Okay, here is another post for Thai cuisine. However, there is a twist in it.

The restaurant I visited after Jittlada, is Otterhound, which is a modern restaurant with a twist of Thai-Italian touch. For example, Spicy Spaghetti Thai Style. Mixing both elements sound really good for me. At one point, it offers a new sensation in satisfying food lovers’ appetite. So, let’s see whether they were successful enough in satisfying my appetite.

____

Once I looked at the menu, I almost had a sure feeling that this restaurant has something related to Jittlada. And I might be right somehow.

Same reason I went to Jittlada, I also redeemed a voucher of 2 main courses and 1 appetizer here. Choices were limited and we were given a short list of menu we could choose. This time, I went with my significant other, and we quickly decided to have a taste of the Pad Thai with Fresh Shrimps and a portion of Minced Beef with Sweet Basil and Hot Chilies. For the starter, we picked the famous “Fresh Vietnamese Spring Rolls”. Thai Iced Tea is a must too, so we had that to clench our thirst.

The afternoon was quite hot outside, and not many people were here in LOTTE Shopping Avenue Jakarta. In Otterhound, there were several groups of people, thus I said that they were quite successful in attracting visitors. Maybe it’s because of the modern cozy ambiance. It has a modern fine dining feel inside, and the ornaments are just placed at the right corners in the room. The walls have some sort of graffiti, which appears very attractive. I couldn’t help but thinking that the interior designer for this place must be really good!

Food-wise, let’s check it out here below.

Thai Iced Tea 

Very disappointing. I thought the signature thai beverage would be delightful, but on the contrary it looked and tasted boring, almost tasteless, unlike real thai iced tea which is supposed to have the strange intriguing taste in every sip.

Pad Thai with Fresh Shrimps (50k)

Instead of serving an appetiser for the start, they served us our main courses. Pad Thai came first on our table. At a glance, it looked lovely, but after a careful look, the plating was bad. There were drops of random water on the side of the plate. I couldn’t help but wonder if the drops of water were clean or dirty. I took a sheet of napkins and cleaned it myself. Honestly, bad plating kind of dropped my appetite a little.

The taste of the pad thai was not bad, but the rice noodle was overcooked, thus, it was soggy. The shrimps, however, were very fresh and tasted good.

Minced Beef with Sweet Basil and Hot Chilies (80k)

After reading carefully the description on the menu book, I decided to pick this menu. But it turned out to be a very simple dish on my table, with another bad plating. The steamed rice was messy and lumpy, with minced beef besides it and an almost-too-well-cooked sunny side up on top. There is nothing extraordinary about this dish, and somehow it made me regret in ordering this dish. It was too simple, just like a common home-cooked food in a lunch box that you brought to school when you were kids. The  minced beef was pretty good, but the steamed rice was just bad, lumpy, bad, messy. The egg didn’t do any good there at all.

There was a bowl of mushroom clear soup with lots of garlic as the companion. The soup was pretty good actually, but the thick layer of oil on top was really distracting.

Fresh Vietnamese Spring Rolls (50k)

The starter came last. I wondered why. But it doesn’t matter, at least the Spring Rolls tasted good! The outer layer of the spring rolls was great. The inside, consisted of fresh vegetable, steamed chicken and fresh prawns, was just so good, so fresh. It tasted even better with the thai sauce as the dipping. I’m glad this came last somehow.

My experience here is certainly not a very positive one. The main courses failed to amuse us, and the plating was not as expected for a restaurant like this. As an open suggestion, never serve appetizers last, because they are supposed to be the starter of every meal.

I seriously just hope that a restaurant like this should pay more attention to those little details. The service, however, was good. Nothing to complain about. =)

So, will I come back here for another lunch? Perhaps not. But that shouldn’t keep you away from trying as people will certainly have different experience in every visit and undoubtedly, a different preference.

See ya, foodventurers!

Otterhound
Ground Floor, LOTTE Shopping Avenue Jakarta