I have been a fan of Chef Bühner for years. In fact even came close to knocking on his restaurant's (La Vie, Osnabrück) doors on a couple of occasions while I was visiting Germany but every time we missed out due to the restaurant's summer closure.
For those who wants to know more about Chef Bühner, well he's one of the most celebrated German chefs in the world. Gault Millau “Chef of the Year” in 2006, a Relais & Chateaux “Grand Chef” in 2009, and 3-star Michelin chef in 2012. He has pretty much done it all.
This marked my first visit to Vida Rica and I couldn't say I wasn't slightly disappointed with my first impression.
As the fine dining restaurant of Mandarin Oriental Hotel Macau, I was expecting a more glamorous setting with a touch of luxury but this looked more like a bar with black as the only predominant color.
To make matters worse, we were seated in a small dining area right next to a large group. Imagine having 15-20 people laughing and shouting in front of you when all you want is a little bit of quietness to enjoy your meal. Obviously the vast majority of them were pretty excited about this lunch but who won't? Perhaps the restaurant should have given them a private room not just for the sake of this group but also for the poor folks sitting right by them? (There were kids in the group as well, a little rare to see in fine dining events.)
Anyways, we started on the wrong foot and it never really seemed to recover from there.
Let's get back to the tasting menu. It was supposed to be a 5-course set but as it turned out, the first course was just an amuse bouche. It's a foie gras panna cotta with foie gras mousse served underneath a layer of coca cola jelly and lemon granite. Looked very good on paper but the execution was a little off (4.5/10).
After the lone nibble, our starter was ready to be served. Can't wait to get my hands on this caramelized king prawn with seaweed and different textures of shallot, including shallot ice cream, purée, meringue and poached shallot. I am not really a shallot fan but I was impressed with all the various textures of shallot coming together, particularly the shallot ice cream which surprisingly worked well with the king prawn.
This ended up to be a king shrimp done two ways with the second dish coming as a dumpling simmered in a light shrimp broth. This tasted a lot like a har gow (蝦餃), one of the more popular Chinese dim sum in the world. A slightly peculiar move pairing it with the shrimp dumpling in my opinion (5.5/10).
Next up was our fish course - a Japanese cod-fish confit in olive oil with broccoli couscous, chicken pea, mud crab, North Sea grey shrimp and Iberico ham. That's a lot of ingredients in there!
Our server poured a bit of chicken consommé on the side to enhance the flavors which was nice considering that the cod fish had nothing but olive oil flavor. But if it's any consolation, I thought the texture of the cod was actually fine.
Here's another peculiar move (after the hau gow) serving the cod fish with a steamed bun that was stuffed with mud crab meat. This "West meets East" thing is obviously not working for us (4/10).
Meat course was an Australian wagyu rib-eye steak served with banana plantain chips, white beans, mashed sweet potatoes, apricot purée, tamarind sauce and pimento. This couldn't possibly be a dish plated by a 3-star Michelin chef's kitchen, right? It looked unorganized and a bit messy.
Taste-wise, I thought it was a fine dish, just that I've expected so much more right from the start (4.5/10).
Turned out the best dish of the afternoon belonged to our dessert - marinated baby pineapple with coriander, white chocolate and sake granite.
The white chocolate cube was the star here and we just loved that coriander flavor oozing out from the middle. The sake granite, crushed walnuts and pineapple combined to create a lovely symphony of contrasting flavors and textures (7/10).
Unfortunately too little too late now.
A raspberry themed petite fours before we settled the bill.
I thought the staff at Vida Rica was a bit overwhelmed by this event as they had trouble performing at Michelin starred level (both waiting and kitchen staff included). The explanation of each course was rough and obviously not conducted in a manner one would expect from any fine dining experience.
And finally about the food itself. I recalled right after the wagyu, we were shaking our heads in disbelief. This was probably a menu designed by Chef Thomas Bühner but its execution has prompted us to believe that the meal was not prepared by someone adept enough at this level (perhaps by the chefs here at Restaurant Vida Rica? Who knows?). A disappointing experience without a question.
Food Rating: 4.5/10
Price: $$$
Address: Mandarin Oriental Macau, Avenida Dr Sun Yat Sen, Macau
Tel: +853 8805-8918
Website: www.mandarinoriental.com/macau/fine-dining/vida-rica-restaurant
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