Serve Me Serve You

11 Dec 2012

This is my second time having a dinner in Mezzanine Moovina as I came here more often for the drinks. During my first visit, their Duck Confit was dry and tasteless. Disappointing. However, I have heard good reviews on their their French Vietnamese dishes.

We had an unusually heavy traffic coming to Bunderan HI area today, a deadly combination of a little rain and demo. Arriving hungry, I was annoyed when the servers were not delivering the quality that I was expecting – nothing close to the previous experience with more friendlier and attentive server. One of the menus was placed in front of my friend who was sitting right in front of me but was busy in the middle of conversation with another friend. Not wanting to be seen as rude, I asked the server for another menu. She looked at me with a disturbed expression and then took the menu from my friend and gave it to me. In addition, none of the servers was attentive during ordering and billing.

Then my Cabillaud (Rp 170,000) arrives, a fillet of Black Cod topped with spicy crust and pesto, served with white rice and sour young mango salad. Alaskan Black cod is a moist, buttery fish, when cooked perfectly; it would melt in the mouth. Locally, black cod is often called “Ikan gindara” which usually has harder textured meat that its imported family. When overcooked and lost its oiliness, the meat texture would be less flaky and taste more similar to chicken.

Partly driven by hunger, the simple yet colorful and appetizing plating was shouting “eat me!” I quickly poured a little sauce over the right end tip of the black cod and ate a mouthful. The luscious sauce together with spiciness of the onion and subtle hint of pesto make a good marriage of flavors. However, for the thick dark brown sauce itself, I can only taste the sweet flavor, almost too saccharine for my taste. A simple addition of salt alone could make it more flavorful.  

As for the black cod, while it is not the Alaskan black cod that melt in my mouth, it is fresh, not muddy and tender, cooked to satisfaction.