Coda Bar & Restaurant

When I found out I was going to be in Melbourne for a few days (business and pleasure), I started to plan on which restaurant I should try out with my friend DD and his girlfriend. So after much thought, I decided we should try out Coda. Coda is a Melbourne restaurant which it turns out, is very popular. It came to prominence when its head chef (Adam D'Sylva) featured in a MasterChef Australia challenge in 2010. FYI, he won the challenge. Adam D'Sylva has Indian and Portuguese heritage and I thought what a combination to bring to a fusion style restaurant.

I checked out the Coda website and found the menu to be interesting. I could clearly see that it has the plate sharing (tapas style) menu concept. So I booked and found out about the 2 seating concept (again this seems to be very popular amongst the new breed of restaurants). The only time that was feasible for us was the 6.30pm seating which meant we should leave around the 8.15 mark.

Coda has a seriously grunge feel and the place was full when we got there at 6.30pm on a Thursday night. It has a nice bar vibe and I liked the decor (quite a cool and grungy look).

We had a few small plates and shared a couple of larger plates and I actually felt quite full at the end and we just could not find space for dessert.

The small plates we ordered were:
Spanner crab with galangal, roasted chili on lime betel leaf.

Spanner crab

Quail lettuce delight with lup cheong, shitake mushroom, coriander and water chestnuts.

Quail lettuce

Hervey Bay scallop, pearl tapioca and salmon caviar.

Scallops

And we also had one of the special dishes of the day, pork belly (peking duck style) but served on lettuce instead of pastry. It was topped with a chili relish.

Pork belly with lettuce wrap

The larger plates we ordered were:
Tuna salad with daikon, shredded carrots and cucumber and sesame seeds.



Tuna salad


Beef minute steaks with herbed butter and mushrooms.

Steak with mushrooms

To complement the steak, we had pomme frites and steamed brocollini with yellow soya bean sauce.

Brocollini

Pomme frites

Generally, the food was nice but none of the dishes were outstanding. We just felt that most of the dishes lacked flavour and could have done with a little more oomph! Unfortunately the quail lettuce was very salty and really needed to be had with some boiled rice.

Coda has a huge potential to be a big hit. It appears to be very popular with the number of patrons in the restaurant and bar. But there is room for improvement from a food perspective. It is only it's second year of operation. The kitchen was filled with young chefs, so here's hoping that as time goes by, the food flavours will improve.

Coda Bar & Restaurant
141 Flinders Lane
Melbourne
VIC 3003
Website: http://www.codarestaurant.com.au/