What was and what might have been
so, MissVicky had a birthday and obviously it was a perfect occasion to go to a restaurant we had both been lusting after for quite some time. Moro is a mediterranean restaurant with a big reputation, the reviews for it are excellent and the people I’ve spoken to who’ve eaten there raved about it, so we went with a sense of real anticipation…..
It was a very very hot evening, but the fans were in full effect and we took our table, one immediate impression we got was that the insides were far less imposing than they seemed from outside, which is kind of odd, probably to do with smoked glass and a smart entrance but hey, the place was filling up and the food smelled great. For starters we ordered a tortilla of salt cod and potato (well duh) for V and the unusual-sounding wild chanterelle and prawn bruschetta for me, along with a bottle of Galician wine. A wait ensued and our starters arrived……. but no wine, we had to look pleadingly around until the waitress came over, getting half way before she realised she’d forgotten the wine, ah well we though, a minor cock-up and no harm done.
The dishes were fantastic, especially the tortilla, which looked rather daunting for a starter but was in fact deliciously light with a taste reminiscent of childhood food which we couldn’t quite place. The prawns and chanterelles worked really well together, the earthy mushrooms contrasting against the sweet prawns and the delicately garlicky juices soaking into the bread.
So far so good, in fact no more surprises/annoyances for a while.
Mains arrived and looked very impressive, for myself there were two huge slices of belly pork. These were so tasty, with really crispy skin and meltingly soft flesh, neatly accompanied by a cold potato salad. V’s main also looked impressive, a good few slices of rare lamb, cooked to perfection, with chunks of aubergine on the side that had been deep-fried in gram flour batter. These were possibly the star of the whole meal, crispy on the outside and so meltingly soft on the inside and the tastiest aubergine I’ve ever tasted. Things started to go a bit awry. It was getting progressively hotter in the restaurant and so was the wine. We noticed that everyone else had wine coolers but we didn’t so we asked for one, it arrived……unchilled, thereby insulating the slightly heated wine nicely.
After that the next thing was the second that our last forkfulls of main course entered our mouths, then a waiter came along and whisked away our plates, now I can understand that restaurants sometimes need to get people out for the next sitting, but after this we waited 10 minutes for the dessert menu and a further 25 minutes after ordering them before they arrived. “I hadn’t forgotten about you” said our waitress “things are taking a while”. I could understand this for elaborate puddings, but for some figs with honey and greek yoghurt and two scoops of malaga raisin ice cream with sweet wine poured over?(which incidentally was gorgeous) I doubt it.
I may be making it sound as if the meal was an unmitigated disaster and to be fair to the restaurant it wasn’t, it’s just that when you spend a decent amount of money in a restaurant with a sparkling reputation then you expect to get something a bit special. The question is though, would I go again? And I think the answer is yes, the food really was good enough to give them a second chance.