Only Slightly Pretentious Food

Miscellaneous Food: 10 new food-related products to try

2012-01-26T14:11:00.009+08:00

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the saviour of the US and their horrifically poor infrastructure and transit systems is their astounding ability to innovate. Nowhere is this more evident then in the humble neighbourhood grocery store, on the baking and laundry aisle. It's for this reason, then whenever I find myself in the fertile womb of the motherland of consumption, I take stock of all the product that I find myself drawn to.

In no particular order, here are the top 10 things that I loved from my latest trip. If you have space in your grocery basket, or just feel like indulging a need (or want), give the following great products a whirl.

1. Scharffen Berger chocolate

I am a big believer that the quality of baking chocolate cannot be compromised. It's for this reason that I use mainly Valronha chocolate, particularly in Asia where I suspect independant retailers mix chocolate. I've rarely found a better baking chocolate to use but then my friend introduced me to this one, which has a robust flavour and smooth texture. It is a stronger, more open, more American taste than Valronha, which I actually like, particularly for breads and cakes. This really is a lovely, quality chocolate.

This brand was founded in Berkeley and was the first American company in 50 years to produce artisinal but manufactured chocolate from bean to bar, using small-batch processing and a high cocao content. It was the brainchild of Robert Steinberg, a physician who was diagnosed with cancer and given 50% chance of surviving 10 years. He immediately threw up his day job and started to search for what he wanted to do, stumbling upon chocolate making and interning at Bernachon chocolate in Lyon, France. He started the company with his ex-patient, John Scharffenberger, who had some capital from exiting his sparkling wine business and they made chocolate out of their homes.

The company was eventually bought by Hersheys (20 years later) who combined it with their other purchases of Joseph Schmidt and Dagoba, then moved the operations entirely to Illinois. The quality and taste, thankfully, has remained intact and the Hershey's distribution has enabled them to be carried in all major US supermarkets. Sadly, the Hershey's outlet here doesn't carry the product so I'll just have to rely on the internet and friends for now.

2. OXO Cherry Pitter

I bought this clever device to pit grapes, olives and cherries and I guess it was kind of an indulgence becuase you can always just spit the seeds out. It makes it that much easier to juice cherries though and the splatter shield works like a charm, I was wearing a white shirt and there wasn't a single stain from a whole bag of cherries. Also, the hit rate is not perfect, there were three seeds in the bag of cherries that weren't removed but it's on the whole very effective and the loud pop that the device makes everytime it bangs out a pit, is oddly satisfying.

3. Mango Pitter

At the counter, as I was paying for my cherry pitter, the counter staff recommended their favourite pitting device, the mango pitter. According to them, it works like a dream and takes all of a few seconds to core a mango. I was also attracted to this because we eat a lot of mangos at home and they are time-consuming to dissect. One advantage of this, from what I can see, is that it cleanly removes the seed, without the need to hold the slippery core and slice around it so that you don't waste the parts near the seed. The only thing that stopped me from buying one (well, other than my dear dad who takes pride in his mango-slicing skills) is that while I am keen on pitters for small fruits and turgid fruits, I was just a bit sceptical of how pretty the mango would emerge from this harsh treatment. True to form though, in America, there is a separate pitter or slicer for almost every kind of fruit, there is also a similar one for apples and apricots. If durians were popular in America, they probably would have invented a durian pitter too by now.

4. Avocado Cuber

I find that in Singapore, perfectly ripe avocadoes are quite a rarity, unless you buy the really expensive Japanese supermarket species. They are usually slightly too ripe, or else they are the Australian avocadoes that tend to be somewhat tough. Slicing them is thus usually a messy business and makes your salad look ugly. If you, like me, get really frustrated at using a spoon in an avocado, try this nifty little device.

5. EatSmart Precision Pro Digital Kitchen Scale

I find my digital kitchen scale one of the most important pieces of equipment and I can't quite remember the days when I used to use a manual green plastic weighing scale (and I'm glad they are over). Digital weighing scales give you more precision and accuracy in measuring and baking results and they help save you time too, by allowing you to tare (reset to 0) with your exisitng containers, bowls and added ingredients. I wish all recipes would be fully converted into a system of weighed ingredients, rather than measured in metric or cups.

