Imagine, Sihlcity, Zurich
Jan
2009
19. January 2009
Nüsslisalat
Avacadocremesuppe
Fleischspiess auf Risotto
Zwetschgen
I attended a company function at the Imagine in Sihlcity. It is one of the places which is owned by Candrian Catering. I’m not a big fan of Candrian Catering, simply for the fact that they’re running every restaurant in the Zurich mainstation and charging 5 CHF for a drink at their sandwich store, the classic example of a monopoly being abused. The whole highway robbery scheme is being sanctioned by the 100% state owned federal railways (SBB), a prime example of my tax dollars at work. Still I was looking forward to seeing the food at this place. I liked the menu card which listed the dishes we were going to get, it looked like a sensible selection. We started with a corn salad (Nüsslisalat) with egg and bacon. The salad was okay, but someone had the idea to add a sweet (!!) sauce to it. This might have worked with a high level of acidity but the lactose and sweetness of the sauce were completely misguided. The bread served with the salad was a disgrace. The bread was a flat round shape, with eight pieces pre-cut so you could tear it out and eat it. It screamed tasty and cost-effective bread innovation catered to optimise kitchen processes. Relying on products like these reflect a type of gastronomy which puts the quick buck ahead of the primary reason of a restaurant, good food. We followed up with an avocado soup with some chicken meat. If I hadn’t read that it was avocado I wouldn’t have know the taste was indiscriminate and the chicken was toasted in a microwave until it was dry and tough. Their main course was a meat skewer with saffron risotto and some vegetables. I like meat rare, but cold and undercooked in the center is not a viable option in my book. The risotto was overcooked, but the weirdest thing was that they served three different sauces to dip your meat into. Now you can imagine what happens when the waiter puts a spoon of sauce on your table. It slides down the wall and mixes up with the risotto. Dessert didn’t save the meal. All in all a disappointment. This isn’t a restaurant but a convenience product warming station. You can get better food here.
20/01/2009 at 09:21
Oh boy, do I feel sorry for you. By far the most dramatic article for the real picky gourmet! I hope you feel better now and have overcome your great disappointment. I mean, IMAGINE! But hey, there’s always the vegetarian restaurant at sihlcity, veg? Probably a nice place too 🙂
BTW, I stumbled across this german food blog yesterday and the guy was hilarious. He visits these ugly “American Diners” somewhere in Berlin and complains about the burger being greasy. He always ends his posts with a bottom line, like: “Abgesehen von dem, was wir in dem Café geboten bekamen, war es ein wirklich schöner Sitzplatz.”
29/01/2009 at 21:34
Nüsslisalat is lamb lettuce in english, just in case you want improve your english