Anniversary Dinner at Favola

The nice welcoming ambiance. Nice seats, dimmed romantic lighting. Expecting a nice meal.Puan Anita and I celebrated our 14th wedding Anniversary last evening. Being Ramadhan, we planned for an Iftar in town, but since it was Saturday, most of places were already fully booked. I wanted to go to Latest Recipe in Le Meridien, but the only seats we could get were by the lift. Not exactly romantic.

As an alternative, I booked a table at Favola, the place where I had a superb lunch a couple of weeks ago. It was a true Italian affair, with nice motifs and decorations. The seats and ambiance were very welcoming, and we had our seat overlooking the kitchen, and was able to see how the food were prepared. The lighting were suitably dimmed, and the waitresses were kind and attentive. We arrived early, and made our orders for the food for Iftar. We then took a stroll around the hotel lobby.

The place promised much, but unfortunately for the evening, it did not deliver. We were left disappointed. The entre and pizza were delicious, but unfortunately, the same could not be said about the main dishes. This was a similar complaint I had when I had the lunch there previously. The antipasta was superb, but not the mains.

For starters, I has grilled peach with buffalo mozzarella and rocket salad. Anita had some seafood salad - calimari and clams basically, all served with Italian bread. The bread and the salad were excellent.

My buffalo mozzerella and rocket salad. Definitely something to order again should I return.Now you see it ...... now you don'tNext came the pizza. It was not bad. But the wood-fired pizza at Alexis Ampang - my children favorite - was much better. And this was the chef's specialty pizza - called Favola.

Then came the disappointing main dishes. Anita ordered spaghetti marinara. It was on the dry side to start with, and despite adding tobacco Tabasco (thanks Jools!) and sliced parmesan, she still did not finish her meal. The pasta tasted bland, and was overpowered by the overspiced thick marinara sauce. I suspected that there too much olive oil as well. By the end of the meal, when the pasta cooled down, it started to absorb the oil and became soggy. Thumbs down unfortunately.

Anita's main dish, the marinara. The least we say about it, the better.The top layer was crisp. Blowtorch may be?If you think that the pasta was bad, I ordered another chef's recommendation in a lasagna for my main meal. It was well overcooked, and the top crust layer was more or less as crisp as a piece of wood. It was burned, while the minced meat at the bottom still tasted rare! A basic culinary mistake I must say, and one I did not expect from such a prestigious outlet! The top burnt layer tasted bitter and …… burnt, while the oily bottom layer tasted like ….. olive oil. You can see the herbs still separated from the minced meat, as if they were added in as an afterthought. Did they use a blowtorch to burn the top layer?

To cap things off, my mango juice smelt as if they were fresh ….. out from a box. We did not bother to order dessert or coffee. We would rather head home and see what our boys were up to.

The meal experience could have been much better .... if the meal was as good as the ambiance.The main lobby at Le Meridien. Nice and compact.Well, Favola may be a nice place to have afternoon tea and salad, but that was just about it. The main meals were disappointing, despite me picking up the chef's specialties. The ambiance was nice and the waitresses were competent and attentive, but this did not make up for the disappointment in terms of the overall gastronomic experience. We were expecting better.

Favola was located on the 8th floor of Le Meridien, on the level of the swimming pool and the Grand Salon. The official Le Meridien website featured the restaurant here. Remember to show your FourSquare check-in to claim your 10% discount! Sorry about the quality of the snaps since the lights were dim, too dim for my iPhone.