I live in fear that the batteries in my digital kitchen scale will fail at some point, or like most devices in the tropics, that moisture will get into the screen or the battery compartment. When I saw this new kitchen scale, I found myself wishing that my existing scales had a shorter shelf life and would die quickly, so that I could be justified in then replacing it with this set.

The EatSmart Precision Pro Digital Kitchen Scale is a reasonable $25USD, compared to the $70SGD that I spent on my simple Tanita scale. It is matt and stainless steel, the buttons are tab buttons (as opposed to rubber buttons that you depressed, on the previous scale) and the number display is clear and large. Best of all, it takes regular, not watch-sized batteries. 2838 unanimous 5-star reviews on Amazon do not lie.

6. Seal and Grip by Gladwrap

This Gladwrap product is actually now available in Singapore and a few of the more upscale Cold Storage groceries have the full range of Gladwrap items, including ice cube bags, colourful sandwich lunch bags and insulating bags. This functions like clingwrap, except that each side is coated to be slightly adhesive to each other, forming a tightly sealed packet around your food or vegetables. I find that this helps to keep fresh herbs healthy for longer (very important in not wasting food) and is particularly good with meats and doughs. It is much neater and dryer than using clingwrap, so I have just one roll of this in my drawer for the occasional use.

7. Method All-Purpose Cleaner

It was late at night, after an afternoon of stewing beef rendang and my friends had turned in but I was stricken with jet lag so I decided to indulge in a bout of compulsive cleaning. I contemplated her stove but could only find an all-purpose cleaner, so, not holding out too much hope, I absently sprayed it on the stove and was completely surprised, no, shocked even, when a simple, quick wipe yielded a shiny surface and a towellete full of cleanly-swept grease and dried remains. I have a small obsession with kitchen cleaning tools, particularly surface-cleaning tools like stainless steel wipes, glass cleaners, stone cleaners (that don't corrode natural stone, ceramic or laminate) and I must say, this is the best, or at least one of the best all-purpose cleaners I have tried in a long time.

I found out from my host (bless friends who do their research) that Method was founded in Berkeley and is a green cleaning brand that makes natural, biodegradable product for laundry and home care, similar to Mrs Meyers and Seventh Generation. The best thing about their product suite is that it is inexpensive ($2.70 a bottle at Target) and wide (includes a Pro-Chef granite cleaner, nursery sterilizer and leather wipes). Their founder, Adam Lowry, is a champion of the treehugger movement, that is, codifying and making legally binding, social and environmental business practices of climate conciousness, responsible sourcing and sustainable development. If you have a moment, google their business and read about their ethos and practices, it's very inspiring. And we all know that making all-purpose cleaners inspiring is a mind-bending paradigm.

8. OXO food storage containers

This was my favourite thing from my friends' kitchens. I have a hidden tupperware manic deep inside me and if these OXO food storage containers were available here, I'd buy enough to stock my pantry. I love that these are air-tight and help to create a vacumn-sealed environment. They also come in all sizes, you can buy a set and then top it off with a extra containers. I use Lock and Lock containers myself but they aren't as sleek, they aren't air-tight and they don't stack the way these do.

9. SodaStream Genesis Home Soda Making Kit

Ok, I'll admit it, this is a little white elephant but how cool would it be to make your own sodas! This is the kind of thing that is probably better to try at your friend's home, rather than bring one back to your own but what do I know, I don't even drink carbonated drinks. If you do, I think it is much healthier to make them yourself out of fresh juices or cordials, rather than turning to that Coke or isotonic drink. You can even use it to experiment with molecular food. There are many kind of soda mixers but I'm told that this one, made and patented by the company SodaStream is the best one. Available at Williams-Sonoma, major department stores and various other homeware stores for about $100USD, plus $10 for CO2 capsules.

10. Hurom Juicer

As the world gets caught up in healthy living, single origin food products and being born to run, masticating slow juicers (this refers to juicer with a turning or screwdriver motion, rather than a crushing and press motion like regular juicers, this is thought to retain more natural fruit fibers and prevent oxidation) have become the talk of the town. Almost every single major homeware and natural store I went to was peddling some form of this juicer as a health "essential" and I've seen it on countless videos, blogs and Facebook updates. This is the most well-known one and by all accounts, the most efficient in removing pulp and juice from fruits and vegetables. We now have one at home, thanks to an over-enthusiastic (some would say slightly fanatical) convert to the juice diet, so I'm qualified to give a well-researched review.

