JFG Nation, like I mentioned yesterday, I wanted to devote a full day’s review to the MB Restaurant at the Live Aqua. The MB Restaurant at the Live Aqua is the resort’s fine dining establishment. Our host, Monica, hooked us up for a group dinner on Friday evening, now that everyone had arrived – the JFG, Ceddy, Mr.O, PPP, The Burg, The Hube, DiPietro, and The Jedi.

Now, before we go on, let’s have a talk here – this is actually my first restaurant review won this entire blog. At least, I think it is. Sure, I’ve done some fast food and causal eats (Mellow Mushroom photo first take waaaay back in the day), and I’ve reviewed briefly some meals I’ve had while on trips (Hash House a Go Go comes to mind), and I’ve previewed a restaurant’s new product (Hard Rock, lookin’ at you)… but an actual sit down restaurant review? This is new territory for me. And I said in my ABOUT section that I wouldn’t be doing too much restaurant blogging, if ever.

But the truth is, as much as I like chowing on Oreos and boxes of Town House Focaccia Tuscan Cheese Crackers (YOU’RE THE DEVIL KEEBLER THEY ARE SO GOOD), I LOVE going out to restaurants. I hate on food shows, because I’m bored with competitions, but the truth is I’ve learned SO MUCH from those shows that I feel like a semi-educated fine diner – that, and I’ve eaten out with a TON of foodies that have taught me what to look for (hat tip to my main man, Nevin Martell).

When it comes to restaurants, I’m all about quality at any price, high or low. I have my favorites in DC – want a perfect slice? Vace in Cleveland Park/Bethesda. You dig a perfect steak covered in butter? Le Diplomate on 14th is sure to satisfy. Do you want to just have your mind blown away over and over again? Rose’s Luxury will punch you in the face and make you cry with joy.

SO, you wanna get my motor runnin’? You better check four boxes for me: Ambiance. Service. Flavor. Execution. If you can hit those four erogenous zones for me, then we can talk. I am hyper critical when it comes to this sh*t. But if you make it past my initial barrier, I’ll sing your song on repeat for the next year. I mean, I can’t stop thinking about the tuna tartar at Azur or the grill meat next to the pool. I’ll be babbling about that to friends until I go back to the Live Aqua.

Now that we’re all on the same page – shall we proceed? Alright, everyone, hands inside the boat.

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NOW, to remind people, the MB Restaurant at the Live Aqua was part of the all-inclusive package, so I didn’t get anything free or my meal paid for in exchange for this review. Unless you count me paying for my stay there as being “free” – which I don’t. So no behind-the-scenes motivations here.

 

The MB Restaurant is the only eating establishment at the Live Aqua that has a dress code – “Resort Chic” is what the website says, but all that really means is keep your board shorts at home, you hack. While all the women dressed there looked lovely, the main theme for dudes was long pants, closed toes shoes. Try to look like you’ve been there before, essentially 😉

The MB Restaurant has a lovely indoor/outdoor space. I found a couple of videos on YouTube; this 9-second clip from the Live Aqua channel itself is a pretty good rendering of the space (even though you feel like you’re in a game of Halo):

Beautiful indoor spaces and a large outdoor deck, which is where we were seated:

The MB Restaurant put together this awesome group space for the eight of us. It was serene, it was quiet, and there was plenty of space for all of us to stretch out.

If there was one negative about this outdoor space? It was HOT. Like, I was dripping with sweat by the meal’s end. Now that’s not the MB Restaurant’s fault – Cancun is a hot hot place. But even with all the fans pumping and the torches that were normally lit put out, it was a warm warm atmosphere. So pro-tip – if you’re a guy dining here, opt for no jacket and go for nice light linen shirt/pants. You’ll thank me later.

Our host, Monica, had the MB set us up with a five-course tasting menu. The MB Restaurant started us of with, what else, booze! Besides the cocktails that my group had brought in from our pre-gaming (we’re a classy bunch), we again had wine flowing and drinks a-pourin’. Even our water selection was nice – we got the choice to have slices of starfruit, orange, or kiwi in our water glasses for an extra bit of flavor. That was a lovely touch. I got the orange, while Ceddy gave me disbelieving look and told the waiter, “Hit me with that starfruit.”

