Restaurant review: No Bite-Size Pieces at Marco Polo

Severally, I passed through Marco Polo Restaurant on Karim Kotun Street, Victoria Island, but the first time I stepped into the building was for a business meeting. I wasn’t that impressed, because it appeared like just another of its type, well, after my experience I could not pick any special thing or feeling from it all.

Although Marco Polo is aware of the sensitive nature of the restaurant, business, catering and food service in general, I think the restaurant pays too much attention to customizing everything they own. From the uniforms, badges, menu cards, table covers, crockery and cutlery. I wonder why they all kept shouting “Marco Polo!”
Customer service is on the average at Marco Polo as the waiters are considerably on call, although it seems you have to repeat the order to the waiter, at first I thought it was the particular one that attended to us. But not until I noticed the voice from the next table repeating for the second time, “How many times do I have to say that exactly?”
On the other hand, cleanliness is a big one at Marco Polo, the environs is simply charming, a good dash of colours, the colours and designs still stay clean and beautiful on the walls. The convenience is fresh and the atmosphere is just cool, for that I felt relieved. At least it’s said that a good atmosphere encourages a good dine.

There’s one thing though, Sushi at Marco Polo is simply irresistible, when I saw it, and I thought it was a crown of shame on us for dining there, but a first taste of the meal restored me back to life. Marco Polo offers a real alternative; the sushi is a welcome culinary addition to the other varieties on course, the fabulously fresh sushi and sashimi is made beautifully along with traditional dishes which makes the dining experience a fusionist affair, the menu is simply seasonal. The food was great as mentioned but my Chicken Tepanyaki was such a big chunky fillet, that I had to use a knife and fork to cut/eat it. I don't normally complain about there being too much food, but I always thought Japanese food should be small, bite-size pieces you can pick-up with chopsticks?
The intimate dining room is clean and crisp, with comfortable upholstered chairs and dark wood furniture squared up against a deep red wall. A striking tree sculpture, made from bamboo, spreads up the walls and across the ceiling, with lights dangling above the centre tables.

Hmm...I wasn't really impressed with this place at all. For a restaurant that openly boasts about winning lots of remarks, I expected award-winning food and service but the waiters and management seem to be out of the decent type. I really found this odd considering the wait-staff have a touch of snobbery. We ate beside the window to get a view of the beautiful street and the range of lovely cars parking in and out of the lot.


It seems all the things that made Marco Polo "Swell" are now gone? Now it is a typical sushi and tappanyaki on the Island. I don't write this to be mean or cruel the food is still good at Marco Polo but not what it once was. Maybe I will start eating somewhere else each Sunday since it seems there’ll always be a meeting at Marco Polo.

The Failsafe Option is Italian

Finding well-balanced, healthy, food that is good to eat is hard enough when you’re out prowling the streets of Lagos. But doing the same in a restaurant adds a new layer of complexity. The contents of a loaded selection of curry dishes, or a single, swirled plate at any local restaurant don’t come neatly labeled as a microwave crème brulee in the supermarket.
Cooks are fond of tasty shortcuts such as adding butter or cream to their meals perhaps to make it thicker. Worse, some restaurants aren’t all equipped to cater for the health-conscious diner. Since I started eating out, I mean, dining in restaurants - beautiful, ugly, expensive, exotic, infuriating, daunting – it’s always been one experience to the other, so here I put up my view on some restaurants I’ve been to, and although I didn’t specify their names, it is quite clear which type of restaurants serves diners well.
So, whenever I’m planning a meal out, there are certain places that I avoid, except I just want to spend my tucker time negotiating with the waiter, but not so often.
Indian
Indian food relies heavily on diary products and so earns the whole cuisine a big red warning sticker. The offending substance is clarified butter-or ghee-which is used to boil, fry and mix almost everything that comes out of an Indian kitchen. There are ways to survive an Indian restaurant, though. (a) Go for tandoori dish. Tandoori dishes are effectively dry-fried in the tandoori oven and don’t use so much ghee. They can be somewhat too dry, however, so look for a yoghurt-based sauce to accompany it. (b) Steer clear of the poppadoms. The world’s best chips are deep-fried and very porous. Try a spicy chappati instead. (c) Avoid the puddings at all costs, I warned you. (d) Eating just the vegetarian dishes is probably the worst thing to do as most are cooked in, and saturated with, ghee.

Chinese
Chinese food is a similarly troubled zone. Vegetable oil is used in the preparation of nearly everything, whether it’s deep fried or stir fried. The trouble begins with preparation. In a beef stir fry, for example, the meat is half cooked in oil before being thrown into the wok. So although the stir fry itself contains little oil, the meat is already saturated. You can however request the meat be boiled in water instead. Similar measures can be taken to reduce the fat, and therefore calorific value, of other dishes as well. This leaves the meal with less fat, as I have found out.

French
Although I’ve not really been to a French restaurant, but on two unplanned instances I got invited to breakfast at a wonderful couple’s home. I never guessed it would be an all-the-way French breakfast. My first intentions were to take a back seat for a while, but it was unavoidable, as everyone sat as one. If one had to devise a menu based entirely around beef, cheese, double cream and egg yolks, one would end up with French cooking in this style. There is unlikely to be an escape from cholesterol, salt or sugar. The other French cuisine which jumps readily to mind is nouvelle, or so she called. She said it was not so widely available; nouvelle was essentially the French interpretation of worldwide movement towards fresher ingredients, more natural and exotic flavourings, such as ginger, with the emphasis on presentation. Put simply, you will be able to find something decent to eat at any restaurant that has pretensions to modern cooking. Or has pretensions full stop.

Italian
Italian food falls into two camps: traditional and modern. Traditional cuisine relies more cream, butter and olive oil, while modern cuisine tends to use drizzles of oil and grilling instead of frying. The modern emphasis on low fat, natural, unprocessed flavours and light grilling makes it impeccably modern. The modern Italian cuts back on fat, olive oil, but it’s still very fattening. So, there’s no escape fat from the Italian cuisines. The best part of the Italian restaurant is that they often usually come up with a fruit or a light fruit-juice and water-sorbet.

Fish
Nearly every class of restaurant offers at least one fish dish, and there is also a tradition of classic British fish restaurants, like the delectable Marmundos. The rules here are pretty much the same as cooking at home. Grilled fish and boiled or steamed vegetables are about as healthy as you can get. White fish are slightly better than pink or brown-fleshed fish, although the difference isn’t that great. Shellfish score higher than fish in mineral content: oysters are particularly high in zinc, a mineral essential to sperm production.
Japanese
Japanese food is very meat-oriented. Outside of noodle bars, it’s unlikely to find a dish that has not had meat involved somewhere in its preparation. The positive side of this is the Japanese fashion for eating meat, and particularly fish, raw. Sushi is always the good part in the Japanese cuisine. Having said that it’s surprising the Japanese heart attack rate isn’t higher considering that the national hobbies are overwork and amphetamines, so perhaps the diet isn’t that bad.
Korean
Korean food is not dissimilar to Japanese, but with more meat, what’s with the meat by the way, sometimes I wonder the amount of meat we consume. Marinated barbecued beef is the Korean staple, along with pickled vegetables such as cabbage. Neither is particularly healthy.
The Choice is yours
Summarising what and where to eat is easy. Look for a handful of things: cuisine which claims to be modern, which offers fish as a main course and uses non-saturated fats to cook with. The failsafe option is Italian. Even if your dinner party consisted of your healthy self, a vegetarian, someone on a gluten-free diet and a marathon runner building up for a race, an Italian restaurant would be able to accommodate them all. Pass me the bread sticks.