Compared to most other juicers, this juicer is certainly quick, fairly convenient, space functional and effective in getting the most out of your fruit. I've been impressed by the volume of juice, the colour retention of the juice, its ability to juice nuts (almond milk and soyabean milk) and even frozen fruit. It has a lot of applications even in cooking, you can use the pressed vegetables for essence or soups and frozen fruit for smoothies and popsicles. However, like all juicers, it does have up to 5 parts, 7 if you count the two container jugs and it is a pain to wash up after but again, not more than your typical juicer. It is also pricey, retails at $359USD, although admittedly, not much more so than most masticating juicers. I don't know if I truly believe the hype of juicing (without the collorary disciplines of moderate diet and exercise) but if I could find some way to go long the manufacturer of the Hurom Juicer and short the Breville Group, I would.

Review: Standing Sushi Bar

2012-01-23T10:21:00.000+08:00

One of the great things about my present office, and something that I will definitely miss when I leave in a few weeks' time, is the fact that it has its own gym, which I tried to frequent at least twice a week. I like to leave the television on while using the gym, and during one of my last visits, Channel News Asia was screening a documentary on how small business can use social media to their advantage. One of those small businesses that was featured was a restaurant called "Standing Sushi Bar", owned by one Howard Lo, who some may better remember as one of the finalists in a "reality" show also starring Denise Keller.

Standing Sushi Bar has two locations, with one establishment at the Singapore Art Museum in Queen Street (the other is at Marina Bay Link Mall), a great lunch location that draws office-workers, Singapore Management University students and probably not a few guests from nearby Carlton Hotel.

I was a little surprised to find that, contrary to what I had expected from its name, no one was standing. Presumably the name stems from an earlier point in the restaurant's history, but they couldn't afford to give up the goodwill when they expanded.

Our host had organised a set lunch for us which began with a light salad that was delightfully fresh: the cucumber slices were firm to the bite, the lettuce leaves were pleasantly crunchy, the cherry tomatoes were juicy and sweet, and the sesame seed dressing brought everything together in an understated liaison.

Chicken, mostly deboned or butterflied, and enoki mushrooms wrapped with meat, both cooked yakitori or kushiyaki, infused with grilled smokiness and drizzled with lemon juice, were a both excellent, and proved that Standing Sushi Bar had more to offer than just sushi.

That was not to say, of course, that the sushi wasn't good; far from it. An assortment of sushi, featuring such stalwarts as salmon, tuna, mackerel, yellowtail and tamago, was beautifully prepared, with a topping that, if not generous, was at least decent, with just enough wasabi to keep things interesting, but not enough to steal the show.

A light serving of udon to wash down the sushi. When I was a child, I had a particularly disagreeable bowl of udon while at Haneda Airport, and that memory has haunted me ever since, which is why I generally do not order udon voluntarily. I am happy to report, however, that this bowl of noodles was entirely enjoyable.

Dessert took the form of macha ice cream with azuki bean paste. I am not particularly fond of Japanese desserts, but then I generally find that nothing really goes wrong with green tea ice cream.

Standing Sushi Bar, from what I can see, is not, and does not aim to be, a cutting-edge restaurant determined to push boundaries and challenge assumptions. Instead, it is a relatively compact, introspective restaurant that's aiming to grow its business - which is basically doing familiar foods very well - not unlike the early days of the Akashi. Set menus (set menus are offered for lunch and dinner at the Marina Bay Link Mall branch) and promotions (see the website) form part of that strategy, which seems to have been successful so far.

Standing Sushi Bar

8 Queen Street

#01-03 8QSAM

Tel: +65 6333 1335

Website

Miscellaneous Food: New York 14

2012-01-11T13:32:00.007+08:00

A trip to a major city in the US these days hardly needs any prefacing. New York in parcticular, with it's acrid taxi fumes, incessant noise and car horns and cold but sophisticated new year's spirit and dress sense, was a real shock to the senses and sensibility.

A run-down of the places we visited and ate, with few pictures (it's hard to get away with a set-up in a restaurant). In general, I didn't double over any places from my last trip (read about our trip from a year ago here) but as you well know, you can eat multiple times a day in New York and never visit any place twice.

