We chanced upon this restaurant while looking for a place to eat. We were across the street at a pizza place getting some AMAZING $5 pizzas (only amazing because they were $5). The sign drew me in and I went in to make a reservation for the next night. We decided a boys night out was a good idea.

This was easily one of the top 5 dining experiences of my life. The food and the company.

We decided on a 5 course tasting menu instead of the 7 course meal, Caellum has a big appetite, but we weren’t sure how big. This turned out to be a good choice, as there were many pre meal snacks, multiple amuse bouche offerings and many post dinner treats.

We were lucky enough to sit at the chef’s table and watch all of the culinary action. I find something exciting about how a kitchen works.

The format of this post is basically a two person roundtable with Caellum and I. I’ll post a picture and each of us will describe what we ate.

Here goes…

Craig: Perfectly crispy and salty, it was like eating a potato chip. I’m not sure what kind of spinach leaf it was, but it would make a great snack anytime.

Caellum: It was crunchy and that was probably the best part. I really liked it and I would have eaten more.

Craig: This was a relatively tasteless vegetable on its own, but the vinaigrette and chervil was a nice touch. It had an almost raw potato texture to it.

Caellum: I didn’t like it, I wanted it to have more sweetness. I also didn’t like the texture.

Craig: It’s hard to tell by the picture, but they looked like ring pillows. I actually asked if they were edible. The tamarind emulsion inside was on the sweet side and amazing, there was also the perfect amount of air inside the puff to keep it light. I loved these.

Caellum: I thought you had to peel off the pillow part and then eat it. It was very creamy inside and had a crunch to it. I broke mine because I bit it in half and the stuff inside went everywhere. I really liked these.

Craig: I really liked this, the earthy flavour of the roasted mushroom was immediately followed by a balanced acidic flavour from the pickling. I loved the texture and balance.

Caellum: I liked the mushrooms, but I didn’t like how it was pickled. I wish it was just normal mushrooms. I don’t really like pickles, maybe if I did I would have liked it.

Craig: The presentation definitely had the “holy s*$&” thing going on. This was a remarkable pairing of the crunchy mushrooms and perfectly creamy and flavourful oyster emulsion. This was an original way to present oysters. I loved it.

Caellum: I thought the mushrooms tasted like Doritos without the sauce. I liked them so much that the chef gave me extra! I really liked the sauce, and this was my favourite food of the whole night.

Craig: This was remarkable. It consisted of tomato sorbet with a tomato consomme on top of a cherry tomato. The consomme was the best tomato soup I’ve ever had. I have to learn how to make this dish. Brilliant.

Caellum: I liked it, the consomme tasted like tomato soup, but better with the sorbet added to it.

Craig: This is the first time in my life someone has made me a mashed potato better than my own. They were perfect, Theresa would have loved them. I’ve been eating a lot of caviar on this trip, as it’s a lot cheaper than in Canada. It was a nice touch to the dish.

Caellum: It was the best mashed potatoes I’ve ever had. I’m sorry Auntie Kelly. I loved the fish eggs.

Craig: The presentaiton was beautiful, and the duck was all cooked perfectly. I wasn’t expecting the earthiness of the sorrel to be so powerful and it took a while to get used to. I grew to the like the dish more as I ate it.

Caellum: I would have liked it better if the duck was cooked more and was warm. I’ve never had cold duck before. I liked eating the flowers.

Craig: Caellum didn’t get to enjoy this part of the meal, but I did a drink and wine pairing with the main courses. This one consisted of fresh pineapple, basil blossom syrup, rosemary, cointreau, port, bullet bourbon and served straight up. I don’t recall ever having a tasting menu paired with cocktails, but it was a nice touch and I liked it.

Craig: This was my favourite course of the evening. The concept and execution of the dish was spot on. The idea behind the dish was to only use ingredients that grow and live in rice fields. I found that warm and welcoming, considering our environment. A concept doesn’t  have to  be complex, it can just be romantic and real.

