• Sat 21 Nov 2009

dino's deli - 34 chapel street windsor 9521 3466

when i see dino i think of the fat italian makinga pizza anda pasta saucea. but this dino is not a fat italian. in fact this dino has a decidedly spanish flavour. to the point that the entire menu is spanish and there is not a papa gino or mama gilda in sight. they probably want to be a bit more explicit in their advertising. i was with a friend and if not for her insisting that gino is a spanish dude, i would have walked right past. marketing may not be their strength, but the food and the service were absolutely awesome. read on, tapas lovers.

when i walked in i suddenly remembered that i'd been there before. memories of the tapas menu and the great (but not too extensive) wine list trickled back. i'm too old for memories to flood anywhere.

you know when you are handed a wine 'book' with 400 varieties categoried by casks in wineries in regions in countries?  that's when you turn to the (hopefully) knowledgable waitstaff and ask their wine recommendation. if the response is 'they're all pretty good', pack up your things, stow your wallet and walk, nay run, for the door. dino's by comparison is a model of excellence. i know! i don't ever remember using those words in that order before. but it is deserved.

like the best japanese, chinese and icelandic food (not sure about the last one but it sounds good), spanish food is best shared. my first reaction was to point to the tapas menu and say give me one of everything. then we discovered that they could take a main meal and split it into two dishes so that we could share! any other restaurant owners reading this? take note! this is what the customer wants. reminds me little of msida when it opened - you could get two half main meals on one place if you couldn't decide between two. not hard to do people!

we had coffin bay oysters, duck chorizo and the pork belly from the tapas menu and a lamb dish from the mains. not too much, not too little. just right. add to that two bottle of red - a malbec and a south american little number called solar viejo - and it was a perfect evening in good company. prices were surprisingly good and the wait staff were all the opposite of backpackers i.e they knew their stuff and nothing was too difficult. when you go, ask for jordan and say that i sent you. she'll have no idea what you're on about but i bet she'll be happy to see you.

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