énorme
adj enormous, huge
A name like that is sure to peak a foodie's interest alongside solid online reviews and beautiful photos of wood fire pizza. Just like that, I was smitten and very keen to explore Enorme with LC for our anniversary.
2 open kitchens - located at 2 corners of the restaurant gives you a view of pizzas baking in the oven and pastas being tossed.
To start, calamari fritters served with salsa and a cream sauce. The calamari was fresh and we loved the spicy salsa.
LC's mango lassi had a fragrant mango flavor while the fresh apple juice didn't taste like a sweet watery mixture.
I'm always on the lookout for a good mushroom risotto so this was a must have when spotted on the menu. The flavors were good and I liked the variety of mushrooms. However, the risotto was not cooked to the right doneness so there was resistance with every bite. A little letdown by the dish, I was quite pleased to see the next dish arrive.
An extra small carbonara pizza came with a generous topping of mushrooms, pork bacon and a runny egg yolk on a thin crust pizza. Good thin crust pizzas are a rare breed in KL so I was very pleased that Enorme's was absolutely delicious! A well seasoned cream sauce topped with smokey pork bacon chunks went well with the earthiness of the mushroom and the creamy egg yolk. A perfect rendition of a creamy carbonara pasta in pizza form.
Satisfied, we had no space for dessert that night but looked forward to future visits.
A future visit came very soon for me as I picked Enorme as the dinner place for my brother's birthday. Despite the many booking changes for that night (I probably called them 3-4 times that day), Enorme's service was warm and efficient and they identified me as soon as I walked through the door. *psssst crazy woman who kept calling!*
As we were seated closer to the wood fire oven, I caught sight of the gigantic pizza boxes - they do takeaway for their pizzas, hurray!
We ordered 2 pastas along with a lasagna, a braised lamb shank and an enorme half-half pizza. I was rather intimidated by the amount we ordered but every plate was licked clean (not literally) that night.
The truffle lasagna had layers of bechemel sauce, mushrooms, chopped truffle, grilled aubergine and zucchini and topped with mozzarella.
However, the lasagna lacked flavor and the truffle fragrance didn't come through. My brother said he expected better while I struggled to detect that whiff of truffle. The cheesy mozzarella was the most delicious bit, cheese being cheese.
A good duck confit was found (yessss!) here with well-seasoned, al-dente linguini. This was the favorite of the night as the duck was moist and not at all gamey and the sun-dried tomatoes contributed a nice tang.
Although generous with fresh seafood, the white wine marinara (you get to pick a tomato base or white wine base) lacked a little seasoning. I tried the seafood broth on its own and I reckon that with a little tweak in the flavor, this dish would have shined.
The braised lamb shank swimming in a rich tomato broth had probably braised for too long as the meat did not fall off but melted off the bone. Because the meat was so soft, it lacked that essential chew in meat. The mashed potato needed seasoning as well.
The enorme pizza was a
The majestic carbonara half of the pizza looked even more appetizing this time (more bacon eh?) and the egg, runnier than my first visit made the carbonara pizza even better.
The fruitti di mare half had fresh tiger prawns, squid rings and clams with sprinklings of chopped garlic on a tomato sauce base. This paled in comparison to the carbonara pizza, lacking some dimension that drew a rather flat response from my dinner table. The tomato sauce probably lacked the tang that we were looking for. I however, find the fresh seafood to be a good reason to order other seafood pizzas in future.
Feeding 5 people at RM257.70 is a worthy meal in my opinion considering the variety and food quality you get. Despite the hits and misses, I believe that Enorme has a competitive edge with its pizzas (big or small) - a good pizza is always a plus point in the KL food scene.
Other reviews can be found at Eat Drink KL and vkeong.com