Silantro - U.P. Town Center

I'm really not into fish dishes. With a few exceptions, of course, and one of those exceptions is grilled mahi-mahi. In Southern California, that is my order of choice whenever we eat at a Hawaiian restaurant. When I discovered that Silantro is serving this, I made plans to try it as soon as possible.

Today, Dec. 23, when traffic wasn't that detrimental and exasperating, my wife and I hied over to the U.P. Town Center. Thankfully we arrived early enough that we were seated right away (normally it takes from 30 minutes to 1 hour before that could happen). The menu wasn't that extensive, besides, I already know what to order. Naturally, it was Grilled Mahi-mahi for me, while my wife ordered the Rib Finger. For drinks, I asked for Iced Tea while the Mrs wanted Fresh Dalandan Juice. The server told us it would take about 25-30 minutes for our orders to be served. 

The drinks came almost immediately though. One aspect why my rating was less that 5 was the iced tea. It had a tad of bitterness that a real tea has and because I am so used to having the sweet kind, this particular brew did not hit well with me. The dalandan juice, on the other hand, was just perfect!

The Rib Finger came first. It was actually pieces of rib steak covered with Barbecue (not smoked) sauce. It was served with mashed potato. The meat was not fall-off-the-bone tender but definitely not tough. Some were even done medium rare. The mashed potato was delicious. When the Grilled Mahi-mahi came I was a bit apprehensive...would it taste the same as those I had in the U.S.?.. would there be a fishy taste to it? To my delight, it was as if I was having lunch at a Hawaiian place in southern California. The fried rice that came with it was mixed with peas and corn which sort of uplifted the quality of the rice itself. Another thing that intrigued me was the sauce that came with the fish. In America, usually it is tartar sauce, but here I was curious as to what that green thing was. It turned out to be guacamole with cucumber. It went well with the mahi-mahi I must admit.

The ambiance was not that great - the place was relatively small and the chairs were like benches. Since it is a very popular place, it gets full quickly and as I mentioned earlier, newly arrived customers have to wait for quite a while to be seated.

Grilled Mahi-mahi

Rib Finger