I really hoped I would like Fonda.
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When the world looked like it was about to go to hell in a handcart nearly four years ago, and eating in restaurants was soon to be banned on public health grounds, my partner and I walked from Hyde Park, Sydney to Bondi to eat at a Fonda there.
If we were to risk picking up the new dreaded lurgi, we would be doing it over a meal and not on a 6.23 to Bondi Junction.
And after that walk, which is quite a hike, it was an excellent meal. The food was great. The service was classy and the restaurant was filled with people. The music was good and the atmosphere was carefree. By that point we had some sense of what was coming, but there was still the confidence in the air to talk about upcoming overseas holidays as though they would actually happen.
These fond memories forged on one of the final evenings of the before times meant my hopes were high for Canberra's own Fonda.
It made perfect sense: there is a market of people living here who would travel to Sydney every weekend if they could. Savvy operators can do well to bring Emerald City reminders to these harbour-starved residents of the capital.
But it did not take long for the disappointment to set in.
Armed with a mid-week booking for 7pm, we arrived to find a few occupied tables dotted around the joint where parties were already eating. We were shown to a high table by a window and pretty well left to our own devices. The tables have QR codes or one can order at the bar. The table service I remembered had been replaced with pandemic-era efficiency.
We opt for the "Feed Me", a two-person set menu which offers a couple of guided choices ($55). The menu is clean and simple; it is unlikely choice would overwhelm anyone at Fonda.
It doesn't take long for food to appear. Sixteen minutes after arriving, a bowl of nachos is placed before us.
Invented in 1943, this Tex-Mex staple has as many variations as people who prepare it. Fonda's take was not one of the better ones. The guacamole, for instance, lacked the flavour depth that takes it from mashed up avocado to a supreme condiment. It tasted how it feels to expect another step at the top of a flight when there isn't one there; one's foot comes down on nothing with a jolt. It is unsettling and a let down. The menu claims the dish contains jalapenos but evidently they were of a variety with mild to non-existent zing.
The chargrilled chicken quesadilla is next up. Its great achievement was its inoffensiveness. The quesadilla is served with chargrilled chicken, a smoked cheese blend, pico de gallo - a type of salsa - and baby spinach. It comes with a side of basil jalapeno aioli. It neither stands out in my mind as a great nor terrible dish; it is simply food I can, quite academically, accept I did eat once.
The charred corn was a better showing. Nudging the realm of being too cheesy, this is, nonetheless, the kind of food I had hoped for: fresh, fun, flavoursome.
Then it was onto the tacos: a Barbacoa beef affair with 10-hour slow cooked beef, pickled cabbage and chimichurri, and a crispy prawn with pineapple salsa, agave and shredded cabbage. This was very decent food but hardly memorable. I can't imagine I will suggest to anyone soon we need to try these tacos again. The taco is, in a small form factor, a grand possibility. A little, hand-held parcel of flavour potential. Versatile and suited to reinvention. The ingredients list looks right at Fonda, but the inventive spirit has been somehow extinguished.
With dinner, I had a blood orange margarita. Margaritas, various, cost $20 or $21. Mine was fun and drinkable. The drinks list has a bit of range. I'm not sure who is coming in and having a $60 bottle of South Australian wine, but the option is there. Cocktails by the jug are $56. Perhaps the impression of the food improves the more one drinks?
The meal concludes with the only dessert offering: churros. A serve for two is $12. There is a small bowl of chocolate sauce and another of dule de leche, a properly delicious caramelised milk. It is a nice note to end on.
Fonda's trouble, I think, is that it tries to please everyone - and fails. The dining room could be a fast-food situation that has been done up in millennial pink. Why does one need - or want - to book when one is encouraged to order on a phone?
The concept isn't a bad one. Quick and easy in the city has the makings of a hit; there are always diners who will want a speed guarantee for a meal not drowned in grease when they have theatre tickets in hand. Kitsch can be just as fun as authentic. (No one has been fooled into thinking this is a Mexican import, have they? Fonda was set up first in Melbourne by two Australian blokes.) To do that, the food has got to sing.
Fonda in Canberra, it seemed to me, was just out of key.
Fonda Mexican
Address: Shop FG10/148 Bunda Street, Canberra City
Phone: 02 5135 6119
Website: fondamexican.com.au
Hours: Sunday to Tuesday, 11.30am - 8.30pm; Thursday to 9pm; Friday to 10pm
Noise: Borderline, if busy
Dietary: Various options