This has become a lucid, transparent target for me to raise myself into a new level of connoisseur dementia. It’s a good thing, unlike any other dementias. Well.. There might be pros and cons about this dementia stuff because some will still got hurt in the process (notably the wallet). I, who obviously suffer this dementia, enjoy each and every moment of it anytime it strikes! Everyone would probably bailing out when it comes to this level because the stakes getting higher and higher. A word of advice for all the wannabes, always ensure that you’re up for this or else you can quit at your loss.

Okay, so what’s with the opener? It’s quite strange actually. Well, it’s because that I opened the Pandora’s Box, the door to the very road that will drag me on and on towards the appointed doom, the very thing that was long time ago before I was even born embedded in my mind and my tummy (haha..), are now finally and ultimately revealed, unraveled, unveiled, brought to light! It’s a revelation for me! It’s the fate that I should cling into for the rest of my life (much to the expense of my health and my pocket)! It’s the next level of how (I warrant) a gourmet I should become. It’s…. It’s……..

The Invasion of Hotels!!!!!

Wait… that doesn’t sound cool… Any other name?

The…. uh…. ummm….

I got none right now… Yeah whatever!

Anyway here’s the big deal, I ran into several promotion posters every time I visit Intercontinental Hotel, Jakarta. Starting from 2009, Chef Antonio Massagli will reign over Intercon’s only Italian bistro, Scusa! For the whole year! Yaay! Some people told me that before this guy came, the food was not that good. If it’s true from what I read in a certain magazine, the kitchen was ruled by Chef Luigi Girardin. You should know me that I shall not trust others’ judgments even for movies. It’s essential for me, the afflicted patient of connoiseur dementia, to judge whether it’s good or not, only through my tongues!

So one day, one of my colleagues, one of those people from the neighboring department who were the lifeline of my workplace, the profit makers, the highly paid, and of course, those who like to spend for fancy foods, asked me out for a lunch at Scusa alongside the rest of the gang. Many of my colleagues here reckon the not-so-surprising fact anymore in my office, that I’m the guy for foods, the sole survivor in the office rather than in the jungle, and the one who always carries foods from nowhere and people would ask, ‘Where did you get it?’ and I would say, ‘From the sky!’.

Yup! That’s me!

By the time I got there, my friends already had their dishes ordered. They took the same dish to my surprise. It’s actually one of the most common main dish everywhere, but what’s the essence of having this discounted fiesta with RBS card plus the ingenious Italian cuisine?! For me, it’s for having more expensive dish and this will cut the price half more than usual and that’s what I call a rare chance! Even so, I didn’t even take the 50% opportunity. There’s a lot of interesting menu of course but I took the package menu (Mezzo) instead which notably excluded in this discount system. That’s what I call the connoisseur dementia if you can now understand what the hell I was saying at the beginning of the show.

So, to start to whole party, we were all given the Walnut Bread with Fetta Cheese fillings as the opener. The round-shaped bread was stuffed into this small cup but somehow the bread still has a quite considerable size for an appetizer.You might gonna guess that the taste would probably the same like any other bread added with cheese, but it’s completely different! It’s tender with empty core in the middle but you can go straight downstairs, I might add, for the fetta cheese. It’s a match made in heaven. The looks may not be much, but you gotta dig in and find it out by yourself. Well, at any rate, don’t stray too far coz it’s only an appetizer. You’ll never know until you meet the main dishes right?

The main dishes for my colleagues were the Salmon Steak served with asparagus, veggies like scallions, and mashed potato. Seemed to be drenched with herbs and olive oil sauce. Very decent taste! The salmon was humongous, definitely not smelly, plus the you’ll be overwhelmed by the tenderness of the mashed potato with the slices of asparagus there. Anyway, two of my colleagues actually shared this other type of salmon dish, it was the Salmon Fillet with the sauces you can pick. The composition was actually quite the same, but you gonna need to pick one from the many sauces.

