A respite from the busy city life - Tadd's @ Montigo Resorts Nongsa (Batam)

During the recent Lunar New Year holiday, I went on a short trip to Montigo Resorts Nongsa in Batam. The area is rather undeveloped or should I say, in the process of being developed so there are only a few resorts in this part of Batam. This is good in the sense that the environment is left as natural as it is but I guess in a few years' time, the landscape and view here could change drastically as more resorts open here and the area gets developed.

Due to the fact that the Montigo Resort is quite far from the city area, it became a natural choice to have our meals here during our stay. Tadd's is one of the two restaurants here so I will be reviewing this first.

As the colour theme of the resort is blue and white which brings to mind Santorini in Greece, the restaurant is also dressed in similar colours with its wooden furniture, blue chairs and white walls. With the huge fans on the ceiling and the sea breeze, the whole place gives off a relaxed vibe. In line with the Lunar New Year holiday then, there were dashes of red everywhere with decorations on the tables and ceilings in the form of red packets and lanterns etc.

Here were the dishes and drinks we had during lunch on the two days during our stay:

The white drink on the right was a mojito mocktail while the other was a lychee-based soda. The mocktail tasted relatively close to the real mojito without the distinct taste of alcohol that some people may find overwhelming and the good thing was that it wasn't overly sweet which provided some much-needed relief when the weather was a bit hot and stuffy after a short drizzle. The mint leaves were fresh and added a welcome refreshing taste to the drink. Perhaps it might have been better to go easy on the amount of ice because the amount of ice diluted the drink a bit too much towards the end. As for the soda, I felt that it was too sweet especially when the ice had yet to melt but it got more palatable towards the bottom of the glass.

Next up was was the sate campur i.e. assorted satay (9 sticks) with rice cakes, peanut sauce and crackers. The satay options here are beef, chicken and prawn but if there's anything which you don't eat, you can always ask the staff to change the combination. In our case, we asked for prawn and chicken only since we do not eat beef. Frankly speaking, I don't really like having chicken satay for the fact that it gets dry too easily due to the grilling unless the portion used contains a bit more fat or moisture like thigh meat. As such, I tend to prefer pork satay which is more "resistant" to the grilling process and doesn't lose its tenderness nor taste. However, being in Indonesia, the meat options would not have included pork but it wasn't that much of an issue after all since there was still chicken to choose. Thankfully, the chicken satay was not too dry and was marinated well. As for the prawn, it was of a decent size and was pretty fresh. What I liked more were the crackers and rice cakes while the peanut sauce could do with a boost in the fragrance department.

The nonga nasi goreng contained a grilled prawn, a fried chicken wing, two sticks of chicken satay (supposed to be beef but we asked for a change), a fried egg, vegetables, fried rice and a cracker. It was a decent portion good enough for two people to share especially if you aren't too hungry or have a small appetite. As per the same with the satay set, you can ask for some customisation to the preset items if need be so please check with the staff on the available portions. At the price of IDR 125,000 (about SGD 13), the amount of items and the quality of food are quite worth the deal. Perhaps the only drawback was that the amount of vegetables seemed a bit too little when compared to the other items in this set.

The montigo ayam panggang berempah contains half of an oven-roasted spring chicken, sautéed
long beans, prawn crackers, steamed
jasmine rice and sambal. The rice was lacking in fragrance and was a bit too soft to my liking. As for the chicken, I liked the flavour but the texture was a bit dry. Somehow, I find that spring chicken tends to be dry like breast meat regardless of the cooking method, be it deep fried or grilled so I suppose that it's very difficult to retain the moisture and texture. The sambal went well with the rice and chicken. One thing worth noting was the prawn crackers used in each of the dishes were really good and I really enjoyed seeing them in almost every dish I had during my stay at the resort.

The dessert tray comprised of green tea tiramisu, triple chocolate truffle,blueberry cheese cake, ginger crème brulée, strawberry pannacotta and chocolate crémeux. Frankly speaking, we ordered this because we were not sure what we wanted to order as there were multiple items which we were interested in. Presentation-wise, this looked pretty good with its variety of colours. Overall, I felt that the quality of the items in this set were a bit lacking despite the price being even higher than a main dish. Nonetheless, the cheese cake, chocolate truffle and crème brulée were the better ones in this selection while the others were rather weak in the taste department. Quantity-wise, this is more of a tasting menu so the size of the items tend to be small. Even so, it may be a bit too much for one person if you are a small eater so it's good for sharing within a group especially if you want to try various items at one go.

Here was the young coconut juice which surprised us due to its sheer size. Coincidentally, soon after we ordered one of this, the other tables also started ordering the same thing. Seems like it's the herd syndrome at play here because if we find something that appears appealing from the other tables, chances are we will be tempted to order the same thing. The challenge in ordering something like this is how to scrape the coconut flesh from the inside of the fruit without making a mess. I must say, it was rather tough to do so because the flesh was quite thin and firmly attached to the interior wall of the fruit but if you finish drinking the juice before you start scraping the coconut flesh, it will be easier without the juice splashing all around. I learnt this the hard way when I almost spilled a good amount of the juice. As this was a young coconut, the taste of the coconut juice was not that sweet and had a tinge of sourness. I thought it went well with the strong-flavoured food and took away a bit of the greasy aftertaste.

The duck ragout fettucine is actually listed in the dinner menu but was available for ordering during lunchtime which I suppose should be due to the festive season. I tend to prefer pasta which are on the thin side such as linguine and capellini or macaroni or penne so fettucine usually gives me the impression of being rather thick and difficult to eat. In addition, due to the large surface area of the pasta, it tends to get soggy too quickly as it absorbs the pasta sauce very readily. Luckily, this version did not have a lot of sauce thus there was no problem of the fettucine being too soggy towards the end of the meal as the sauce was pretty concentrated. When eaten together with the smoked duck slices, shredded duck meat and garlic bread, the tastes of these items complement one another pretty well. Due to the substantial portion size, the after-meal feeling might be a bit heavy so this might be good for sharing within a group.

After the lacklustre experience with the dessert tray on the first day, we decided to order the desserts we were originally interested in. First up was the sago malacca which consisted of the palm sugar, crème anglaise and vanilla ice cream. The red sago layer when eaten with the cold ice cream and accompanying sauce brought about an interesting combination of tastes and textures. Visually, I thought it might be better to have more colours in this dish to accentuate the aesthetic factor although I thought that the bright red sago layer was nice to look at. However, the portion was a bit small despite the big serving dish so it should be fine for one person to finish this alone. After having this, I suddenly have this urge to try making something similar with modifications to the components.

Last but not least, here's the warm apple tart which was made from granny smith apples, rum raisin ice cream, vanilla sauce, cinnamon. I was actually a bit disappointed with the portion size of this dessert and that the apple tart here is the "deconstructed" type, Personally, I felt that the tart crust was a bit thick and tough so it might be good to improve on this area in order to make this dessert better.

On the whole, the food at Tadd's was pretty decent and had healthy portion sizes. The variety on the menu was also quite extensive so even if you stay at the resort for a few days, there should still be room for you to choose a different dish each time. However, in the dessert department, there were some flaws here and there and the portion size was a tad small when the prices were taken into consideration. Hopefully, there will be more improvements made to the menu's offerings by the time I revisit this resort.