On the first day, I literally, stopped in panic upon alighting from the plane. I was overheating in my coat, in the open winds of New Jersey and I thought, oh fish, have I possibly, taken the wrong plane and wound up in Miami? Luckily for me, it was simply a balmy winter day and miracle of miracles, it continued to be so for most of my trip. On that first night, owing to having miscalculated the time, I arrived in Williamsburg at 8pm instead of 8am and we went to L'artusi in the West Village for dinner.

Bathed in a warm yellow light, the place was still jumping crowded. It was one of those ridiculous New York institutions where the bartenders are full of clever, charming banter, they serve small plates of world cuisine (doesn't everyone these days?) and old rich-looking people are seated in tables in the restaurant, while hip overdressed youngsters crowd standing-room only, three-deep at the marble bar where the "oh my gawd, the food is so Goods" were just hurting my ears.

Yes, I'm awful but only slightly pretentious, remember? Old rich people by the way, are a wonderful indicator of food quality and consistency, though less of value. We weren't terribly hungry, so we split a plate of grilled octopus, risotto and cheeses. Sure enough, it was all excellent and well-cooked, although the octopus was slightly rubbery. Then it was back home to Sweet Williamsburg to sleep off the intermiable plane ride.

The next day, I had the pleasure of a New Year's Eve tour of Williamburg that started with a cup of Gimme Coffee. This chain is also in the West Village and in Chelsea Market. I've drank a lot of cups of cuppuccino and an awful lot of good ones but this one, was sublime. It was possibly one of the top 5 cuppucinoes I've had, so if you are in the area, seriously, try it out for a cup of smooth, caffeneited deliciousness. We then hightailed it to Red Hook, where I had the most interesting experience at Red Hook, Lobster Pound.

The shop has these large wooden tanks, like ponds of Japanese onsen baths. Instead of people, lobsters swim by the hundreds in these tanks and they sell these lobsters, scooped fresh in nets. If you like your lobster fresh, sweet and cheap, then this is the place for you, with $15 whole steamed lobsters and wonderfully hot buttered lobster rolls. We had a lobster each (cue: gasp) and a warm, buttery Connecticut-style lobster roll (as opposed to the Maine-style cold lobster with the traditional mayonnaise and celery). Afterward, we ambled our way onto the Brooklyn Bridge and into Maison Premier, a 1930s Prohibition-style bistro for oysters and cocktails. We had about 14 oysters, all different kinds, and this was only a selection from their list of over 50 oysters and clams. The quality is good and so is the selection but the prices are not cheap, so best to come on the weekdays for their $1 specials.

It was New Year's eve after all, so we rolled into Brooklyn Star for dinner. Brooklyn Star is best known for Southern Cooking, I hear they have the best breakfast grits in town, but for New Year's eve, they were serving a set menu that was more European than Southern. This was hip but simple things like a roasted tomato soup with a side of bone marrow on toast. They also served a fantastic roasted pigeon for mains and the only slight let down was truffle honey over sharp cheese, raisins and two chocolate truffle balls from Momofuku for dessert. It was good but felt a little outsourced. I noticed though that for brands that make it big in New York, there is almost a wholesale business to other restaurants, for example, Gimme Coffee serves Balthazar pastries and many places stock H&H Bagels.

The next day, I was not intending to eat but I walked past a Momofuku Milk Bar , which can now be found all over the city and walked out with a crack pie and a packet of apple pie truffles, both were comforting and absolute sugar perfection as always. I joined some friends at Evergreen Cafe for dim sum, usually Chinese food is the pits in New York and I was surprised to be introduced to this little cafe, right in the heart of the obscure Upper Far East, with pink tablecloths and really decent dim sum. I was brough there by a family friend who has HK roots and this is a great recommendation for if you live in near that area. One of my discerning, only slightly pretentious foodie friends asked me, well, is it you know, Red Star quality (the question made me crack up so mea culpa!) and my answer was, it's not Imperial Treasure quality but the siew mai and steamed glutinous chicken rice were excellent and the fan juan and char siew bao were really yummy and definitely far more refined than Red Star. I'm Cantonese and I don't eat bad dim sum yo.

