Review of Metisse Lounge & Restaurant

Sunday,10.20 P.M

Hey Beautiful people.

If you are familiar with the Lagos scene, you definitely know where Metisse  is but you probably had no idea it was there. Its neatly tucked on the second floor of  AIM Plaza on Etim Inyang crescent, It is sandwiched between Chocolat Royal and Cafe Royal.It is a bit tricky finding the entrance, my advice is to ask the waiters on the first floor.

Metisse is a  Pan-Asian casual dinning  restaurant  serving  Thai cuisine, the first impact here is the ambience of the dinning room. It is not very sizable  but the space has been well managed and nicely put together. I cant categorically say there’s a theme to the decor because you have an undersea theme for the floor, nice  abstract African motifs on the walls , some sort of  glass work  at the bar, in one  corner was a piano auto-playing nice lounge music.

We were shown to  our seats by an uninterested looking waiter…hmmnnn, should I be worried?  He handed  the menus (food, drinks and desserts) yup  they had a separate desserts menu. Whilst they did not have so many drinks on offer, their cocktail list looked quite interesting, i hoped it tasted just as nice as it sounded….these restaurants just have  a way with cocktails and mocktails. We settled for  “touch of the sun” and   “Thai basil mojito”. I noticed the waiter did not write down the order but I did not want to make a fuss….Truthfully, I was not expecting much  from the cocktails. It came after about 20 minutes…that is long in my books considering the fact that there were just 4 other diners when we got there. It looked quite nice, and yes it tasted even nicer than it looked!  I took a sip of  foodie mate’s “touch of the sun” and that did not disappoint too.  Halleluayahh!!!, a restaurant that had nice cocktails.  Ace one!

To the main meal, the food was quite interesting and extensive too. We ordered four  dishes…  the chicken tikka salad, the Nyonya seared salmon, Singapore chilli prawns with white rice  and the  coconut tumeric rice. I hoped this wont take as long as the drinks.  yet again, the waiter did nor write this order down..the guy’s brain must have been supercharged… oh well. I had a strong feeling he was going to bring the wrong entree…..time will tell.

After about 20 minutes, the  chicken tikka salad  came, it looked nice and well presented. The salad was tikka marinated chicken served on a bed of lettuce  with shaved carrots and cucumber & delicious roasted pineapple (I never knew pineapple could be roasted – it added the pop factor to the salad).  It was served with pineapple vinaigrette and mint ratta. It was AMAZING.  Ace two!

Next came the Nyonya  seared salmon and the Singapore chilli prawns. We started with the salmon, I took a bite and I almost started dancing. It was all shades of delicious. I ABSOLUTELY  loved it, it was perfectly grilled salmon served with chilli sauce, green peas and the juiciest grilled tomatoes ever, garnished with coriander leaves…. I think.  Ace three!!!   At this point, I had to ask for the chef but unfortunately he had gone on break. The turmeric rice brought me back to planet earth, it failed to impress. It reduced the flavour value of this entree.

We moved on to the Singapore chilli prawns…..it looked divine as well ,after a little bit, I realized the waiter had either  brought us the wrong entree or the menu did not describe  the entree properly. I just knew it!  We had gone about half way so there was no point complaining about it. On hindsight, I should have mentioned it. I figure that I am  a little biased here because I am not a fan of most breaded foods. I am a firm believer of not overpowering the taste of seafood in anyway…this was a little too breaded for me. The sweet chilli tomato sauce that came with it was very nice though.

The dessert menu was a bit sparse but I still wanted my dessert so I ordered the spicy ginger cake….it came served with caramelized pear and cinnamon ice cream…..the cinnamon ice cream was a first for me. I loved the ice cream. I however had issues with spicy ginger cake, it was somewhat rubbery, I believed this was as a result of over heating in the microwave because it was almost scalding hot when I cut through it. The caramelized pear seemed bland to me.I did not fancy it all, so I called the waiter to lay my complaints…..he apologized and promptly took it away. He asked If  I would like a replacement , of course  I said yes. I opted for the chocolate molten lava cake;  a chocolate lover would be in paradise  with this…..for me it was too chocolatey  and the  caramel had a bitter aftertaste . The vanilla ice cream was nice.

We paid  about N18, 500 (120 USD) for one salad, two entrees, one side (turmeric rice),  two cocktails and one dessert. What is your take on this please? I am of the opinion that it is not cheap.

