Mezza9

Hello!

I've been slightly under the weather the past couple of days but I'm feeling much better today - no more body aches and no more incessant-sneezing so I can sit at my desk for a longer period to read emails and other material. Anyhow, I hope the week has been good for you so far (:

Since my school's staff dinner is going to be held at a hotel tomorrow, I decided to blog about my experience at one of the renowned hotel restaurants - Mezza9 at Grand Hyatt - that I had a few weeks ago!
Prior to my visit, I've never been to Mezza9 nor any other restaurant at the Grand Hyatt but Jeffrey had had dinner at Mezza9 with his colleagues before and he only had praises to sing about the food and ambience there, so I was pretty geared up to try their food!

Upon arrival, we were asked if we wanted to have some garlic bread ($6) while we flipped through their menu. The garlic bread on this plate looked slightly different from the usual garlic bread so we agreed to have some. Turns out that the garlic bread was doused with some curry flavouring, which explains the slightly brownish colour of the surface of the garlic bread. It was definitely something new and I thought that the curry flavour light and not too overwhelming - it was a nice pre-appetizer to have.

After looking through the menu, we decided to go for two two-course set meals ($29/ two course set meal) as we (or rather I) wanted to end off the meal with the highly recommended Mezza9 dessert platter! If we had chosen the three-course set meal, we wouldn't be able to change our dessert, hence we chose the former option.

For appetisers, we chose to have a plate of crispy spring rolls, which didn't really look like spring rolls and tasted pretty average

as well as green asparagus- tomato salad, red onions, spring onion, lemon dressing. We chose this particular vegetable dish over the usual caesar salad because we wanted to try something different and this proved to be a great choice! I love the zingy taste of the lemon dressing, which complemented the fresh vegetables superbly well! =) I'm not a fan of tomatoes but these baby tomatoes were sweeter than usual and they were a delight to eat!

For our first main courses, we chose to have assorted sushi rolls, which on hindsight, isn't the best choice because the sushi weren't good! I think we should have chosen two interesting sounding/ fusion-looking type of dishes, especially since Mezza9 is famous for their fusion food.

Thankfully, the second main course - rotisserie chicken, mixed vegetables, mashed potatoes - was much better! Jeffrey loved the well-marinated chicken and I adored their mashed potato! The green vegetables were also very sauteed! This dish was a winner for both of us.

Finally, we were served the famous Mezza9 dessert plate ($36) which consists of (from left to right), a lemon-custart tart, cherries soaked in some kind of alcohol, chocolate fondant cake, 3 scoops of icecream (pistachio, vanilla and sorbet). I literally squealed in glee when I saw this boat of a dessert platter because I'd not expect such well-thought out combination of items to thrill and delight my tastebuds. Because they each have a different taste, I don't think there's a 'best' amongst them - it really depends on what you like!

In short, Mezza9 lived up to my expectations of serving fine and exquisite fusion food at relatively affordable prices (only because we went during lunch time!). Service provided is top-notch and the ambience is relaxed and lovely. I wouldn't mind going back to try their dinner menu but I think we'll probably only do that if we're feeling particularly rich/ indulgent.

Okay that's all for now (: Have a good weekend ahead!