Of course, since I was uptown, I stopped at H&H Bagels for a poppy seed and lox bagel fix and and then made my way back down to the Village to The Spotted Pig for an early dinner. I met with two lovely foodie friends and we had really high expectations, given the hype that the Spotted Pig has created over the last year. However, we were sorely disappointed, the place was crowded and loud, reminiscent of a college sports bar. We had to wait over an hour for a table (they don't take reservations) and then when shown to one, we were told that there was a 30 min wait for burgers because the fries were on backorder. To add to the confusion, we couldn't tell who the waiters were, as they were changing shift and they don't wear any kind of uniform. This is New York and there were many strange people at the bar, the servers seemed the most alternative of them all and the service standard was about the same.

The burger was good but I didn't think it was worth the wait, especially with the famous beanspout-thin shredded mass of fries, which wound up soggy by the time they were served. We were able to order from the all-day brunch menu as well as the dinner menu but turns out that they were about the same and many items were unavailable. After two noisy, slow hours here and three dishes later, we cut loss and went to Veniero's for cheesecake.

I've been coming to Veniero's for many years now, simply because I think they have the best cheesecakes in town (and they are sited in the Lower Far East, close to where all the Momofuku restaurants used to be when they started out). The New York cheesecake is creamier and smoother than the Italian cheesecake but both are really good, I brought one back for my hosts and the two families finished off the whole cake after dinner. The stained glass and wood decor is old-school Italian bakery and the service is really poor. The clientele is also deep Bronx Italian, we waited in queue only to have this large elderly group jam their way past us and rub shoulders with the manager! What a night!

After few days of work, I returned to New York to stay with a dear friend who is one of my few friends interested in both fashion and food. Needless to say, this made for a truly carefree and uplifting break, it's just happy to be with someone to whom you don't have to explain why you have to step into every Williams and Sonoma shop that we pass. Of course, New York is also the best city to walk, catch up, gossip, shop, eat and bake. I feel privledged to know of a handful of people who have more kitchen implements than I do and she definitely has earned her spot high up that list, you should check out her lovely and instructional blog
here!

On the first day, we did a tour of the city's beautiful properties near Central Park and then went to Bouchon Bakery for lunch. I don't quite understand why there is such a big hype over the bakery, except that perhaps this is the New York outpost of the Napa outlet, so maybe the experience is different. The food is very good, we split a juicy turkey (I know, a paradox), cranberry, caramelized onions sandwich and a luxuriously smooth pumpkin soup and some truly excellent bread, but it seemed more a little atrium place for ladies who lunch. We went to the Time Warner building primarily to also go to Williams and Sonoma and Whole Foods to buy ingredients to cook a group weekend dinner of Nasi Lemak and Beef Rendang and not because we needed a heavy lunch because that night, we went to Peter Lugar Steakhouse for dinner.

Peter Lugur is an absolute institution, if you plan to go, please make a reservation at least 5 days in advance. The place is huge, an entire Germanic townhouse, in Williamsburg, just near the water. From the train across to Brooklyn, you can see the engraving painted on the brick wall and the set up is just that, hale and hearty. Stepping in is like going back in time, darkwood floors and beams and a wave of testosterone from the fat cat, gold Rolexed bankers at the bar. I guess they can afford $130 steaks more often than the rest. Peter Lugur does do smaller ladies cut or rib-eye steaks but the piece de resistance is their porterhhouse, which you just order per number of guests. We had rare steak for two and medium-rare steak for three, potatoes mash and their marvellous fatty creamed spinach.

The smell that hangs about the air gets you hungry (particularly on a cold day) and the meats come sizzling on the dish, with hot oil spooned over them. There is also thick pouring jugs of sauce but you really don't need it because the beef is so tender, juicy and flavourful. This is an amazing steak, the only one that I think can compare is the Bistecca Florentina but even then, it's a different kind of texture (tougher) and flavour (more gamey). We decimated the plates in front of us, all the way to the bone and then we had key lime pie with schlag (a mountain of sweet German whipped cream), each of us really had eaten more than our fair weight. Red wine, good steak and conversation with friends, that alone was worth a week of New York traffic, street noise and sooty air.

