Bali: Mozaic Restaurant

After eating $2 and $3 meals during our time in Jogja, when in Ubud, we decided, in true Tom and Donna style, to treat ourselves.  Three words for you:  Treat. yo. self.

On Dipali's recommendation, we splurged on a fancy meal at Ubud's famed Mozaic restaurant: a delicious 6-course (which was really more like 8 or 9 courses by the end if you count amuse bouche and petit fours...) degustation menu that featured local ingredients cooked using Western techniques, with a wine pairing for each course. Tasty.

Please excuse the terrible photos.  Super low lighting in Mozaic's courtyard, which was certainly lovely and romantic, meant we had two options: flashless, dark and blurry or flashy, bright and washed out.  But you get the gist...

First, drinks in the lounge:

 

Gin fizz, something lemongrass-y and a ginger/lemon/Curacao delight:

Amuse bouche: this isn't listed on the menu, so I am having trouble recalling the exact ingredients, but I think it was essentially a scallop and mangosteen (manggis) ceviche, served up in the cute mangosteen shell:

Before the meal started, the server brought out this display and explained each of the local ingredients to be highlighted in the evening's preparation.  From left to right: 

1) ginger flower (bunga kecicang)

2)  turmeric root and fresh coconut (kunyit and kelapa)

3) tamarind (buah asam or asam jawa)

4) kluwek 

5) Calamansi lime (jeruk kalimansi)

6)  tree sorrel/star fruit (belimbing wuluh)

Course 1: Charred grilled tiger prawn, pink grapefruit infused with fresh ginger flower

Course 2: Tasmanian salmon cooked in fresh coconut oil, turmeric risotto, caramelized cauliflower and smoked milk emulsion

Course 3: Baked quail and foie gras pastilla with Balinese rujak sauce and apricot chutney

 

Course 4: Wagyu beef sirloin with Balinese long pepper, oxtail, porcini mushroom, young carrot and a kluwek nut broth

Course 5: Frozen kalamansi lime sorbet, black rice cooked in pandan leaf and lemon pepper tuile

Course 6: Valrhona 'Guanaja' chocolate fondant, fresh star fruit sorbet and spiced young star fruit in a coriander seed caramel

Petits Fours

 

After thoroughly enjoying the wine pairings (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean), Meghan decided that she simply must have photos of a) the empty petit four spoons, b) the napkin and c) her blinged out purse holder. And photograph them she did: