OAP: "Madison Grill's Tom Yum Seafood Pizza"

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Monday, January 12, 2009

Madison Grill's Tom Yum Seafood Pizza

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Question: Would you order the Tom Yum Seafood Pizza (P695 net) Bestseller of Madison Grill? Why or why not?

Before you answer, I'll give you a brief background of Madison Grill and our own personal experience with the Tom Yum Seafood Pizza.

Madison Grill originally set up shop in Trinoma and opened its second branch, Madison, in the high end Greenbelt 5 Mall. Madison's promise is to provide a New York Diner experience that is upscale, casual, and hip. The people behind it are young, and you'll see them wearing fashionable chef outfits.

The menu is kind of boring and expensive: Starters & Salads, Soups, Signature Dishes, Gourmet Sandwiches, House Pastas and Kids' Meal | To-be-Shared Specialty Artisan Pizzas, From the Madison Rotisserrie, Additional Sidings, Seafood Platter, and Madison Steaks.

The words Artisan Pizza and Tom Yum really caught our attention, but we had to mentally hurdle the P700 price tag for it.

"The Rise of American Artisan Pizza" by Evelyne Slomon adequately defines Artisan Pizza:

What is Artisan?
"The definition of an artisan is a skilled manual worker who practices a trade or handicraft. How does this relate to pizza? In the broadest sense of the definition as it applies to artisan pizza:

1) The dough must be made with only pure and natural ingredients: no additives, conditioners, preservatives, artificial ingredients or artificial coloring are allowed;

2) The leavening of the dough must be achieved with natural yeasts (commercial strains or wild). The use of preferments are acceptable but not prerequisite;

3) Machine mixing of the dough is acceptable, but the dough must be hand formed and hand stretched to be qualified as artisan. No machines may be involved with the production of the dough beyond the mixer, which rules out dough rounders, sheeters and presses;

4) The ingredients utilized to make pizza toppings must be pure and natural and of the highest quality--and preferably minimally processed—if processed at all;

5) Artisan pizza makers support other local and national artisanal ingredient producers, growers and purveyors, and use organic and sustainable products whenever possible."

Tom yum is characterized by its distinct hot and sour flavors, with fragrant herbs generously used. So we were expecting an exotic pizza with lots of fresh seafood on top.

We asked if Aidan could assemble our Tom Yum Pizza and the Madison team gladly allowed him to do so. The dough is pre-heated beforehand and all the fresh natural ingredients are laid out for easy access.

Unfortunately, Aidan backed out at the last minute because he saw all the people looking at him. At home, he would play the role of a chef and cook pizza for us, so this would have been a good actual role play for him.

The Artisan Pizza we ordered had an oval thin dough with the following ingredients: fresh fat prawns, big slices of shiitake mushroom, juicy bits of mussels, cutlets of seabass, pieces of scallops and squid.

We are not sure if they added any Tom Yum herbs or spices because it only tasted like the usual Seafood pizza. A dash of fresh pepper was added to the pizza before it was tossed into the oven.

The oven was so hot that it only took less than 10 minutes to cook the entire pizza.

After the pizza was done, lovely Monica (in her Fashion One-designed outfit) served the pizza and offered to cut it for us.

We added a dash of lemon to the pizza to complete the Tom Yum Seafood experience.

Overall, the seafood ingredients were fresh and generously spread on top of the pizza. The crust was thin and chewy. I liked the secret tomato sauce mix that they used. Nevertheless, we are still trying to figure out why it was called Tom Yum.

So, I pose the question again: Would you order the Tom Yum Seafood Pizza of Madison Grill? Why or why not?

You can reserve this private room in Madison if you are a big group of more than 10.

Madison

Seafood. Pizza. Steaks. Pasta.

Phase 2, Greenbelt 5, Ayala Center, Makati City

Telephone:

+632 756-9000

+632 728-9000

Live an Awesome Life in God's Grace,

Blog: www.OurAwesomePlanet.com
Mobile: +63917-LOVEOAP (5683627)
Email: anton@diaz.ph

P.S.

Braised Lamb Shank (P460 net) with oriental spices and wild rice with vegetables.

We also ordered this braised lamb shank. The lamb tasted like it came out of the freezer and was defrosted just in time to be served. We order lamb in almost all the restaurants we visit -- and this must be the most disappointing one that we've tasted.

January 12, 2009 in 37. The Best of Makati, Restaurants | Permalink | Save to del.icio.us | Digg This | Email this post

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