The duck yolk was interesting as it was baked at 65 degrees for an hour and had an amazing creamy consistency which likely came from the slow cooking method. The flavours and balance were perfect.

This was likely one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. A+

Caellum: The thing that made it very good was the rice porridge and the snails. I really liked the duck egg yolk as well. I couldn’t eat it all, but my Dad had problems finishing it for me.

Craig: Another great drink that went well with Into the Swaha. This one consisted of muddled cemcem leaves, young coconut, lemo Bali, lemongrass, tamarind syrup and Rum.

Craig: This was a perfectly cooked piece of white fish. Everything was full of flavour, but light on the palate and stomach. I loved the way it looked and would gladly eat more barramudi.

Caellum: The fish was a very light texture, and the sauce made it even better. I really liked this.

 

Craig: Lamb is my favourite red meat and this didn’t disappoint. The smaller piece of lamb was actually lamb tongue. This is the first time I’ve ever had it and loved it. I didn’t tell Caellum what it was and he also loved it. As expected he was a little surprised once I told him what it was. Another original and well presented and balanced course.

Caellum: I liked the lamb with the green sauce. I ate the other piece of lamb, and my Dad didn’t tell me what it was, but it was lamb tongue and I liked it.

Craig: We knew the apple pie was coming and we were trying to guess what it would look like, this was completely outside of anything we discussed. It was a unique take on the apple that I really enjoyed. There was a perfect level of sweetness and crumble. It was fun to dig down to the bottom underneath the foam to find the “apple pie”. This one would be hard to reproduce. I’m not a dessert person, but this was a good one.

Caellum: I thought it would actually be a pie, but it was in a cup. When I was eating it, I just dug down to the apple pie and didn’t really eat the foam like my Dad. I liked this a lot.

Craig: I loved this with the apple pie, it consisted of muddled Malang Apple, Homemade Cashew Nut Ogreat, Cognac Infused with Roasted Apple, Topped with Ginger Beer. The outside of the glass was coated in some type of cinnamon sugar that Caellum enjoyed eating off of the glass.

Craig: These little chocolates had the entire contents of a passion fruit inside. I don’t know how you’d do that, but it was a nice and refreshing chocolate snack.  The key is putting the whole thing your mouth or you end up like some people….

Caellum: I liked this, but I bit it in half and the passion fruit went everywhere, just like the pillow snack at the beginning of the dinner.

Craig: The food kept coming. This time a nicely presented caramelized apple with ice cream inside. The server took a torch to them during service. This was pretty good, again they did a great job of controlling sweetness, it’s amazing how hard that is for some restaurants.

Caellum: It was interesting how they were able to get the ice cream inside the apple. When I bit into it, it splattered everywhere in my mouth. I liked it.

Craig: A nice and refreshing shot of rambutan juice.  There was no alcohol, so Caellum could enjoy it too.

Caellum: I liked it and I was glad I finally got to drink something!

Craig: I had never seen purple dragon fruit until I came to Bali, in every other country I’ve been to  in Asia, the fruit is white. I love this colour and the fruit as more of a mango flavour I find. These were stuffed with a white chocolate filling and were quite nice.

Caellum: I think these were very creative, I wished they made them in Canada. I wish they had put more than 2 out for us, I wanted 5 more.

This was a great dinner with great company. I was so proud of Caellum for trying everything that was put in front of him. Children have much more acute taste buds than adults, so I think it’s important that he gets the full flavours from ingredients, new and old. This will hopefully make him a better cook in the future and open to always trying and discovering new things.

This was one of the top 5 meals I’ve ever had the privilege of eating. The tasting menu we had cost $70 a person (plus drink pairing), which is an absolute steal for this type of skill and creativity. I found this more inventive than even Eigensinn Farm, where you’re likely to spend north of $300 for the same type of tasting menu.

I will eat here once more before we head home and then miss it until we return.

Well done Locavore.