Voucher Food Hunt: Cassis

Cassis is one of the most famous fine dining restaurants in Penang for its price and food presentation. Apparently their chef used to work in some Michelin nominated restaurant in Americas. However, it did escape my notice until I saw their voucher in www.myooo.my – another new voucher website.

This was the most expensive voucher that I’d ever bought. It cost RM88 for a 5 course meal with a unique payment arrangement – RM8 paid to www.myooo.my and RM80 to be paid at Cassis.
http://myooo.my/deal/55-back-popular-demand-and-upgraded-rm88-5-course-dinner-exclusive-fine-dining-experience-cassi

We wanted to book for the dinner on December 20^th but were told that they were closed during the weekdays due to opening of a new restaurant at Precinct 10. Thus we had to change our appointment to December 30^th for a pre-new year’s eve celebration.

When we arrived on the night, we were greeted by the waiter and the owner (I think). I think they accidentally missed out our appointment since we made it very early as they can’t find our name in the list. But the owner solved the situation professionally by simply pretending that our name was there with the surprise and confusion of the waiter. His professionalism was really impressive as most people would mention or even argue that we did not make any appointment. So instead of being kicked out, we were ushered upstairs to our seat.

The upstairs was completely empty until the end of our dinner. We were joking that we must’ve dressed too hideously until they wanted to hide us upstairs to preserve their high class standard to other patrons. But it was really fun to have the whole floor to ourselves since we can make a fool of ourselves without any witnesses! :p

Look at this! It was actually red but turns purple with my lousy iphone camera!

The waiter recommended us for some wine to go with our meal so we ordered a glass of house wine (RM32). The red wine had a strong scent and taste but smooth nonetheless. We were served with our 1^st course which was either Tuna Tartare or Tiger Prawns Salad. We ordered one each to sample the taste.

Bread (mini baquette?) with olive oil and balsamic vinegar

The House Wine

The food presentation here was simply exquisite. Look at the photos of the food! The tuna tartare was topped with caviar and it tasted really special. The tiger prawn was served with some fish roes and the combination was amazing.

Tuna Tartare

Tiger Prawns & Fish Roes

Our 2^nd course was soup of the day. I totally did not pay attention on what soup it was but it tasted great. It was definitely not mushroom soup or any other normal soup that were served in western restaurant. I must say this was the 1^st time I tasted soup like this. The soup was served with some olive oil, crouton and some tiny bit of cheese.

Soup of the Day

3^rd course of the night was Atlantic Salmon. Look at that! I was amazed by the size of the salmon as I was expecting bite-size items from a fine dining restaurant. This 3^rd course Salmon was of equivalent size to the main course in The View, EQ – and it tasted so much better than the salmon main course in The View. The salmon was seasoned minimally; in fact, it tasted of freshness with a hint of salt. This was my favourite course of the day. A funny thing happened when the waiter served us the course, the vegetable on top of the salmon fell sideway when he put the plate on our table. His face was like in panic and I was thinking he wanted to take the plate and ran back to the kitchen for a “rework”. To make him felt better, we assured him that it was okay for us and he left hesitantly with a ‘longing’ look at us. Hmm… maybe he thought that we were weird to accept a ‘defect’ item? :p

Atlantic Salmon

 4^th course of the day was either Australian sirloin, braised duck leg or pork belly. We chose the sirloin and pork belly since we were not a fan of duck. The waiter recommended us to have the sirloin medium to have a best texture and we accepted his proposal. The Australian sirloin was served with red wine jus whilst the pork belly was served with elderberry sauce. Both had mashed potato on it. The mashed potato was the smoothest mashed potato that I’d ever tried. Anyway, I noticed that their flavouring was more of a minimalist with minimum condiment to bring out the taste of the main item. I guess some people might consider it as tasteless but we were very satisfied with the food. The size of the 4^th course amazed us again as it was big. Not TGIF/Chilis size big but big nonetheless. The sirloin was cooked just nice with a tad of crispiness on the outside and tender on the inside. I was not a fan of the pork belly though as I could see the fat layer on the meat. But it was pork belly and it was supposed to be fat on it. The good thing was you wouldn’t feel nauseous when you ate the fat layer – guess this had to do with the way it was cooked.

Australian Sirloin

Pork Belly

The dessert of the day was less impressive with carrot cake and ice cream. The ice cream was smooth but the carrot cake was quite dry. Our dinner ended with a cup of coffee/tea. The tea served was earl gray.

Coffee

Tea

Dessert of the Day

The service of the restaurant was really impeccable. Throughout the whole meal, the waiter left us to our own private dining and only came to us during course serving or water refill. I actually like this service as I hated waiter standing around staring at you eating for the whole time and kept pestering you about how the food was. It was like our own private haven upstairs.

It is highly recommended that you tried out this restaurant especially when there is a voucher promotion as the RM88 is really worth every penny. The price of the original menu is really pricey though so if you see any voucher promotion, GRAB IT and try out the fine dining experience!

Cassis is located at Belissa Row at Pulau Tikus, Penang.