MEDZS (Orchard Central and Millennia Walk)

It was our company D&D, but since our whole lab managed to miss the deadline for registration, we didn't get to go. So, we planned for our own little D&D. After asking around for suggestions, we finally decided on MEDZS. It is essentially a Marche-style Mediterranean restaurant.

Since we're a pretty big group (about 10 of us agreed to go), I called up for reservations. They had an interesting policy: Friday reservations is only allowed up til 6pm. So I made the reservation for 6pm, and crossed my fingers that at least some of us will be able to get there on time to hold the table. We didn't. The 'advance party' only reached at 6.30pm. Thankfully it was still early enough for the restaurant to be pretty empty, and we still get our seat. The remainder of the party reached about 7.30pm.

When you enter the restaurant, you get a card each. That will be your 'credit card' for the whole meal. At each 'stall', you 'pay' for your order using the card. Total bill will be tabulated at the cashier at the exit. Nice system for big groups going dutch. You only pay for what you ordered.

Of course advance party people were famished. So we hunted for food first. We took awhile to go through all the stalls, look through all the options, before we place our orders. I got a mushroom soup (cos too hungry to wait for other food), a rosti with smoked salmon to share, and a seafood paella. J got a beef with mushroom and cheese kebab with pita bread. YJ got a lamb shank and some vegetable skewers to share, while XP a lamb leg. All beers were going at 1-for-1, so we ordered 2 sets to get 4. The nice thing about MEDZS is their beeper system. When you place your order, you get a beeper. You can then go back to your table and wait peacefully until the beeper rings. Then do you need to go back to collect your food. The reason I say it's a nice system is because at Marche's, I had, on several occasions, had to make a few trips back to the stall to check on my order status, only to see someone who placed order after me get their food first because the stall personnel got confused.

The mushroom soup was pretty good, the creamy kind with lots and lots of mushroom bits. The lamb shank and lamb leg were fork-tender, and did not have the overpowering 'muttony' smell. XP's lamb leg did turn out to have quite a lot of tendon that he had to struggle chewing through. In this aspect, the lamb shank was better, because the tendon had all been cooked to a soft, melty state. The beef kebab was very flavorful, and went well with the pita bread. Only drawback was its portion. Too big for one person, so we had to help Jamie with it. I guess it's better for sharing. On first bite my paella was quite good, with sweetness from the fresh seafood. But it got boring after I'm midway through, because it's the same taste throughout. The rosti here is softer and fluffier than Marche's. While I preferred this one, I understand that different people have different preferences for their rosti. E preferred Marche's one.

The rest arrived and went off to get their orders, and pretty much came back with somewhat similar things. The kebab and pita were definitely the most popular orders. Seeing it was E's birthday two days later, we went to the dessert stall on the pretext of getting desserts for ourselves. We then secretly arranged for a slice of cake to be delivered to our table. We waited and waited, and when we had waited til we stopped looking out for the cake's arrival, we were suddenly surprised shocked by the sudden outburst of a birthday song from a group of waiters walking in our direction. E's back was facing them, and he was mumbling that he hope that it wasn't his. Unfortunately or fortunately, it was. He had to stuff it down on top of his one and a half pita (he helped finished J's) and kebab.

Mushroom soup

Lamb leg

Lab shank

Vegetable and mushroom skewers

Seafood paella

Rosti with smoked salmon

Beef kebab with mushroom and cheese and pita

I actually spotted foie gras at one of the stalls, but it doesn't cut it as a main, yet I don't want my colleagues to feel obliged to satisfy my cravings with me. Will come back with Lynn one day to try that out. Overall I felt that MEDZS is a great place to visit for big groups, because the variety means that everyone can probably find something they like.


UPDATE

This update serves two purpose.

1) Lynn and me went back to try their foie gras so here's updating what we ate

2) I found a few search terms with MEDZS and 'vegetarian option' together arriving at our blog, and realized I actually didn't address that except adding it into the label. So here I'll try to elaborate a little.


So we decided to try their foie gras, and instead of the OC branch, we went to the Millennia Walk one. After taking turns for several trips walking around the restaurant, we settled for too much food as usual. We ordered a foie gras from the Italian appetizers list (I kept looking for mains but couldn't find it. I believe the OC branch had one at the French stall as a main), escargots in cream based sauce from the French stall, rosti with cured salmon, pork belly paella, beef shish kebab and beef hot plate with pita from the Turkish stall, cream of mushroom, and rounded up the meal with a chocolate souffle and a creme brulee.

Since it was a weekday night, the restaurant wasn't very crowded. The result was a very good service. Whenever our beepers go off, a waiter will come and get it from us, collect the food item from the stall, and bring it to us. We rarely have to get up ourselves to get the food. The escargots were served very prettily. The flesh had a perfect chew to it, resistant to the teeth without being overly tough and rubbery. The cream sauce was ok, but we prefer the usual garlic butter sauces served in many other places. The foie gras were two small pieces served on a bed of caramelized apple on a toasted bread. The texture of the foie gras was great - crisp exterior with a melt-in-your-mouth interior. The livery taste was strong and got us both really excited. This was nicely complemented by the sweet apple.

We had a lot of ordering errors that ended up working to our favor. My pork belly paella was heard wrongly as pork belly skewer. And my pita was omitted in the Turkish stall. Thank goodness for these mistakes, as we were too stuffed without all the carbo anyway!! The beef shish kebab was very tough, not sure if all beef shish kebabs are supposed to be like that. This is my second try, (first time being TheButcher's), and I seem to be forming the idea that maybe this is the norm. The souffle served with vanilla ice cream was quite nice. The creme brulee had a too thick and hard burnt sugar topping.

Escargots

Foie gras

Chocolate souffle

Vegetarian food wise, it really depends on how strict a vegetarian you are. There are the rosti, vegetable skewers, vegetarian pastas, pizzas and paellas. And of course most desserts are lacto-ovo-vegetarian friendly. Bear in mind that these are cooked on vessels that probably had contained meat at some point or other, so the reason for me saying its dependent on how strict you are. I'm sure many other restaurants are like, just that their kitchens aren't open to the public eye. If you're ok with that, this is a nice restaurant for vegetarian and non-vegetarians to have a gathering.