The Black Toro

¡Hola amigos! 

Happy New Year!!!

Hope you all have recovered from the big new year celebrations! I've probably gained 100kg from all the Christmas food but that can be helped with my friend gym ;) Twenty twelve was the year where Mexican restaurants (and chain stores) were opened in almost every corner of Melbourne. It is somewhat difficult to guess the trend for 2013. Give me a couple more days to investigate, it is only the 3rd of Jan after all. 

The Black Toro has opened for several months now, and yet I have never gotten the chance to pay a visit. It was either too packed or closed by the time I had arrived. Giraffe and I went for dinner at around 8:30pm and were seated quickly, surprisingly without reservations. Some of my friends were told to wait up to two hours for seats!

I read the menu with apprehension as I did not know what to expect. The menu is more extensive than Fonda Mexican which is a bonus... but the only thing that bothered me is that they didn't serve Horchatas on their drink menus! How annoying! All in all, the waiters were of excellent character, refilling our water instantly and being extremely polite. 

Before I visit a new restaurant, I always look at their menu to have a mental image of what I would like to order. Don't be fooled by Toro's online menu, as they've added more variety inside the restaurant! There are two more dishes, and modifications to the ones already listed. It was hard to choose which ones we wanted to eat because they all sounded equally amazing.

Lemon lime and bitters - $5.00

Lemon lime and bitters came in a glass that reminded me of my experience at MoVida , one of my first fine dining experiences last year. While other people are interested in buying car parts, shoes or make up, I like to invest my money in extremely good food that will leave me salivating for more. Fine dining is obviously a hard passion to maintain, but if you are yet to go, then make a booking somewhere fancy and live a little :) food makes everyone happy and I assure you, you won't be displeased.

Grilled corn on the cob with chipolte mayo - $4.00 each

I had high expectations for the corn anddddddddddd they were NOT met. It tasted stale, dry and was extremely displeasing. I have been to Mamasita's twice now, and on both occasions they were tasty and sweet. I'm going to have to visit The Black Toro again to re-try the corn and hopefully my dissatisfaction will be reversed. The chipolte mayo had a lovely taste, and was not overwhelming to the tastebuds, which I guess complimented the dry corn. 

MY FAVOURITE DISH THUS FAR: 

Kingfish ceviche, melon, cucumber, crispy wonton and prawn oil - $18.00

I can only describe this with a physical expression, as I cannot put happiness into words for this dish. As the night was rather warm, the refreshing taste of the melon and cucumber really brought out the taste of the kingfish. What is ceviche, you might ask? It is basically freshly cut raw fish with juices, which in this case was prawn oil. It was lovely to order something with fruit that was not a dessert dish. I am going to order this every single time I go to The Black Toro, as I know I will never get sick of it. The crispy wonton strips gave the dish a fried taste, considering everything else is fresh. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as the crunchiness was fun! 

Quality over quantity - thumbs up to the chefs, this is a winner!

Sides - Triple cooked potatoes, paprika salt with garlic aioli - $8.00 

Another favourite of mine! I am rather fond of anything potato related, so this was definitely a dish that made me happy. After a while I must admit it was a bit sickening, but the skin is so crisp! Never had anything that was triple cooked to perfection before. Be careful before you take a bite, Giraffe and I were being hasty and almost burnt our tongues from the heat of the potato! 

Spicy pulled pork taco, shredded cabbage & sour cream sauce (two tacos) $12.00

There are only two varieties of tacos which I was unhappy about. The other was fried quail egg with mushrooms and sweet potato. We opted from the spicy taco, because I'm sooooooooo good at tolerating spicy food, nawt. To every bite I took, I had a drink of water so that kind of washed the flavour away. Giraffe and I both agree that the tacos are better at touches. 

The best tacos I've ever eaten was when Touche Hombre first opened. We went on the second day it opened and it was jaw dropping. If you click on the link, that is my post about my experience there. I can't believe that was all the way in May 2012... it's almost been a year! So much has changed since then in terms of my writing and the look of the entire blog. I can't wait to go back and update more information and details into the older posts. 

Deconstructed peanut butter cheesecake, chocolate ice cream and honeycomb - $14.00

Towards the end of the night we were feeling a bit full, but not 100% satisfied. Fortunately, TBT has a range of exquisite desserts. They are rather pricey, but add to the essence of 'fine dining'. There is always room for dessert. We ordered a deconstructed cheesecake... and I had no idea what to expect. I've never had one before. I probably wouldn't order this dish again... the sweetness was overwhelming (which is a big deal for me, I have a unyielding sweet tooth)! One of the ice creams were peanut flavoured, the other obviously chocolate. The flavour was premium and rich, something I thoroughly enjoyed. It didn't taste like your usual supermarket icecream! Get a different dessert if you don't like extremely sweet foods. 

View of the wall from outside. I love that the front wall is an open window, it creates more intimacy with the outside world. The bull is pretty cute as well :)  Toro means bull... just in case you were wondering. Overall I enjoyed my experience at The Black Toro... sorry for spamming your Instagram newsfeed the night I went haha! Pay a visit if you're in the area, it won't disappoint and is a nice change from all the other Asian restaurants on Kingsway. They need a fob roll, a recognised bubble tea and a froyo place and Kingsway will be somewhat complete.

The Black Toro

Address: 79 Kingsway, Glen Waverley, Victoria 3150

Contact: 9561 9696

Hours: Lunch is 12pm to 3pm, Dinner is 6pm until late

Price Range: $$$ and a half