"Why?" You might ask and there's no complicated answer. It's simple. Japengo is one of the few great restaurants around that one can rely on to deliver a promise of variety, value for money and surprisingly... yummy-liciousness. Very rare would you find those three combo in one place. Very rare would I have a sentence that has all those three together if I say so myself.
Japengo is a place where if you venture out to a new resto and it miserably failed, you'll say, "I wish we went to Japengo instead". Lucky for us, we live just next to a mall that has Japengo in it. We can dine in or order in, either way, we know what we love from Japengo and it's almost everything in their menu.
I ordered Insalata Caprese, just because I love caprese in general. I always say that this salad is hard to screw up. Japengo, however, elevated it to the next level. It's not just a salad for me, it's a main course. There is no star of the dish because each component competes for the limelight. The thick yet creamy bufallo mozarella, firm slices of tomato, rocca leaves, pesto and balsamic vinegar reduction. It's freshness to perfection.
The photo doesn't capture how bright my plate looked like. Sadly we didn't have a camera and we had to make do with the mobile camera. Just imagine Italia... it's the brightest green and the brightest red in contrast to the white mozarella stained by the pesto and balsamic vinegar.... what a delicious painting... I tell you.
Salad, it's not easy to fail... but the way Japengo interpreted this dish is just a wowzer. Amazing marriage of flavours.
It's a delicate little bugger. You can't serve it raw, it'll be eeeew and you can't serve it overdone... it'll be chewy. Japengo does it just perfectly cooked!
My sister and dad ordered grilled scallops and I know I shouldn't fret,,, I have not just one but two plates I can dig into when I finish my caprese. And so I did! It's a balance between the tender scallops and crunchy vegetables married by the drizzled butter sauce. It's that kind of dish you want to just greedily put all in your mouth but you know that you only have very few pieces of star component and so you have to just savor each bite. It's divine!
I replicated this dish from time to time at home and yes I cheat... I use the packet Japanse curry mixture... I does taste good but still not as yum as Japengo's ... I'm getting there though... practice makes perfect :)
It's served with baby potatoes, grilled vegetables and tomato salsa.