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| - "Welcome to my home, I am going to cook you my favourite dishes": Chef Ivana Raca
How can a night with a welcome like that go badly? It cannot and it did not.
Suk and I were lucky enough to catch a table at Raca during a recent U-Feast event.
Due to the U-Feast concept, our menu was set, which is often a peeve of mine. It certainly was not this time around because most courses were exactly what we would have ordered anyway.
Oysters Rockafella: 5/5 my favourite of the evening. Suks rating 4/5, he thought is was too salty which is redic bc he loves salt and I don't like overly salted things so maybe he had a bad plate bc mine were joy worthy
Piri Piri shrimp: solid 5/5 from both Suk and I.
Spicy Beef Tartar 4.5/5. The temp of my plate wasn't ideal, which is likely due to pumping out 35 plates at the same time due to the event style of the dinner. Note for Raca, portions of this were maybe too large. The flavours were amazing but do to the richness, could have done with a third less. Just one persons opinion.
Tomato Nut Pesto Orrechiette: 5/5 Who serves bread with pasta? This place. Who loves bread served with pasta? This lady. This was a fantastic dish. Pasta and bread was cooked perfectly and the sauce, the sauce was the real star. I would eat this dish every day.
Braised Shortribs with Scalloped potatoes : 2/5 After such a stellar showing from every other course perhaps my expectations for this dish were too high. I didn't enjoy this dish, nor did Suk. Perhaps we pissed off our server somehow or were seated in the wrong spot for a group dinner style of delivery, regardless of the reason, both Suk and my shortribs were mostly fat. This dish was a big fail for us both.
Net of it all, we respect and enjoyed Raca and I personally love the full female kitchen. Our overall experience is skewed due to attending an "event" style dinner and although our last main was disappointing, everything else was wonderful.
When someone welcomes you into their life and illustrates their love through food, it shows. Chef Ivana and her team do this and deserve each and every praise they receive.
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