The Mornington Peninsula, serene, graceful, boring to younger age brackets (excluding schoolies), and home to Milbri.
It was a crisp Friday, my partner caught herself with a mild headache: ie. Sobriety was sinking in. So after having a cheeky glance at the Zomato ratings, we happened upon Milbri, which although at first glance, had menus that resembled school lunch orders.
To our surprise, the waitress told us an absolutely scandalous piece of news: cocktails were half price. Being cocktail snobs, we were expecting basic cocktails with no quality or finesse in their taste or design. Oh boy were we mistaken, the Black Lemon and the Kentucky Peach Pie were something of a Melbourne hipster's wet dream. One of our second cocktails, the Clover Club, was unfortunately unlike its counterparts as the egg white smell was overpowering to the extent of thinking we were smelling one of the local farms. However, our waitress must have caught on, and informed us that we could eat the flower garnish, to which our initial thought was: "we are not the animals from the aforementioned local farms", however it tasted pretty noice so hey that was cool.
Our next order of business was the food. We ordered the popcorn chicken as an entree. To be honest, it would have been uninteresting and bland if it weren't for the adobo sauce, which saved the day with its rich and unique flavour. Furthermore, there was a distinct lack of salt and pepper, which was implicit that the chefs were world class, unfortunately, they were not, as we found out as we reached our main course, the Carne Por Dos: a meat share plate for two. Being priced at around 75 dollars, we weren't quite anticipating two ramikins of unidentifiable liquid. One green, and the other, an aioli impersonator, which were honestly more appealing than the owners dog food (the poorly chopped chorizo) which was strategically placed under the tortilla wraps, no doubt an adults example of out of side out of mind. Fortunately we were smart enough to fix the "aioli" with a sliver of lime, some salt and a little touch of hot sauce to which the waitress was truly perplexed about. We had to think on our feet to which we responded "its personal preference", when in fact we just didn't want to insult the chef's interpretation of oil and egg whites.
On the positive side, the chicken was sweet and juicy, the steak was decent, but looked like the chef forgot how to slice a simple scotch fillet through and through, but once this was made into a taco wrap, the taste was all that mattered. Though it should be mentioned that the "pickled vegetables" were something taken from the Indian store next door to them, the overbearing traditional Indian spice (whilst potentially accidental) does not belong in pickling solution, let alone on the plate of a Mexican inspired dish. This meal accompanied by the chips, which were seasoned to perfection and tasted great with our aioli and their adobo sauce, made for a solid meal and left just enough room for our desserts. Enter dessert with caution, as when the drinks menu tells you to skip the churros and get the 'smore' cocktail, you should follow its advice. Never before have I witnessed sponges (churros) that look like male genitalia, taste wise though, the tips were perfectly coated in cinnamon and chocolate, and gave a delicate crunch. We also ordered their home made ice cream, which is kind of hard to mess up, and fortunately were much better than my sponges.
Overall, we were very satisfied with our meal, albeit it slightly overpriced for the meat platter, this was made up for by the saving grace of half price cocktails. A great place for an alcoholic, but perhaps not as much for a food enthusiast.
Room for improvement
1. Have salt and pepper ready on the table, even the top restaurants in Australia can't predict a customer's personal preference.
2. Presentation is a huge part of a meal, if food looks unappetizing, covering it up won't help, instead use a sharper knife instead of the butter knife from World War One.
3. Perhaps your churros wouldn't be as spongey if you gave customers a small portion of chocolate sauce in a ramikin, instead of dousing the churros in it.
4. If your sauce acts like water (hello aioli), it usually tastes like water.
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