the apartment, curve

July 25, 2007 at 12:08 am · Filed under Eating Out, Food

we were browsing the curve last week and found this interesting concept restaurant in the midst of training its staff. as it was only to open this week, we decided we’ll wait to check it out as soon as it opens. ah, mistake on our part indeed as the staff clearly hasn’t ironed out its opening kinks. service was frankly horrible. as most of them were foreigners, we could hardly understand the waiter nor he us. some of the waiting staff pretended not to see us when we tried hailing them. still curiosity got the better of us and the other patrons.

the concept is delightful. as it goes by the name of “the apartment”, the interior deco clearly tries to implement the homey and cosy ambience into this restaurant. there’s an outside “patio”, the living room, kitchen, bathrooms, bar area, lounge, a reading nook and even an upstairs, complete with wardrobe! it’s kooky and delightful at the same time! even the menu is rather unique, using a clipboard with illustrated graph paper. the only flaw is that the pages don’t stay up! lol.

i wanted to start off with the “my aparment soup” but all soups were not available this time. decided to skip the tapas or the clams/mussels bowl as my colleagues didn’t seem keen. They all jumped into the mains as we were famished by then.

The first dish to come was the “Mediterranean Braised Squids” (RM16.80) which was squid stuffed with herbed breadcrumbs and dampened with lively tomato sauce. It was quite lovely though one colleague commented that the breadcrumbs had too strong a herb taste. but I totally loved the herbi-ness of it. reminded me of turkey stuffing, somehow. lol. The second dish was the “English Lamb Curry” (RM22.90) served with warm ciabatta bread fingers. The hearty meal of lamb curry with aubergines was rather good. And every bread finger was dipped into the bowl to clean it of its curry gravy.

The most disappointing dish of the night was probably the “Fish wrapped in Banana Leaf” (RM21.90). Cooked ala otak-otak style, the lemon sole is cooked in a rich coconut milk base with slivers of ginger, chilli etc. However the fish pieces in the middle didn’t cook well enough. I suppose the use of the banana leaf was to seal in the flavours and despite the fish smelling rather delicious when the leaves were opened up, it didn’t live up to its first impression. My colleague complained that it tasted rather bland and she kept adding salt and pepper. My choice was the “Roast Duck with Plum Sauce” (RM23.90) and it’s description said “roasted duck drenched in scrumptious plum sauce served with tossed french beans”. Drenched? there was barely enough plum sauce to go around. But then, the plum sauce wasn’t really the plum sauce I’m expecting. Instead it tasted as it was mixed with some other berries, almost akin to Ikea’s Lingonberry Sauce. But the duck meat was tender and easy to tear away from the bone and had a very subtle smoky taste to it. Mustard is drizzled onto the french beans which gives it an extra oomph. Quite delectable actually.

Ended the night with coffee, mocha latte (RM8.90) actually and cuppacakes (RM4 each). The rest had iced water which was served in a flourish. the waiter put the cups in a carrier thing and brought that over. a single lemon slice and mint leaf floated about in the water and I guess that’s why that glass cost RM0.50. Lol. The cuppacakes were from wondermilk and i loved the frosting! couldn’t taste much of the cupcake itself as these were shared between the 4 of us!

well despite the food being quite pleasing to my palette, i think i will make a return visit when the staff are more settled and well-trained. hope your visit there will be more pleasant than mine in terms of service!

the apartment (www)
Lot 72, 73 & 74, 152 Ground Floor,
Western Courtyard,
The Curve,
Mutiara Damansara.
Tel: 03- 7727 8330

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