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Black Toro

Larissa Dubecki
Larissa Dubecki

Mezcal-cured salmon with coriander meringue from Black toro restaurant in Glen Waverley.
Mezcal-cured salmon with coriander meringue from Black toro restaurant in Glen Waverley.Eddie Jim

13/20

MEXICAN IS THE NEW THAI. MY culinary crystal ball predicts the day will come when the 'burbs will be dotted with Tru-Mex, not Tex-Mex, nosheries, thanks to the inalienable tastiness of the soft tacos, the pulled pork, the ceviche and the grilled corn on the cob, everything slathered in shaved manchego and habanero cream and haunted by the smoky opiate of chipotle.

It's a no-brainer, right? The Latino thing is still a craze - well, der - but it has moved beyond mere trendiness. Think of it as a new kind of normal.

It makes perfect (overdue) sense that Glen Waverley has planted a flag for the Mexican revolution. You'll find the Black Toro on the screamingly busy Kingsway, where tailgating cars compete for parking spaces and groups of young folk test just how low their jeans can go, all on a rainy Sunday night when the Melbourne CBD is D-E-A-D.

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Its arrival defies the strip's Asian parameters - an irony given owner-chef Garen Maskal comes via the south-east Asian inspired Ezard. At first reading the menu is the predictably muscular collection that has grabbed Melbourne by the jugular. There's the pulled-pork taco, the mushroom sope (tart) with earthy funk of corn truffle and shaved ricotta salata, and the cheeky expedience of a wagyu slider with diner-style cheese and tomatillo relish - a dude-ish Yankee interloper, at $7, a sturdy example of Black Toro's value for money.

Beneath the surface there is a move to reconcile Mexico's street food soul with a restaurant stance - and I'm not just talking about the appearance of slate and other modern crockery. Some of these dishes work well; others forget the simple building blocks that make real Mexican food so compelling.

There are fat potato and chorizo croquettes with a silky, salty manchego foam (their word, not mine - I'm going with ''custard'' as the better description and, yes, it works well). Salmon cured in mescal is a handy ethnic sleight of hand boasting technical/textural smarts: pale green wafers of coriander meringue and the salty pop of salmon roe. It's a good idea, although the base of avocado puree needed a whack of lemon to bring it all into high-definition focus.

King prawns (four fat beauties from South Australia's Spencer Gulf - produce standards here are unimpeachable) are duly respected with a smooth, buttery sweetcorn puree and given heft with whole kernels and watercress. It's a fine dish but roasting the kernels would have taken it into another dimension. Just saying.

Of course, it's primarily a grazing menu. Of the six ''grande'' plates, the average home cook wouldn't have much trouble replicating the pork belly, chorizo and chickpeas in a tomato-based sauce, although the cooking of the pork gives it a lift. Fat cubes cooked sous vide then flash fried are five layers of porcine perfection.

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Baby chicken marinated in guajillo chilli with orange glazed skin and a hint of smokiness is an unexpectedly sweet dish - turns out the guajillo is a mild-mannered member of the capsicum annuum family - but the butterflied bird is perfectly cooked, with soft subcutaneous fat, juicy flesh and just salty enough skin. On the side there's a simple salad of radicchio, parsley and fennel with orange segments and a sweet citrus-punctuated dressing.

Staff are competent without adding too much by way of excitement to the experience. I'll forgive them the upselling of water, but it's essentially a dump-and-run operation, not the kind of place where waiters tease the potential from a small wine list of cult boutique labels.

The salted peanuts/chocolate combo is starring on menus from Melbourne to Mexico City, so no problems going off-script with the peanut butter cheesecake. It's your common el deconstructo version: a peanut-y scoop of set cream, a quenelle of chocolate sorbet, dark biscuity crumbs, honeycomb. The market will lap it up.

The creme catalana is more thematically true but it has bigger issues in a brutishly thick bruleed crust and a heavy hand on the dusty blanket of almond meal.

The place itself doesn't immediately scream ''Mexican''. A mural of a black bull leaps out from the boringly neutral design. It's cliche-free, if you will. And just when we were getting used to a new set of cliches. Oh, the irony.

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The lowdown

The best bit Mexican reaches the Glen
The worst bit Gypsy Kings-style music
Go-to dish Mescal-cured salmon

Black Toro
Food
Mexican
Where
79 Kingsway, Glen Waverley
Phone
9561 9696
Cost
Typical starter, $12; main, $28; dessert, $14
Licensed
Wine list
A smart, well-priced boutique collection
Owners
Garen Maskal, Aret Arzadian and Sasoon Arzadian
Chef
Garen Maskal
Vegetarian
Four starters, one main
Dietary
GF well catered for
Service
Perfunctory
Noise
OK
Value
Fair
Parking
Street and shared carparks
Wheelchairs
Yes; no disabled toilet
Outdoors
Yes, kerbside
Web
theblacktoro.com.au
Cards
AE MC V eftpos
Hours
Thurs-Sun, noon-3pm; daily, 6pm-late (from October 22, lunch and dinner daily)

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Larissa DubeckiLarissa Dubecki is a writer and reviewer.

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