ANIMALE - PROGRESSIVE AMERICAN CUISINES

Earlier this January 2020, we visited Animale Restaurant at MD Place, Setiabudi, South Jakarta. It's specializing in Progressive American cuisines with flavors from the Mediterranean. So you'll get to experience Western and Italian cuisines with strong influence from the Middle Eastern. The interior is absolutely pretty with 3 major elements: ocean, land and mountain, as it's main interior concept. We'll review everything we tasted here in a quick review. Let's check it out!

A quick introduction, Animale is led by Chef Andri Dyonisius who has a great cooking experience at Akira Back Jakarta and AB Steak. There's no doubt his creations are phenomenal. Animale is located on the 11th floor of MD Place with amazing night view of Jakarta and it is currently only serving for dinner. You can make your quick reservation from CLICK HERE

Semi Outdoor area

VIP Room

Business VIP ROOM

 The view from the outdoor area

Main dining area

Wood fire oven

Romaine Salad (110K) - Unlike any mainstream salad, this one combines fresh romaine with a choice of chicken/ pork cutlet, pork coppa (salty crispy thin pork muscle) and anchovies. The pork coppa gave that distinct salty flavor to the salad. This is highly recommended, especially the pork cutlet. Very tender and juicy!

Wood fire bread with assorted spreads. You can tell the Mediterranean influence from the hummus, olive, and many more.

Wagyu & Foie Gras (175k) - Master Kobe Carpaccio, pine nuts, saba, truffle sauce, arugula, parmesan lavash. Definitely our TOP 3 dish must order here at Animale, as simple as thin raw beef drizzled with generous truffle oil paired with lavash (thin soft flatbread). The  intense truffle flavor with the salty raw beef explode in your mouth.

Angus Meatballs (120k) - Dry aged beef, smoked mozzarella, Parmesan crust in marinara and pistachio pesto paste. Tiny yet melted in your mouth, SO GOOD!

Pig Ear Fries (95k) - crispy fried pig ear with horseradish remoulade (mayonnaise base similar to tar tar with a hint of chili). The pig ear's texture is similar to chicken's soft bones. It's not our typical finger food, the flavor itself wasn't quite outstanding, although the sauce lifted up the overall dish.

Frog  Legs (120k) - Buttermilk fried frog legs, smoked labneh (yoghurt), spiced lime honey, celery. Haven't quite found a high end restaurant serving frog leg until we came here. It was nicely executed, but was not our typical finger food. Once is enough :)

Truffle Hunter (145k) - roasted mushroom puree, straciatella, roasted garlic, crispy sage, white truffle oil. This flatbread is OUT OF THIS WORLD HEAVENLY GOOD, although it's thin, it's packed with soft creamy stuff that we couldn't explain. And the truffle oil was super generous making it fragrant and super appetizing.

Ravioli (225k) - Hokkaido scallop wrapped in handmade fresh ravioli pasta poured with Pomelo Beurre Blanc (yellow creamy sauce). The pasta was slightly thick, but the natural sweetness from the Hokkaido scallop was unbelievable. It's pricey but it's damn good. Each portion comes with 3 raviolis.

Linguine Nero (175k) - Aglio Olio spaghetti with grilled slipper lobster, burnt garlic oil, anchovies and chili flakes. Our first impression was salty and garlicky, that's what people (normally) expect from a good aglio olio. And it was perfect especially complimented with fresh grilled lobster. Very recommended.

Maloredus (175k) - Gnocchi pasta with sage brown butter and truffle buro fuso, topped with Parmesan crusted bone marrow. The gnocchi was freshly made in front of us, it was chewy. The bone marrow gave that salty savory flavor to the creamy pasta, plus extra crispiness from the crumble.

Beef Cheek (225k) - Tagine aka Mediterranean style clay pot filled with smooth and super tender beef cheek, caramelized Fuji apples,  and almond. Best eaten with it's complimentary golden raisin couscous.  The overall flavor was sweet, but we personally expected a little bit more kick on the savory side.

Salmon (195k) - grilled salmon with cilantro & red onion slaw, barley risotto. In our opinion, the seasoning of the salmon wasn't quite intense, the reddish color seemed to be very flavorful. But it turned out to be vice versa. The risotto was good though.

Lamb Kofta (185k) - grilled lamb stewed in terracotta with confit garlic, shallot & tomatoes, and sesame flatbread covering the pot.  The brown dark soup (if we could simply describe) has that Asian style sweet soy sauce flavor perfectly sipped into the meat. However, to be frankly speaking, this is our least favorite dish. The lamb somewhat got that strong 'lamb' flavor which might now be suitable for many people. Though the texture itself was perfectly smooth and tender.

We enjoyed some white wine and red wine along with the dishes. Both of their recommendations that night were superb.

PB&J Malabi (85k) - pistachio butter milk pudding, strawberry rose compote, and strawberry sorbet. The mild sweet pudding was super smooth perfectly combined with the sweet and sourish strawberry sorbet. 

Apple Pie Baklava (90k) - sweet and slightly crunchy cooked apple covered in filo pastry, topped with ricotta and complimented with brown butter ice cream. Sweet and warm meet creamy ice cream.

Truffle Truffle (75k) - Valrhona caramelized ganache, sea salt caramel, truffle scented. Definitely the perfect sweet ending to our heavy flavorful dinner. Intense and thick ganache with a little hint of salt and intense flavor of truffle. Definitely A MUST ORDER dessert here.

ANIMALE

MD Place 11th Floor, Jl Setia Budi Selatan No 7,

Setia Budi, Kuningan, Jakarta Selatan 12910

Opening Hour: Dinner only

Reservation: CLICK HERE

Average Spending for two: IDR 1.000.000

INSTAGRAM: @ANIMALERESTAURANT

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