We were looking forward to a date night, as our teenage daughter had backed out of joining us. Sadly, the experience was such a farce and the food so underwhelming, I actually texted back to our daughter I wish I were back home eating the...storm she had cooked up and sent us a photo of.
On entering you are asked if it is a special celebration (vs occasion). I was a bit baffled as we were just coming for dinner, so I told the lady we are celebrating life as every day. If it ‘were’ a special occasion, would I not have told them when I booked or subtly during dinner? What if it is a surprise for someone? Honestly, strangest, off-putting question when just entering a restaurant.
I think Mozaic must have wine list, as there is a paired wine tasting. We were never given one. It does not feature in the iPad drink menu they give you either – which in turn they do not tell you need to scroll sideways for more options. Would have loved to order a bottle of our favourite tipple. The restaurant has huge, out of proportion water glasses (the Riedel non stem red wine glasses), not only are they happy to fill them almost to the brime, but even tell you when they empty an entire bottle into 2 glasses, ‘that’s one bottle’ showing it to you like a rare bottle – obviously it was. Apart from this glass being hard to handle, if you order sparkling water that means it loses the sparkle half way through and is not cold anymore after a while – it is Summer in Indonesia and this is outdoor seating (some ice from my vodka tonics helped). Subsequently when they brought the second bottle I asked them to only fille the glass 1/3 full – the right amount considering the glass size and outdoor seating. It was not easy to get the remaining sparkling water being asked if we would take non-sparkling instead when the wrong bottle was brought.
After a fly invasion, we moved tables, sadly only our drinks showed up (a fresh bottle of water was given to us with great rare bottle fanfare – including an extra mention on leaving ‘you only had to pay for one bottle of water!’, we never asked for a new bottle…, what is it with water bottles in this place?). We did ask for a Napkin – they fetched our old ones we had been cleaning away flies with versus a fresh one – but we never got back our bread & butter (nor served new bread), our menu (so we had no clue what was coming next), nor anything else at our previous table.
Almost forgetting about the food in this review, but mainly because there it was so uninspiring. Apart from the Amuse Bouche, one which only I had due to my mushroom allergy that eloquently popped in my mouth, the Yuzu Cornetto and the Egg, and only one of the 3 petit four desserts, dinner was an utter disappointment. We found the dinner bland, in Germany they say the cook is in love if the dinner is too salty, the cook at Mozaic must have just broken up.
I usually like to have my drink for the evening just refilled but after waiting more than a course for my refill I had order versus being asked, I decided to visit the bar to see where it was. There was nobody behind the bar, bear the waitress forgetting my order, this may have been the reason I did not get a drink for 20 minutes?
Not having the menu after our move, we were at bit lost at what was coming next (we did get a menu back before the Petit Fours after the 3rd time asking – and why are the menus that will feature for a while printed on a inkjet printer so the colour runs if any condense water from a glass comes on it?). I specifically mentioned to the manager when asked my mushroom allergy was related to the spores in mushrooms and that I can eat – actually love – truffles. This is a feature ingredient of the main course on their current menu and only when they were serving other tables, we realized we were not given any truffle shavings with it. It was one of the reasons I chose to have dinner there, just being disappointed that it was only a touch of truffle in the sauce on the plate.
On the dishes that did have mushrooms I did not get a replacement for the items with mushrooms but they were just left out. Not even a bit of extra of the non-mushroom parts...
Overall the food was presented nicely – old school plating – but just bland. Why would you pair Foie Gras with onions (I assume they were supposed to be sweetened caramelized but ours were not, just strong onion flavour), who’s taste totally overpowers the Foie Gras taste. We were at least assured the chocolate fondant would blow us away. It did not, neither did the accompanying clove ice cream and candied fruit, which certainly does not match a dark chocolate fondant.
The waiting staff seemed very confused and there was a lot of time lost and back and forth as 80% of the time they started walking to tables with dishes, then backing off, then heading back to the restaurant managers desk to double check where to bring the food. Quite interesting when you think your food is finally – the dinner took too long, we were there 3.5 hours expecting max 2.5hours – at your table after you have seen the dish travel around the dining room 1-2x already. This was not just the case with us because we moved tables, but is part of the entertainment I guess, because it happened at all tables.
The entire staff makes you feel like to are unknowledgeable in food and fine dining and it is a privilege for you to be there, not for them to have you as a customer. It may be because they are just so proud of what they learnt and reel down as thought? Nevertheless it comes across as if they are the protagonists and you are just supporting acts in this farce.
We did get 2 drinks deducted – without asking – from our bill (2 different ones mind you) and this was specifically pointed out more than 2 times plus the illustrious bottle of water. It was a nice gesture, but I am sure the restaurant saved more than that on not giving us any truffles with our main course. My wife would have been happy to take the shavings home for breakfast this morning.
Maybe, fine dining in a outdoor setting during Indonesian summers is just not such a great idea. Find out where these flies come from and get the right plants or other measures to get rid of them considering it is a known problem to the management. Or look no further than R4D down the road, they at least have the main dining room enclosed and airconditioned.
Staying in Ubud long term now we are trying many restaurants to see where we can take business partners and friends in Bali. It is a pity that Mozaic does not make the list, as I had heard many good things about it. Maybe, 20 years is just too long for too much of the same, time to reinvent the concept and bring it to a 2020s level. It will also help your Instragram quest - if you mention Instagram moments and Instagram in general on several dishes you serve, at least get the lighting up to date to (a) good stills and in particular (b) non flickering videos.
Not sure why I even give 2 stars – probably, because the farce was just too exciting and because I have never had enough fodder to write a review this long…More