the best thing ever. What do I think of it twenty years later? It’s horrible. I mean, sure, I wanted to go to this place purely to take the piss, knowing that it wouldn’t be fantastic, and at no point did I expect anything better. But when you have pastas that are soggy beyond belief, salads which are not at all fresh AND made with limp, frozen ingredients, and a tired dessert selection, you’re better off using that $17 on two Maccas meals that will guarantee a somewhat satisfying lunch for two days. One thing that I was actually looking forward to was getting a big handful of pasta, and pouring both bolognaise and carbonara sauce on top and then mixing them together. Yes, I know it’s weird but it was a ritual that I strictly adhered to as a kid. For some reason, though, they didn’t have carbonara sauce – only bolognaise and napoletana was available. Bummer. They did, however, still have wedges available which I grabbed by the dozen. As for the salads, well Toto, you know that you’re in Queensland when the salad options are as follows: prawn and almond salad; watermelon, feta and pine nut salad; chicken, mango and almond salad; prawn and Tassie smoked salmon; tropical coconut fish. I can’t say that any of them were particularly decent (again, crappy ingredients and devoid of freshness) though Marty didn’t seem to mind them.
Yay cheese toasts! Sadly, they were smaller than the ones we enjoyed back in the 90s – and they were extremely soggy. Funnily enough, they were probably the nicest things I ate during this meal.
We ate about two plates each (yes, of pretty much the same thing) before we decided that enough was enough. Soon, we were headed for the dessert bar. I played it like a good girl and stuck with the fruits, though I did indulge in a bit of vanilla ice cream.
And because we’re kids at heart (okay, Marty more so than I am), we did the whole let’s-put-ice-cream-in-our-lamb-and-beansoup routine. So we did. I mean, the lamb and bean soup was pretty disgusting and it was going to waste anyway, so why not have a bit of fun with it before it gets chucked out? And so we added a bunch of other nasty things in addition to the ice cream. I couldn’t remember what sort of stuff we put in (nor did I want to) but thanks to Marty’s elephant memory, we came up with a list: raspberry soda, coke, bread and butter pudding, salt, corn and a receipt (don’t ask). God, we’re so mature. And yes, we both dared each other to have a sip of the soup – and yes, it was as awful as it looks.
Like visit their new ‘Chinatown’, for example…
… which is literally a little street, with only, like, one Chinese restaurant in it. And that’s it.
And this is it: A hot pot ‘pub’ that spells ‘personalised’ without an ‘a.’ And it seems like they do massages too.
I was sitting outside, and barely into that day’s edition of the Courier Mail when my miso soup arrived. It was standard stuff, with a sprinkling of spring onions but sadly no tofu cubes or seaweed.
The salad was a mixture of shredded cabbage with a bit of lettuce and alfalfa sprouts thrown in there too. And the dressing? A sweet pineapple one. I know we’re in Queensland and everything, but I just felt that it was a strange choice of dressing. I love pineapples and all, but the dressing wasn’t the best I’ve ever had – it was certainly too sweet. I would have preferred a sesame based one.
Thankfully, the salmon sashimi did a better job of impressing me. While I thought arranging the four, thick slices of salmon on top of an oyster shell was strange, the freshness of the sashimi made up for it. They were so silky, so smooth and so creamy – I only wished that they gave us more.
I thought the sashimi was good, but surprisingly it was the tempura that proved to be the winner. In the compartment were two massive king prawns, a slice of potato and pumpkin. Not being a fan of pumpkin, I ate that one first before moving onto the others, heh. Surprisingly, though, the pumpkin wasn’t as bad as I thought and I think it was because of the batter which was pretty damn good. It was insanely crunchy, light and airy. Dare I say that it was on par with the batter that 
Marty’s been on my back to try Benihana, a popular teppanyaki restaurant in Surfers Paradise, for quite some time. When asked whether this place serves the best teppanyaki on the ‘Coast, he replied that while the food isn’t the best, it’s still pretty good. Diners, however, come here not just for the food but because dining at Benihana is akin to going to a theatre followed by a fireworks display in the city afterwards – yes, it’s THAT entertaining. And just for a bit of trivia, the Surfers Paradise restaurant is only one of 116 Benihana’s restaurants owned by wrestler-turned-restaurateur Rocky Aoki, father of Devon and Steve Aoki. While I don’t really rate Devon myself, I am partial to bopping to Steve’s “I’m In the House” whenever it plays at whatever club I happen to be in. That, my friends, was what made me go, “Okay, take me!” Oh, and the mere fact that Marty and I had been together for eight months and he wanted to take me to a nice restaurant. Okay, so it wasn’t like we were celebrating our one, two, three year or more anniversary or anything but hey, any excuse to eat at a nice place is as good as any. Plus, I think ANY girl who has been with this idiot for eight months deserves a standing ovation, in my opinion. Hee-hee!
Our reservation was for 8pm on Saturday evening but because the traffic was unusually light that evening, we arrived half an hour early. Thus, we decided to sit at the restaurant’s sake bar and order some drinks to kill time. I’m not normally a cocktail drinker these days – I love my wines – but the cocktail menu, with all cocktails being $17, looked awfully good. I ended up ordering a lychee saketini while Marty had the samurai kiss. My saketini, a combination of sake, lychee liqueur with pineapple and cranberry juice, and lychee puree was as smooth and as sweet as Ayumi Hamasaki’s voice when on autotune – probably a bit high on the saccharine side but hey, I’m on holidays so who cares. Meanwhile, Marty’s samurai kiss may not have been as deadly as Tom Cruise’s character in The Last Samurai but the delicious combination of sake, strawberry liqueur, Malibu, passionfruit pump, strawberries and apple proved to be the perfect summer cocktail.