I  would like that as a patron of a restaurant, after my meal, someone will come round and ask how I have enjoyed it….if I did.  I felt the waiter kept trying to rush me to place my order and he kept interrupting our conversation.

Would I go back there? YES.

MY SCORE CARD

Layout/Ambience/ Aesthetics- 8

Quality of food- 8 ( that spicy ginger cake comes to the fore)

Customer service: 6

Value for money: 7

Metisse Lounge & Restaurant

267A, Etim Inyang  Crescent

Victoria Island.

01-2714155-58.

ON A QUEST FOR A PERFECT MEAL-PATTAYA ORIENTAL RESTAURANT VICTORIA ISLAND

Thursday 12.09p.m

Hello  foodies,

We stride on with our quest for a perfect meal. There has been so much buzz about this oriental  restaurant that I deemed it worthy to make this list. It was my other half’s birthday and we decided to go somewhere we had not been before, we decided on Pattaya Oriental. I was quite happy it was not overly packed because it gave me an opportunity to survey properly, (the owner will probably curse me for this). hahaha.  The waiter gave us the option to chose our seats and we opted for window seats in a quiet corner. Unfortunately  for us, this was to be a blunder. For a place with so much hype, this part of the room was TACKY! It was a major eyesore. The problem here was that this side of the dinning room was covered in wall paper, the wall paper had peeled off and it had some sort mold growing on it. How the management could have missed this beats me to cloud 100.  They also had some dead plants in broken flower pots which had obviously been neglected. It was so repulsive we had to move to another table in a different part of the restaurant .The  unbelievable part of this was that the waiter did not understand why we  needed to change tables even after we showed him the mold.  I sure hope this waiter did not clean the back of his throat in my food or drink because i was being a “troublesome customer”……….best left imagined  or  maybe not.

The sitting area we moved to was much better.The waiter then came with the menu and some not so nice looking tortilla chips/ nachos look alike chips with sweet and sour dip. I asked him for the name but he did not know ……so me too i dont know oh, i decided to name it what I thought it was- Nachos!.We placed our order for our meals. Ermm, call me Miss fault finder but  the menu  was not easy on  the eye either, the pages inside were coming off already isoorraaai. I’m here already, i’ll make the best out of it.

Whilst waiting for our drinks to come, I took a piece of the nachos and my oh my!! it was DELICIOUS. the sweet and sour dip was great, the combination was fabulous.(All these adjectives to describe nachos? okido. Hmnn, it seemed things were taking a different  turn. We wolfed it down in no time and almost pulled an  oliver twist move but then I remembered  that we might not be in their good books because we asked to change tables ……you never know these days. On to the main meal, At this point I’m salivating and looking forward to the main meal, was this the work of the tortilla chips? Oh dear, this chic is about to get hooked. does anyone know the nutritional value and calories contained in these chips?Help a sister out please.I’m not a fan of ordering fish in restaurants because  I don’t know how thorough a job they do with the cleaning. Well Mr other half decided he wanted to do fish  so we ordered it with some noodles and  house special fried rice. when the food  came, it looked nice, one bite from the fish andI loved it, it was just to my liking…not too spicy. (even though when we ordered the fish no one asked how spicy we wanted  it to be). I quite liked the fried rice, I did not fancy the noodles because it was too oily for me, perhaps it was meant to be that way, but in fairness, all three of them combined together was quite nice.

After the plates were cleared, another waiter brought us carved pineapple, I was taken a little bit aback because we did not ask for it, he then told us it was on the house, it was  free! but then its Lagos too, the land where free is mostly evil. It was a great way to finish off a slightly spicy meal.

Overall the food  put together was quite nice.The portions were not particularly generous.

If any of you lovely people here know the people in charge, please advise them that they URGENTLY need to pay more attention to the  dinning rooms.And the waiters also need to be more in tune with the diners request(s). Did I have  an issue with pricing?  somewhat because the portion were not great. but as I always say expensive /cheap is relative……na pocket size na  im go determine. Would I go back  there? ……..Possibly

MY SCORE CARD

Layout/Ambience/ Aesthetics-4  ( I know I am being stingy here but the wall paper, dead plant and broken pot in a dinning room were an absolute no no)

Quality of food-8

Customer Service-5

Value for money-7