Courtesy of Hotel Mulia Senayan
Ecstatic is perhaps an accurate word to describe the feeling of every cheese lover when Sunday comes.
It is cheese time at the Orient 8 Restaurant at the Hotel Mulia Senayan. A time to experience 32 types of French cheese. One of the cheeses guests can find is *poisses de Bourgogne, a cheese made in the village of Epoisses, C*te-d'Or, France.
Commonly referred to as *poisses, it is a pungent, unpasteurized cow's-milk cheese. The washed-rind cheese is circular with a diameter of either 10 centimeters or 18 centimeters and has a distinctive soft red-orange color.
Napoleon Bonaparte was a particular fan of the cheese, and the famous epicure Brillat-Savarin even classed it as the "king of all cheeses".
Another kind of cheese that can be enjoyed is Roquefort, a sheep's-milk blue cheese from the south of France. Legend has it that the cheese was discovered when a youth, eating his lunch of bread and ewe's-milk cheese, saw a beautiful girl in the distance. Abandoning his meal, he ran to meet her. When he returned a few months later, mould (Penicillium roqueforti) had transformed his plain cheese into Roquefort cheese.
The cheese is white, crumbly and slightly moist, with distinctive veins of green mould. It has characteristic odor and flavor with a notable taste of butyric acid; the green veins provide a sharp tang. The overall flavor sensation begins slightly mild, then waxes sweet, then smoky and fades to a salty finish. It has no rind; the exterior is edible and slightly salty.
The hotel's cheese expert Massimo Francianore said that in Europe cheese could be a complete meal because it contains vitamins, minerals and proteins.
"Cheese can be enjoyed as an appetizer, a dessert and a snack. Cheese is usually served with condiments, such as raisins, dried apricots, caramelized nuts, fresh grapes, bread and crackers," he said, adding that the condiments helped neutralize the salty taste of the cheese.
He said the restaurant chose the famous French cheese maker, Antony, which has been listed in the Appellation d'Origine Contr*l*e, the French certification for wines, cheeses, butters and other agricultural products.
"All of our cheeses are premium quality cheeses, exclusively imported from France. We only import what is available in the market on the particular day or week we order the cheeses. Our stock tends to vary from time to time as we have to constantly restock our cheeses, since their use-by dates tend to be short," Adeza Hamzah, the hotel's communications manager, said.
Adeza said the restaurant wanted to create a unique Sunday brunch experience and to introduce Jakartans to quality French cheeses.
"If the Cantonese have a Sunday brunch tradition called yamcha with dim sum, Europeans also have a similar tradition with cheese. Guests can enjoy free-flow cheese and sparkling wine. With this brunch program, we hope the guests will spend more time in the restaurant," he said.
He said guests had been complimenting the brunch because there was no other place in the region that offered such a selection of imported premium cheese.
As well as the cheeses, guests can also try a wide array of Pan-Asian and Western appetizers, green and mixed salads served with a choice of dressing, fresh seafood on ice, French cold cuts, noodles and soups, five Pan-Asian hot dishes and desserts, ice-creams and sherbets.
Guests can also enjoy a degustation menu, individual portions of the main courses served on beautiful small platters. The degustation menu, consisting of fish, chicken, beef and burgers will allow each guest to create their own personalized menu.
With its menu encompassing foods from various Asian countries, such as Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam and its French culinary influence, Orient 8 bridges both East and West.
Orient 8
Hotel Mulia Senayan
Jl. Asia Afrika, Senayan
Jakarta 10270
Tel: (021) 574 7777
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