November 16, 2007: Coyote Cafe

Updated 31/12/2014: The Coyote Cafe has been closed for some time, presumably swept away by the Mexican food tsunami that swamped Melbourne in 2008/09.

Cindy and I met up with Mike and Jo-Lyn for dinner at the Coyote Cafe in North Fitzroy. We've had a takeaway menu from this place sitting on our fridge for about six months and have been meaning to try it out almost the entire time. It's a Mexican place, with a menu which is quite friendly to vegetarians. And to drinkers. We started off with some icy cold margaritas ($10 each) and kicked back to browse through our options.

We quickly convinced Mike and Jo to join us in a vegetarian shared plate to start things rolling. It sounded fantastic: marinated olives, zucchini chips, jalapeno jelly, chillied mushrooms, sweet potato and goats' cheese sincronizada and pinto bean sopas ($19.50). Unfortunately, when it (eventually) came out, we'd scored a different tasting plate: one with chorizo on it. Still, the bits that Cindy and I could enjoy were great - particularly the bean sopas and jalapeno jelly. Maybe we could try to cook these up at home.

Cindy was half-full from her efforts at the tasting plate and opted for just an entree-sized meal: mushroom quesadillas ($10). They were adequate, but not particularly exciting and a bit on the cheesy side For Cindy's tastes.

I had eyes bigger than my stomach (this in spite of foolishly filling up on Burger Rings at the pub before dinner) and opted for a full-sized meal: spinchaladas. These are basically enchiladas with a potato, pumpkin and spinach filling, smothered in tomato sauce and sour cream ($19.50 - which was a shock when it was listed as $9 on the takeaway menu. Can prices have doubled in 6 months?). They were a little on the heavy side - the filling was predominantly spuds and pumpkin and could really have used some beans or something to liven things up a bit. The sauce was fine (but lacking a little in spice), and the greens and rice were a nice touch, but the whole thing was a bit of a letdown. Particularly at $20.

We had some long delays waiting for each of our courses and everyone was a bit tetchy by the time the mains came out. It turned out that the kitchen had been short-staffed for the night and our waitress kindly offered us free margaritas to reward our patience. So all was forgiven. Still, the night was slightly disappointing - the food was much pricier than we expected and not up to the standard of Los Amates. Probably not somewhere we'll visit again in a hurry.

Address: 414 Nicholson Street, North Fitzroy
Ph: 9489 0077
Price: veg mains $9.50-$19.50
Licensed