Esquina

We had heard a lot about Esquina recently, and while we normally make it a point not to try to follow the crowd, it was too tempting not to head there after leaving the office at 6.00pm on the dot the first day the boss was out of town. We got there at 6.10pm, only to be told that there were no more seats inside. No problem, we took one of the tables along the five-foot way.

We started with a serve of toasted corn

Which was fantastic with a Margaret River Chardonnay

My normal habit is to head straight for a red, but I had no regrets ordering this - not too dry, nicely balanced and it went well with almost everything we ordered.

First up was the salt and pepper squid with black ink aioli - this was very enjoyable, and much more tender with the use of baby squid instead of large squid pieces. They managed to get the batter down pat - nice and crispy and not too oily. Loved the black ink aioli as well - the squid ink added an extra dimension to the otherwise mayonnaise-like flavour.
It was great with the green chillies. Next up was the iberico pork and foie gras burger. This was superb. The meat was tender, juicy and absolutely flavourful. Up close - the only problem was that these weren't very large at all. We could have done with another serve. This was the confit pork belly with pork skin, chorizo and white beans. It wasn't as soft as we would have wanted it though, and the flavour of the accompanying chorizo/white bean stew wasn't all that exquisite.

The pork skin was average - not as crispy as we expected as well.

Since the servings were so small, we made additional orders - the ox cheek, topped with tongue served on a bed of what must have been sweet potato mash, was excellent.

The squid saffron and red pepper paella was pretty good too, but again, it was a rather small serve for some 20 odd dollars. Final verdict on this place: excellent food, great atmosphere but not really value for money (we spent around $175), and so we're not sure if we'll be back except for super special occasions. I'm sure there are many many people willing to patronise this place who earn more than us, and we also hope that it stays around for a long time.