Taste – 6.1
Atmosphere – 8
Service – 7
Value – 5.2 (350RM pp)
Eating is that one time of the day when you turn off and enjoy the food laid out in front of you. Picaro is different. Booming music, rotating drinking games, flirtatious waiters, free-flowing food. In other words, a bachelorette’s dream dinner.
Picaro sits behind a fake hotel front. A Chinese-decorated frontage, red lanterns glowing, a hotel sign hanging loose, someone sleeping down the alley it backs onto. To sum it up, it looks like a brothel.
Inside, you walk into a bank vault. A massive teddy bear in the centre, vault doors everywhere you look. It felt like a game show. Quickly hushed into a room full of leather sofas, a projector throwing a Roman painting up on the wall, other diners already waiting, sangria doing the rounds. If I was ever going to end up in a Saw film, or in The Menu, this was the moment. Spooky and on edge. Barely a word between people. All of us just sitting there, waiting to be seated for what felt like the last meal.
One by one, they took each group out of the room until it was my turn, out of the vault, through a curtain, and into the main room. A massive countertop sat in the middle, with staff stationed around it and seating for about thirty. The waiters were already dancing to the bass-heavy white girl music, working the room, picking out who the partygoers were and who to avoid. The waiters, who posed as chefs, wasted no time flirting with the young women. It already felt like a dating show.
It was a tasting menu built for sharing. Six courses, served as plates for two. First up was an anchovy emulsion with nachos, crispy onions, and honey, plated beautifully; the emulsion was served in a fake tinned can. That is when it clicked that this place is made for the ladies. The servers came round, hand-fed the women, and left the men rotting in jealousy. It was funny watching them whoop for the attention and lap up the novelty of being fed by good-looking young men. But the dip itself was superb, incredibly fresh, with a smoky note that soothed the throat like a glass of whisky.
The second course was a Caesar salad with raw tuna on top, and it was meh. Refreshing, but nothing I can praise. Wet and sludgy, and the fish felt wasted on it. I would have preferred the tuna as sashimi on its own plate rather than mixed through the leaves.
A constant source of entertainment on my right was a Grandad who hauled himself onto the table, rang the bell, and bellowed “YAAAM SENG!” before tipping his head back and necking a full glass of beer. He did it again and again all night, his wife beside him, head in her hands, blushing at the awkwardness. Then the shots started. Free shots, and who refuses something for free? Sweet liquor, progressively making the night a blur.
Next up, a smoked duck cheese toastie. Coming from someone who has perfected the cheese toastie, as plenty of my drunk friends will happily confirm, this one did not hit. The problem was the hot honey. The trendy pizza topping is muscling its way onto toasties now, and I am disappointed. Far too sweet. I like mine simple: cheese, maybe a touch of mustard, a hot sauce on the side. Do not overcomplicate it. Still, it was worth sitting through, because another anchovy dip arrived soon after. I had made it very clear the first was excellent, and lo and behold, a second appeared.
A couple more shots in, the music now vibrating behind my eyes, a whole chicken landed in front of me. Lightly crumbed, sprayed with charred lemon, ripped straight off the skewer and eaten Viking style. I dipped it in a suspiciously orange sauce, and it felt like cinema, the whole counter gnawing away like we were possessed. It was perfectly tender, and the waiters showed me why: they hurled what looked like a whole bottle of oil onto the chargrill in front of us; the fire went up in a wall of flame, and I felt my eyebrows crisp.
Free chicken skewers came next. More free food, and I was in no state to say no. It got me a little too excited, so I threw myself into a drinking game: two mugs of beer, linked to the person beside you, both drained in under six seconds. Win, and your drinks are free all night. Lose, and you pay RM99. I lost. The skewers, for the record, were just skewers. Pretty boring. But free again, so no complaints.
Finally, the one I had come for: seafood paella. By this point, I was so full that watching it arrive felt daunting. Squid ink rice, huge rings of squid, fat fresh prawns, and the kicker: they offered to peel the prawns for you. Now that is 5/5 service right there. Nobody wants their hands reeking of prawn for the next three days. The base was crisp, the rice rich and bouncy, crunching in my mouth. It was very mouth-watering.
The next bit of theatre would have given any HR department palpitations. A man stood up and worked his way round the counter, getting each of the women to tilt their heads back so he could free-pour sangria straight into their mouths. Entertaining enough to watch, at first. Then he reached my friend, who said no. He did not take no for an answer and tried to make her do it anyway. The room had tipped from playful into something with no boundaries at all. Making a customer dig in and repeat, firmly, that she does not want your booze poured down her throat is not a bit acceptable. It is wrong, and it is awful service.
Despite the sour note, pudding arrived and pulled things back. Cheesecake, but plated to look exactly like cheese and crackers, which was clever and the kind of sleight of hand you saw all night. Crisp where it needed to be, the cheesecake itself closer to soft serve than a dense slice.
I cannot compare Picaro to anywhere else I have eaten. It is an experience and an adventure rather than a sit-down, food-worthy meal. I feel it targets a certain crowd: young partiers, people who appreciate attention and games, people who want a buzz and can not sit still. It is an extrovert’s dream and an introvert’s nightmare. But definitely a great bachelorette dinner.