The picture above and below was the signature cocktail for the night, which, for the life of me, I can’t remember what it was. All I remember is that it was light and citrus-y, and had white wine and a melon liqueur in it.

Whatever it was, it was light, refreshing, and let me tell you, I got to that grape in no time. Yummy yummy.

Of course, the bread selection at the MB was excellent, a bunch of little soft rolls with thickened exterior shells, perfect for a bread-guy like me. Given the option of ruining my appetite with pre-meal bread, I’LL ALWAYS EAT THE BREAD. Especially when it came with an assortment of butters:

I think what we’re seeing here was cinnamon butter, then spicy butter, then normal herb/black pepper butter. It was a lovely plate of fat, and I mean that in the best possible way.

The butters were well executed, but as you can see, started to come apart in the heat pretty quickly – again, not the MB’s fault. The cinnamon butter was especially fragrant and delicious, while the “spicy” butter basically just had some paprika in it, and wasn’t spicy enough for me. Still tasty though, but you guys know me – I want some BURN.

Is that an egg yolk? Heh, no – this was MB’s amuse bouche, a tiny dish with a glob of orange on it. But what WAS this molecular gastronomic peculiarity?

Turns out, it was a sac of passionfruit juice/puree encapsulated in some sort of thin agar sac. I tipped the tiny dish back into my mouth and the sac burst, melting away and filling my mouth with passionfruit-y goodness. As someone who is Taiwanese, I LOVE PASSIONFRUIT. It’s sort of my jam. So I LOVED this. Excellent start to the meal, MB.

Next course: Seared Tuna. Now, I must be honest – this dish threw me a little bit, because I’m so used to seared tuna going the Asian route. You know, soy, sesame, avocado, etc. BUT, obviously, in the world, that is not the only way to eat seared tuna, so I needed to open my mind a bit.

The seared tuna was cooked perfectly. Medium warm, and encrusted with spice. Beautiful texture, melted like butter in my mouth. Good tuna flavor.

Small critiques: first, in general I am not a fan of foams. I know so many fancy restaurants LOVE using foams, and it works sometimes, but I’m just not a foam guy. Yeah, it’s true we were trying to go to a foam party at some point during the weekend, but that’s besides the point. Foams on food are touch and go for me. So the foam here on the mixed green salad wasn’t a high point for me – I ended up focusing on the amazing tuna.

Second small critique – on top of one of the tuna pieces was another sac of juice, like the passionfruit one I just had. When it burst open, the inside tasted like lemon/grapefruit. A decent pairing with the tuna, as fish tastes better with acid, but since the tuna’s flavor was so mild, it didn’t need a ton of acid to go with it; or rather, this much VOLUME of acid to with it. I would’ve liked it better with a squeeze of lemon juice, and save the sac for an intermezzo later on.

Of course, I’m not REALLY complaining – I scarfed down my tuna and then ate PPP’s serving of it to (he’s allergic or something).

Next up: this was placed in front of me. As a person who grew up in a state where snow was around for seven (7) months of the year, I LOVE BREAD BOWLS. I mean, soup inside a bowl I can EAT?? DO IT, SON. This lovely creature turned out to be my favorite dish of the night, and the one dish that I hadn’t had before: MB’s own signature habanero cream soup.

The soup, itself, was a pale green color, and full of flavor – It wasn’t super spicy, but had enough kick in it to remind me that I was eating a habanero pepper soup. The soup was creamy and full of savory notes – onion, garlic, etc.  It was placed inside a nice soft bread bowl while baked on top with what looked to be asiago cheese, and then covered in potato chips. Are you kidding me? It was delicious.

I ate it all up, and then clumsily tore apart some of the bowl to cram it into my mouth. I believe this was the point of the meal where I’d had a few too many sips of wine, so manners began to dip. Still, everyone loves bread bowls – big hunks of bread soaked with cream soup? You really can’t go wrong.

One critique – it was served on a pretty glass square plate, but this dish might’ve been better served in, well, something with edges to catch any extra soup. At one point I either was talking too long or had weakened the integrity of the bowl, and looked down to find a river of green soup oozing out onto the table. YIKES. My bad.