It was just after 8pm but still, our table was not ready. And so we ordered another cocktail each. I had a Geisha on the beach, a refreshingly fruity mixture of sake, peach schnapps, pineapple, cranberry and orange juice. It was fun, and lighter on the palette than my first cocktail – the perfect precursor to our meal.
Marty, on the other hand, decided to skip the fruity cocktails and have a rich, sweet one. The bartender recommended the peanut butter Toblerone, a rich blend of Frangelico, Kahlua, Bailey’s, honey, cream, chocolate syrup and peanut butter. It was a bit too rich for me, especially before dinner, but according to oh-so-har-har-funny Marty, the cocktail, treble clef and all, ‘hit all the right notes.’
Finally, at 8:15pm, our hostess told us that our table was ready. We walked down the hallway, and past several rooms that were already filled with happy diners. Here, in these intimate rooms, head chef Henry Bongay and his team enthusiastically cook your meals with jaw-breaking skills and pizzazz on a nightly basis. We were led to an empty communal table in the very last room, where a teppanyaki grill lay ready to be used.
Oh, is that Mickey Mouse or deadmau5?
As we were sipping our soups, Bryan was putting chopped zucchini and sliced onions on the grill. While this was going on, our waitress gave us two bowls of dipping sauce: a light mustard sauce, which proved to be great for dipping our beef and chicken in, and a soy ginger sauce, which went well with seafood.
Our attention was then diverted to the Benihana salad, a simple mix of fresh greens, shredded carrots and tomatoes all held together by a tangy mirin dressing. Not the best of salads, though. I saved it for later so I could have something colourful with my meat.
Meanwhile, Bryan was going a tad crazy with the onions. He neatly arranged the slices into a volcano, poured some oil in the ‘hole.’
… and set the whole thing on fire!
‘Do it again! Do it again!’ cried the 4-year old boy sitting on our table; his name was Jackson (or Jaxon).
And so Bryan did it again.
Putting the onions aside, Bryan then started cooking up some zucchinis, some prawns and some chicken.
The prawn pieces didn’t take too long to cook and once they were done, Bryan chopped the prawns up and asked if anyone was game enough to catch a prawn piece in their mouth. As Bryan expertly chucked a prawn piece to each diner, most failed to catch it – most of the pieces either landed on the floor or on the diner’s lap. Only Marty and another guy managed to catch it neatly in their mouths. As for me? I was too much of a chicken to attempt it in case the prawn landed in my hair or something or I politely declined. Hell, even this kid had more game than I did…
Once the onions were cooked, ¾ of them were served along with the zucchinis and prawns on a plate. I’m not a fan of zucchini but I ate them regardless. The prawns, on the other hand, were delicious. Little boy Jackson-or-Jaxon thought so too, and said that he wished he had more prawns. Bryan, being the good sport that he was, decided to cook up a few extra prawns at no charge to appease the happy little soul which I thought was pretty cool.
Bryan then turned his attention to the Hibachi fried rice. That’s Bryan preparing the egg – he joined several eggs to create one long carpet of fried egg, before chopping the big egg into little ribbons. He then mixed the chopped egg with the rest of the onions, the chicken thighs along with some cooked white rice and lots and lots of garlic butter. Ooh yeah.
Quick hands or crappy camera work? Or both? Heh.
To be honest, though, the fried rice wasn’t that good. While I was bursting with excitement when I saw the amount of garlic butter that went in, the result translated to a bowl of rice that was just overly salty. I could be wrong but I don’t think they roasted the garlic because I could barely taste that lovely garlic-y flavour that comes with eating anything with garlic butter. Oh well. In the mean time, Bryan started cooking the rest of our meals. Most of the people on our communal table ordered some sort of banquet so we all ended up eating the same thing, which worked well in Bryan’s favour. Those who ordered a la carte, such as the lady sitting next to me who had a salmon steak, would have been entertained by the show so far but missed out on eating the fruits of Bryan’s labour.
Marty and I had sweet, juicy scallops, covered in garlic butter.
And lobster tails, doused in garlic butter.
Oh look, MORE prawns! (yes, with garlic butter)
But wait, they still needed to give us our fillet-steak, which was chopped into bite-sized pieces. Yep, with lots and lots of garlic butter. We requested our steaks cooked med-rare but I think the beef spent a little more time on the grill than was necessary. We could still see pink in the middle though, so it wasn’t all bad. The meat (and all the seafood we had beforehand) tasted nice with the garlic butter so it really was a shame that the rice wasn’t as yummy. We tried to eat as much as we could but unfortunately, our stomachs couldn’t handle it and pretty soon, we had no choice but to surrender. ‘Would you like dessert?’ asked the friendly Malaysian waitress who had been serving us all night, to which both Marty and I replied, “HELL NO!” to.
To say ‘thank you’ to the diners on his table, Bryan wrote exactly that with salt all over the now-clean teppanyaki grill. We all thought that was sweet but when Bryan cleared the salt away with a paper towel and then wrote “HAPPY ANNIVERSARY” on the grill, I was delightfully stunned while Marty was grinning from ear to ear. Aw, shucks.
What a way to finish dinner…
