puck's at the mca

last friday, my friends at work and i decided to try something new for lunch. this entry is somewhat long overdue but i've been feeling a lil under the weather this past week. christina suggested puck's restaurant at the museum of contemporary arts just two blocks away from my workplace. i didn't even know they had a restaurant in there!

i was somewhat starving as we walked towards puck's restaurant. the restaurant that is the brainchild of  wolfgang puck and the mca  is located at the back of the museum just as you enter the main entrance. diners can enjoy their lunches (11:30am - 2pm) from tuesdays to saturdays in the full-service restaurant or purchase them at the express counters or try their sunday buffet brunches from 11am to 3pm. puck's restaurant centers around seasonal ingredients that draws on Asian and Mediterranean influences, hence their menu changes periodically. that is also the idea behind their puck's tuesdays on the terrace that happens between the months of june till september where they serve different international dinner buffet every week.

we were tempted to try a lot of the dishes on the menu because they all sounded so good but we decided to share three dishes: a salad, a pizza and a main entree. they started us off with some bread and a spread to go with it.

the bread tasted fresh but the one that i loved most was the olive ciabatta. it has a dark hue with some bits of olives in the bread. the corn bread was slightly sweet, buttery and crumbles in your mouth. the spread was really tasty - with flavors of chopped olives and garlic and oh so good.

crab salad | tomato, avacado, pomegranate, beet foam, microgreens with a pomegranate vinaigrette ($13)

there are two parts to the dish: the crab meat that was tossed in lemon juice, sitting comfortably between the layers of cubed avacado and diced tomatoes. this is paired with a salad of microgreens and halved cherry tomatoes. i particularly love this salad the most out of all the dishes i've tried here. it's light, it's refreshing and it's yummy goodness. the sweetness and freshness from the crab meat, the butteriness of the avacado then the suprising crunch from the sliced red onions, the greens and the thinly sliced carrots, the quick hit of tartness from the pomegranate seeds and the burst of flavor from the cherry tomatoes. my mouth waters a lil bit just thinking about it.

margherita pizza | pizza with fresh mozerella, roma tomatoes and basil ($11)

in my opinion, this pizza crust had the crunch of the thin crust coupled with the slight doughiness of a regular pizza which i like. my guess is thin crust pizza purists might be upset with the crust but i do like my pizza crust more towards regular pizza doughiness. there was a generous amount of perfectly melted fresh mozarella and i loved the bites with the fresh sliced tomatoes. i kinda wished that the basil was distributed more evenly thoughout the pizza and would probably have preferred the basil leaves whole instead of chiffonade to give it the burst of sweet basil flavor that i thought this dish needed.

grilled chicken breast  | with yam puree, sauteed green and yellow squash, apple cider reduction ($15)

this dish looked so good when it got to our table and i couldn't wait to get a slice of the chicken that was seared ever so perfectly. as i suspected, the chicken skin was very crispy and so delish. but we were a bit disappointed that the well seasoned chicken breast was a tad dry. good thing that it was compensated with the sweet and smooth sweet potato puree that gave it the extra moistness that it was missing. it paired well with the sauteed green and yellow squash for the extra layer of flavor but i didn't quite taste the apple cider reduction. i still liked the dish nonetheless but it wasn't anything spectacular except for maybe the perfectly seared chicken skin.

overall, puck's restaurant delivered what they promised: seasonal and fresh ingredients in simple and classic dishes. there are a few more dishes that we would like to try but i think we're saving that for our next visit to puck's restaurant at the mca.

disclaimer this is written based on my personal experience and opinion. experiences and taste buds may vary for others