Main course (See? The intermezzo would’ve been perfect here after the cream soup): a baked grouper. Now, I LOVE grouper. It’s a nice firm white fish that is very close to sea bass, and has almost no fat – so you usually either need to cook it very carefully so you don’t overcook it and dry the sh*t out of it, or you need to bathe it in butter or other sauces. Either way, the key is moistness. No one wants dry grouper.

Grouper itself is a very mild fish. It’s easy for people to enjoy – mild fishy flavor, and HUGE flakes that have a decent chew. You definitely feel full after you eat grouper.

Here, the grouper was served with its skin still on, on top of a bed of rice and a tomato/white wine/garlic broth. I’ve had this combo before; serving grouper with tomato is a combo I’m familiar with. Leaving the skin on was new to me – grouper skin is usually sort of tough, and I leave it on the plate. They managed to crisp this skin up a bit, which I enjoyed.

Flavor wise? Nailed it – the fish was well cooked, was super moist, and the skin was crispy and added just a good grill/bake/smoky flavor to the dish. The tomato broth added a nice slight acid to the fish, and the white win/butter kept everything in sync.  Just a nice familiar savory bite.

Down notes? Again with the foam – I know, I know, it’s a personal preference. I don’t remember what the foam here tasted like. Second down note – the rice. A little soggy; it absorbed so much of the broth and fish juices that it ended up unintentionally feeling like a risotto. I wondered if replacing it with something a tiny bit more textural – large cous cous, or an el dente orzo – might’ve balanced the texture of the dish a bit.

Flavor was on point, though. Thumbs up on that.

The MB’s dessert had more foam, but HERE I actually thought it was appropriate! This dish was very interesting – it was a sweet noodle dish, and reminded me sort of like a kugel. It was pasta in some sort of apple/caramel sauce, with cinnamon and vanilla ice cream, and a sweet foam on top. I know, it sounds bizarre, but it worked for me. This dish was both warm and cool, and the foam filled my mouth with sweet flavor. Some of the dudes I was with couldn’t get around that it was pasta in their dessert. Not for everyone, I guess.

Honestly, I’m probably describing this one horribly (and the picture isn’t the greatest) because I was like six-seven drinks in at this point. I remember this dish the least – it wasn’t the best dessert I’d ever had, but it was good, and I appreciated the MB going outside of the box and wanting to show me something I’d never had before.

So that was the MB Restaurant’s five course tasting menu! I never saw what else the MB typically served on their menu, but if you go here and here you can see lots of pictures of what other dishes they typically serve. It all looks pretty good.

My overall take? Ambiance was great – despite the temperature, couldn’t have asked for a better setting. As the night got darker, it got cooler, and the MB finished us off with some amazing rounds of espresso too. Service? Impeccable – everything came quickly and food temperatures were perfect. Water, booze, all that was kept flowing at a comfortable pace. They even did that cool tablecloth-scaper thing to clear off the mess we all made in between courses. I love that. Plus, the members of the staff kept coming out to introduce themselves to me, which was pretty cool.

Flavor? High marks all around – I’d figured their seafood would be good since I’d have so much of it at other places. And that soup – I could see that soup playing well here in DC. Execution…decent, but not perfect marks, here. While the cooking of the proteins was perfect, the blend of the soup was smoooooth, and certain molecular gastronomic elements of the meal were well appreciated, there were a few things here and there that didn’t completely work for me (the sac on the tuna, the extra foams, the rice, some plating issues).

Overall, I think the MB lived up to the hype as far as why it was the flagship fine dining restaurant of the Live Aqua. You could tell Executive Chef Cesar Germain, pictured above with your friendly neighborhood JFG, was trying to elevate elevate elevate at every turn. I like that – keep pushing the envelope, but remember never to sacrifice perfect execution in favor of innovation. People will always remember how the steak tasted more than what shape it was cut into, you know what I mean?

The soup might’ve been the best thing that I ate all weekend. And I say this with a mind towards Cesar Germain’s other restaurants (i.e. everywhere else I ate the whole weekend) – they were no slouches. The MB was just another example of the Live Aqua not letting any part of their experience be weak. Chef Germain, thank you for the dining experience.

Tomorrow: my last day at the Live Aqua! Sad.

Thoughts? Please comment below or hit me up on Twitter @junkfoodguy or LIKE my Facebook Page and message me there. I also have Google+!! Let’s hang out.

Sincerely,

Junk Food Guy