Humorous Spaghetti Opera is three-course meal and show package which is presented at Helsinki Music Centre (Musiikkitalo). Spaghetti Opera twists and turns of the winding up of Mozart’s opera buffet–style. At that time, the opera was a popular entertainment, listened with picnic baskets or sitting at the dinner tables.
The music in show was gathered from known and most popular opera songs like Mozart and Vivaldi, and they are song in the original Italian, as well as a fun, musical re-Finnish translations. Presentation costumes and expression takes out the most of the opera world’s delicious clichés.
Simple buffet included following dishes:
Prawns fried in garlic butter on the rocket–melon salad, lemon aioli
Roasted red peppers, asparagus salad, pecorino cheese
Air–dried pork neck ravioli salad
Ciabatta and foccacia, tapenade
• • • • •
Chicken breast stuffed with mozzarella, tomato and white wine sauce
Sliced potatoes seasoned with sage
Roasted spring onions and carrots
• • • • •
Tiramisu and coffee / tea
Food itself was quite OK. Salads were fresh and olive tapenade excellent. Chicken was a little bit dry, but it is difficult to prepare it for buffet because it might stay too long in the heater. Tiramisu was sweet and moist like it should be. We also got lactose-free cake instead of tiramisu which demonstrated flexibility of kitchen.
There were some differences on the serving table compared to menu. Could not find lemon aioli, think is should have been in separate bowl. Only ciabatta, at least we did see any foccaccia. Chicken breast was not stuffed with mozzarella, some cheese might have been on the top of chicken.
Show was brilliant! Story was about dandy and two sisters in triangle drama. Snobbish dandy role was played credibly and with talent. He tried to dupe two sisters but they set up trap and dandy was beaten. Actors or singers were from music theatre Kapsäkki which is coalition of actors and singers.
Wine list was so short that we could not find white (2) or red (2) wine to accompany food. Therefore only option was to order cava which suited for dinner enough well. Unfortunately restaurant did not know how cava should be served because we had to ask for cooler. Other diners drinking cava just settled for warming up their cava bottle on the table. And the “cooler” which we got, was actually red wine pitcher. There was some ice at the bottom of “cooler” but cava bottle did not even touch ice cubes.
There are couple of theatre restaurants serving dinner during show but frivolous opera is refreshing way to replace theatrical presentation.
When serving improves this may be hit in the future. Vodka Martini for aperitif was served in wine class, already told about the cooler, …. But part of clumsiness was compensated by not taking charge of aperitifs. Therefore overall grade is 4 and show earns anyway 4,5.
REVIEW: FOOD 3,5/5 – SERVICE 3-/5 – SHOW – 4,5/5 – OVERALL GRADE 4/5
Reijosfood 
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