Sunday 15 March 2009

Bella Vista: Candle Light Dinner

While we often go to Bella Vista for a drink or for lunch I am not sure we would have booked a Candle Light dinner there. We received vouchers to this event as a gift and of course, were eager to try it. We were treated to a four course meal from a set menu and were not let down where the candle light was concerned. Very romantic. These are held in the evening once a month or perhaps even more randomly than that (check the website for dates). I will focus on the third and main course as I think it had all the components to sum up the entire evening. The Filet de boeuf Tuna Kartoffelterrine and Shii-Take. This is how this dish was described on the menu. I am not sure if this was an attempt at being different, or maybe this is the way things are done now - describing one dish using every language under the sun. Fashionable or not, I found it a little confusing. What on earth were we supposed to expect?
Well, above is what we got. All the described components were on the plate. Personally, while the beef was tasty and cooked to pink perfection, the sashimi style tuna with ginger, carrot, bean sprouts and soya sauce are all flavours I love and don't get enough of here, I could have eaten a plate of just that. Yes, you are seeing right, for some reason the tuna was topped with a wasabi coated peanut. OK, yes, they are Japanese too, but flavour wise this was a pretty unnecessary addition. It had nothing to do with the rest of the dish, except may be for adding a little colour. Is this something else I have missed? Is purely decorative garnish (think sprigs of parsley) making a comeback? It may be, because the beef was not immune to this treatment. It was topped with a long ribbon of what tasted like deep fried spring roll pastry. Again, purely an aesthetic addition. Nothing to do with the dish and unlike the wasabi peanut, it didn't really taste very good. These oddities aside the dishes, while small (we were grateful for the bread basket on our table, the gracious wait staff kept it full for us), were well presented and flavoursome. Would I go again? I don't know, at €40 per person not including wine and considering the serving sizes, it is pretty pricey by Ulm standards. Lunch is easier on the wallet and you get the spectacular daytime view.

3 comments:

  1. And here I was thinking it were a green olive on top, could have been worse right?! Yeah, maybe a bit too much happening there, I mean a chunk of tuna and a chunk of boef? What is the beef sitting on and is that a small bit of tomato on the side of it's 'platform'?

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  2. Tried to be all down with the lingo, up with the language, down with the homeboys and stuffed it. I meant Beouf!

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  3. Well you get my point about confusing! The beef is sitting on the potato 'terrine' and the tomato looking things are the Shii-Take mushrooms.

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