Blue Corn, St Kilda by Big Fil

I've never been to Mexico so can't comment about true Mexican food. For all I know it could be the healthiest, tastiest, most interesting food in the world. I know it is really popular, particularly in the United States, but I just can't get excited about it here. Whether that's because of the style of food itself or just the way it's done in Melbourne I'm not sure. On the other hand, after recent visits to the US Ms Counting her Calories is a big fan so she invited Snooze (who turned out to be sick on the day) and myself for dinner at Bluecorn. I know that Bluecorn has a good reputation and had high hopes that I could be about to become a convert.


First impressions were good. It's much more café than restaurant in style, with bottles behind the bar, specials on the wall, tables quite close together and the front open to the street. I quite liked it, nothing terribly original but appropriately casual and comfortable for St Kilda.


First dish we ordered to share was the bluecorn and cornbread dips. The dips were spicy chickpea, mushroom and blackbean, pipian rojo (which I had to look up on the Internet. Apparently rojo means red and pipian is a type of mole made from ground pumpkin seeds), guacamole and tomato salsa. For an appetiser the size of the dish was huge. The purple/blue corn chips looked interesting and most of the dips were good (especially the chickpea and the guacamole). Star of the dish though was the cornbread. Not something you see very often in Melbourne, but with a coarser than usual texture and earthier flavour than most restaurant breads. Even though the amount served with the dish was generous, I wanted more!


I went for the chill beef and bean enchilada for mains. Given the size of the appetiser I shouldn't have been surprised by the size of the enchilada. I have a friend who says you should never try to eat anything bigger than your head. Well, I don't think this was but it was getting close. Given that it was heavy and extremely filling, I would have been satisfied with a smaller (and cheaper) enchilada. It was quite tasty though, moderately spicy with rich mince and bean flavours.


Ms C went for the grilled fish tacos. After she confirmed that they were soft shell tacos I was a little surprised at the well toasted taco shells. Somewhere between soft and hard shell tacos, almost crispy. The best part of the taco was the fish, which was moist and soft. The rest of the dish didn't make that much of an impression though. Again, a surprisingly heavy and filling dish. Both of us can put away quite a lot of food but we struggled to finish the three dishes. Two might have been better.


Overall
Maybe we were a bit too unadventurous in our ordering but excluding the cornbread none of the food had the flavours that I was hoping for. Yes it was tasty, but with its heaviness and the size of the serves I could imagine ending up looking the Michelin Man if I ate here too often. Some of the dishes on the specials board looked interesting, but were quite pricey. Bluecorn is the sort of place I'm happy to have tried and would go again if someone wanted to return for a birthday dinner or similar, but wouldn't rush back to of my own accord.

Verdict
Food - 7
Ambience - 7
Service - 6.5
Price 6.5

Address:
205 Barkly St
St Kilda, 3182
Tel: (03) 9534 5996