First food tasting: Jiji's Restaurant

Last saturday I had a very interesting evening. Not only did I have my first meeting with the wine course group, but I had my first food tasting as well. The weeks before I could give up my name for the tasting and so I was eagerly waiting for tha day!!

Since I had my meeting with the wine course group first, my evening started pretty early. I met some interesting people, had a couple glasses of wine.
I chose the Cabernet Sauvignon: Frontera Concha y Toro.


So when I arrived at Jiji's Restaurant, my mood was merry and I just wanted to keep that feeling.

I gotta admit, my whole idea of a food tasting was somewhat different, especially since it was for their new menu. I thought we would all get a bitesize of everything that would possibly make it to the new menu. To be honest, I was already planning on ordering a mix grill after the tasting in case I was still hungry after the tasting.

Of course, I was more than happy to hear that the tasting was free and I could bring a +1. But the unexpected was that every couple could order from a set 'menu', which consisted of 2 menu item : 1 new and one excisting. My boyfriend and I chose for the 'Pasta Blue' and the "stuffed Pork Chops".

These are my opinions:

The Pasta Blue is penne pasta combined with pieces tenderloin, a blue cheese sauce and garnished with blue cheese crumbs, parmessan cheese and alfalfa.

Personally I am not used to my pasta being served in a bowl, but I can understand that this will keep the pasta from becoming soggy. The meat was very tender and luscious. The sauce was watery in the beginning, but near the end, it got a bit thicker and had more flavor. I kinda like it that my food has more than one dimension. The very first thing came into my mind was that the dish is so cheesy and creamy. They put so much parmessan cheese on it and the meat was good. What could've been different was:
- I didn't like the alfalfa. I've noticed that they love to use it as a garnish, but it didn't complement this one.
- the pieces tenderloin could be in smaller pieces, so that it'll be easier to eat together with the pasta.
- the crumbled blue cheese should be in smaller sizes since the cheese is very salty and it kinda have an overwhelming taste over the rest of the dish.

 The stuffed Pork Chop is grilled pork chops stuffed with minced pork meat. It is served on long beans and a honey mustard sauce. The garnish consist of carrot and alfalfa.

My initial thought was...It's MEAT stuffed with MEAT. Can't be better than that, right?

Unfortunately I wasn't impressed with the minced meat in the pork chop. For me, it's a bit dry. Probably because I'm used to a juicier stuffing. Next to that, the honey mustard sauce was a bit too sweet for me, but for most Surinamese people it might be just that, that make them like this dish.





So if I have to choose between these two dishes, the Pasta Blue is the winner!
But all in all, I had a wonderful time at Jiji's. One of the wines we were served as part of the tasting was a real winner! Normally I don't like Merlot, but this one is seriously goood!!