Since they had ordered their dishes before they even got there, my dish came a bit later. Though they spoiled upon their desserts like Mango Gelato, which was great also! Plus one of them had Tiramisu Cake, and probably some fruity coolers if I’m not mistaken, I just tucked in to my appetizers. The Italian name over my dish sure made it cool enough before even eating it and that would be the Insalata di Frutti di Mare. The Fruits of the Ocean in a salad form. Frutti di Mare is a common term in Italian for seafood. The big shrimps that went with mussels and oysters plus the green veggies with the red and green of the bell peppers, not to mention the watery cherry tomato soaked in olive oil and most likely the Italian dressing made it perfect. Of course I tucked in greedily. Hahaha..

Not long after that, the star of the show came, Homemade Spinach with Ricotta Ravioli with tomato, butter, and sage sauce! Though the name was quite spectacular, but I didn’t approve with the taste. It’s more like gyoza with rarely placed spinach. The sauce was extraordinary however, but I was quite disappointed with the composition of the main dish. Sorry Monsignor Massagli, but this one’s a bit… lame. The good thing was, I can add more olive oil. I’m always a fan of OO, like Rachael Ray says.

Well, my colleagues were all disappeared at this point since it’s already past the lunch break hour, but I managed to texted my boss telling him that I’m gonna be late. Now that the formalities done, I can now have my dessert at ease. It’s a Sabayon Parfait with orange sauce. It’s a quite weird parfait for me. The vision about parfait for me was like in Japanese manga where you can see the characters having this tower full of ice creams alongside plenty of melted chocolates, bananas, cherries, and any of those ice cream condiments. Truly, this Sabayon parfait was like an ice cream, but it didn’t feel like one. It’s a defrosted ice cream, feels gelatinous, which is okay because gelato works nicely in ice cream but it has this somewhat bitter taste like you can find in oranges. Also the orange taste didn’t fit well in the ice cream though the sauce was okay actually.

As the real finisher, I was offered the coffee! I can actually pick anything that I like, be it Espresso, Cappuccino, Latte, or anything. I picked the Cappuccino instead, the much safer one. Normally I’d pick Latte but since I had one earlier, well.. actually just a few days before, might as well pick another one. Turned out that the cappuccino thing was the right choice, it was quite nice in fact. I had this quite wonderful lunch, probably if I got accompanied by more friends to discuss and share the taste of the food, that would be lovelier. But the thing was, the reason why I had picked the package menu because I wanted to know the whole thing about the food starting from the appetizers up until the desserts. For me, it was quite okay because I can still see some flaws here and there, but then again, you might not see it if you order ala carte menu since the Salmon Steak was great! You see, in my case, it’s actually the main dish and the dessert. They can actually make it more ‘proportional’, not just a bland ravioli with the God only knows whether the chef put the spinach or not in it. Plus the parfait would’ve been better actually. They just need to work on the bitterness there. As for the insalata, terrific! I’d suggest that you might want to try the Sunday Brunch for everything you wish to know about Italian food. Perhaps that would be the best time to test the whole real thing and in this case, it’s the time when Chef Antonio Massagli show his might and magic in his dishes.

The Judgment (based on scale of 10 score plus the comments):

1. PRICE (5/10)

What can you expect from an Italian bistro with an imported chef. It’s expensive! But then again it has to be this way though in some dishes, it’s just not worth it.

2. INTERIOR (7/10)

Mysterious. I like the dark scene. It gives the elegant atmosphere, especially with all the jazzy stuff. Perfect for personal events, perhaps a bit scandal will do here. ^^

3. SERVICE (8/10)

Responsive, helpful, knowledgeable, and friendly. What more can you ask here? Well, you still gotta pay the service taxes. *_*

4. TASTE (7/10)

You gotta prove it in Sunday Brunch, Chef Antonio. I’ll come again. That’s the proving time for that.

5. OVERALL (6.75/10)

Additional Information:

Location : Hotel InterContinental-MidPlaza Jakarta