The set lunch menu offers good value that rivals most restaurant week selections.
- The starter bread is a little too salty. It isn’t warmed either so the crust is rubbery, not crisp. Nevertheless, a good bread to soak up sauces and olive oil with.
- The burrata salad comes with a beautiful piece of burrata instead of just stracciatella. The orange and grapefruit supremes add a beautiful color to the dish, but don’t quite work structurally as they are so thinly sliced that it becomes unnatural to pick them up. Nevertheless, if you take the effort to construct an ad-hoc bruschetta, you will be rewarded with a balance of crispy, hot, cold, creamy, citrus and bitterness.
- The casarecce with fennel and sausage is a classic that is well executed. The pasta has a great bite, with each casarecce seasoned with just the right amount of salt and pecorino. Each bite also has enough sausage and broccoli such that I am never just eating plain pasta. The amazing thing is that by the time I finished the pasta, I have also finished the sausage and broccoli. This means the ratio of pasta to ingredient is, once again, perfectly balanced.
- The sea trout (salmon?) dish was cooked perfectly. A juicy and soft interior with a crusty outside. Since it isn’t my main course, I can’t comment too much beyond my one bite. I guess they are honest with calling a sea trout a sea trout. Props to not committing a common food faux pas.
- The two dessert choices are the lemon basque tart and passion fruit sundae. Since I like my dessert sweet and sour, these hit the spot. I would personally add a scoop of the passion fruit ice cream to the tart, but all that acidity could be too much of a good thing…
The recurring theme seems to be balance (except the bread), which speaks to a chef’s self restrain when it comes to conceptualizing a dish. I must admit, there was nothing exciting flavor-wise, but hey, sometimes a predictable delight is exactly what I need on a lazy afternoon.
Note to self: Saw Fiona Xie at Culina market. First star sighting in a long time!
