Guest post: Buko Nero

My friend G and her husband M decided to try Buko Nero after reading our reviews on it, and actually managed the unthinkable - they called and managed to get a reservation for the very next night!! Unbelievable! Maybe it's just us that keeps having trouble getting reservations, even when we call up to a month in advance.

Anyway, this isn't about how the good people at Buko Nero don't like us... G has kindly agreed to let me post her review about the place, so without further ado, I give you - a guest post from G:

G says:

Ok, (drum roll please) my review of Buko Nero. Overall, we thought the standard of the food was high. Good ingredients and tastefully presented. We both had ala carte items. Starters: me - Scallops on a bed of salmon carpaccio. M - tau kwa tower. Mains: me - today's special of tenderloin with bacon on bed of potato mash and baby asparagus. M - beef tenderloin as per the menu. Accompanied by a bottle of 2004 chianti. No desserts, just 2 espressos.

I liked my starter, it tasted good and was very pretty to look at. The scallops had little dollops of ebiko roe on them. Unfortunately, there were only 3 of them. Gone in 3 bites :-( Guess I'm used to hefty portions. Tau kwa tower was very tasty, I liked the mushrooms in it too. I preferred this to my own starter although M said it was quite heavy in taste for him but both of us agreed that it was very well plated. It smelled heavenly too.

Mains were done rare, just the way we ordered and the way we both like our meat. Excellent taste and good quality cuts and well plated but again, they were too small for the both of us. The cut was slightly smaller than the size of my palm. It was thick though.

Service was very polite. Both servers wore Birkenstock! - big plus! There were only 3 tables of diners when we arrived at 8pm and a couple who walked in managed to snag a table.

Ambience. Very chic with all the cream and dark brown tones. Nice music. I liked the book shelf with all the quirky decoration although the plastic chairs were a minus. M found the glass tables a little clinical but we both liked the water tumblers. They're from Bodum and we were arguing for a while whether they were glass or plastic cos they were so light! Also, it was good that they used proper balloon wine glasses for our red wine. And we had 2 buckets of bread, the second of which I only had one slice cos M polished off all the rest! M's a bit of a bread monster. He makes his own bread at home.

So yes, it was all very nice but we could have done with MORE! I am so greedy! But yes, very pleasant.