Might as well get that out of the way up front right? Oh yes it is there. It is not on the menu, but you can still ask for it and it shall be yours. The legendary filet with mac 'n' cheese at Jiko.
But let's start at the beginning shall we? So I roll up to Jiko for my solo dinner ADR. I have to wait a bit to get seated so I'm standing awkwardly in the entrance people-watching and whatnot. Finally I am offered a seat at the chef's counter which is fine with me because, while I am a huge fan of solo travel, I am still a bit uncomfortable with solo dining and the counter provides me with a chance to interact with and watch the cooks preparing the meals.
My waiter arrives and takes my drink order. I chat with the chefs at the counter who are very friendly and entertaining. They confirm my suspicions that if I ask "really nicely", I can still get the filet with mac n cheese even though it's not on the menu. They said since they still use the mac n cheese in other dishes, it's easy for them to swap out.
Then my waiter returns and provides me with two kinds of bread (honey something and herbed something else) and a curry-flavored butter. I was NOT a fan of the curry flavor in the butter. This did not stop me from eating it though, because, well, BUTTER. Duh.
Since I clearly wasn't getting enough carbs, I went with the Taste of Africa (African-inspired dips with pappadam, whole wheat lavosh and house-made naan) as my appetizer.
The dips, I can't really remember exactly what each was, but I believe upper right corner was hummus, lower right was something spicy and flavorful, lower left was my least favorite, and upper left was something less spicy (maybe eggplant based?). Anyways, it was still delicious - I enjoyed it!
The puffy bread in the front was my favorite - chewy and oniony or something! YUMMMMM. The bread in the way back is like a super thin cracker and the bread in the middle kind of reminded me of a high-quality whole wheat tortilla.
And then, of course, this:
Honestly? I wasn't impressed. Maybe people oversell it. Maybe it is loved more as a concept (beef + mac n cheese) then as the actual taste. It wasn't bad by any means. In fact, it was pretty good! But I wasn't as blown away as I expected to be based on all the press this entree gets.
Again, no room for dessert but who cares! I had to rush back anyway to call in to the Be Our Guest Podcast Live Show lol :)
I had the filet in January - with whatever it comes with on the menu because I didn't think about asking for the mac n cheese.. and while I thought that the filet was perfectly cooked, the spices just didn't do it for me! I think I ordered it b/c everyone says it was awesome instead of ordering what actually sounded good. whoops! Sounds like a fun experience!
ReplyDeleteYes, I like to check things off my "to do" list and this was one of them. I don't regret having it. I was just expecting it to knock my socks off and it didn't.
DeleteI think people love the concept of it (meat + pasta + cheese). I think it could be executed better.