Meigas, Ballarat

On our recent visit to Ballarat, we had dinner at Meigas. This Spanish tapas restaurant came highly recommended and was ranked first on Tripadvisor's restaurants to eat at in Ballarat. 

We were so excited to have our dinner at Meigas that we arrived nearly half and hour ahead of our actual reservation. The waitpersons were very courteous and showed us to our seats, brought us water and cutlery without being narky about the change in plans. 

We ordered the Iberico jamon (50g), which we had with bread and extra virgin olive oil. It's so difficult to buy Jamon Iberico outside of Spain, it's ridiculously expensive. Meigas have a deli that sell jamon, sausages etc. Jamon Iberico was selling for $275 per kg while Jamon Serrano was selling for around $40 per kg. As Gaz likes to point out, Iberico pigs are black fur pigs that eat only acorns, and those acorns aren't cheap! It does taste better than Jamon Serrano..

Next was garlic chilli prawns. There were 4 large prawns with shells on, served in garlic infused oil (which was still bubbling when it was served on the table), paprika and fresh parsley leaves. We found that the garlic in oil at the bottom of the dish was most delicious when put on bread. Although there were chillies in the description, there were no spiciness.

Croquette of the day - bacon and mushrooms. It was creamy inside and crunchy outside, almost too much batter. Compared to the other dishes, this was my least favourite.

Now, this one is a new dish to me. Spanish meatballs in almond sauce. My mom and I always thought that almond essence and processed almond powder smells like cockroaches. Yeah... don't ask further, they just do. Luckily, we're OK with almond flakes, whole almonds and the like. And this dish definitely do not smell like cockroaches. Instead, it taste really delicious. The almond chunks add texture to the sauce, the meatballs were juicy and tender. It was really good.

To finish, we had the flan. Which just brings back good memories of how my housemate used to make this from premixes and then scarfed it down double fast. Thinking about it now makes me want to go out and get one of those premix packets now. The flan was a nice note to end on, but it was nothing spectacular. I was more attracted to the Spanish churros that the table next to us ordered.

Our bill came to $76 for two persons, including a glass of sangria. Meigas also offer a 'Feed Me' menu at $50 per person which is probably a better option if you are hungry.

We really enjoyed our food and the service at Meigas and we hope to visit again one day!