The next day, we did a really random but fun browse and shop at the discard outlet of Mokuba Ribbon and Lace and Kleinfeld's bridal where Say Yes to the Dress is filmed, then finally made it to a late lunch at Lombardi's in Spring Street for pizza. This graffiti-lined corner store is actually large and cavernous inside but it forms a line out the door on most days, from its claim of being the best and oldest pizzeria in New York. We went at 2.30pm and even then, there were diners. The thin-crust pizzas come in a regular and large size, (we shared a plain magharita and mushroom pizza) on old-fashioned aluminium stands and although I don't know that they are the best pizza I've eaten, it was very good. I think what gave it an edge is that they use fresh basil and rounds of fresh mozzerella for the pizza. It isn't particularly cheap, at $16 for the regular and $22for the large but the size is very generous.

That night, I went for a whole duck dinner at The Breslin, at the Ace Hotel. This place is known for their lamb burgers but ever so often, they serve whole animal meals, like duck, lamb or chicken. I would have prefered to actually be served different parts of the duck in individual dishes, like rillete, duck confit, duck breast l'orange, but what it was was more like an Asian serving of three whole roasted ducks with various sides like pomegrate salad, brussel sprout gratin and baked potatoes in duck fat. The sides in particular were delicious but the duck was actually a bit soft and mushy, so the meat had all but lost it's beautiful striated texture. Also, although the Breslin is clearly very hip, it was also very dark, which made it hard to focus on food and it was very impersonal- although advertised as a chef's table, this just means a large rectangular wooden table outside the glass of the kitchen, not that there actually is a chef or that he comes round to meet the table.

I really think a lot of restaurants are starting to emulate the Asian or Chinese style of family meals or meal service, perhaps following the success of David Chang's Bo Ssam at Ssam Bar. Part of this is because it's really much easier to serve Asian style meals, you just prepare the main dishes and put them in the center of the table, no need for service staff to take orders, change cutlery or for the kitchen to dovetail a cooking schedule that depends on courses. Intead of all that work to prep, station and finish courses, you just put out three roast ducks and feed 10 people at a go. The other advantage of course, is the cost angle, where each person pays you $130 for much less variety of food and grocery cost (in Bo Ssam, it's $120 for a $20/pax cost in pork butt) and that your liquor bill at the end of the day, because you insist of minimun group size, will more easily sustain your restaurant.

Of the three meals that cost about $130 (Breslin, Peter Lugar and WD-50), I felt Peter Lugar was the most worthwhile, with a toss-up between the Breslin and WD-50, with the latter being slightly more expensive but then also with far more work involved in preparing the dishes. These meals were also inclusive and priced up slightly because of wine and I felt that dollar for dollar, the pricing probably matched some of Singapore's more swanky restaurants, like those at Marina Bay Sands or Dempsey.

The next day, we had brunch at Westville Chelsea. I had been there before and had a wonderful scrambled egg and bacon set, this time I was adventurous and tried their breakfast burrito, stuffed with avocado, cheese, tomatoes and ground meat. Perhaps because I'm not a natural Mexican food fan, I didn't like it as much (not because it wasn't excellent, I just missed the crispy, crackly bacon). Our dining companions also had the stuffed french toast (with cream cheese and berries) and that was really yummy. After brunch, we wandered all the way down the High Line (a beautifully urban elevated railroad) to Chelsea market and East Village shopping, then I went to a mozerella-making class at Murray's, a cheerful and amazingly-stocked cheese store.

This class was really fun and well-conducted, on this basis, I would encourage anyone who is interested, even children, to sign up for classes at Murray's. Our teacher was a beautiful would-be actress and cheese enthusiast, she led us through a tasting of 5 different soft, fresh cheeses, with a generous freeflow of champagne, white and red wines. Then she walked us through a technical lesson in the casein proteins in milk and how this is manipulated through the cheese-making process through the addition of an enzyme, rennnant, to cause the coagulation of milk. She explained that there were vegetal rennnants, which came from the thistle plant (this was discovered in Spain and Portugal, when sheep wandered through thistle brush and produced coagulated milk), microbiotic rennant and then animal rennant, which is taken from the fourth stomach lining of an unweaned bovine. Of course that makes perfect sense as only unweaned animals can convert milk to solid protein nutrients; this was discovered by a Boudoin who was crossing the dessert with milk in a bag of sheep's skin lining. We were given samples of curd, as well as some to bring home and we had a hands-on submerging and shaping of mozzerella and burrata balls. This class had also cleverly worked in time for us to retail shop in Murrays and peruse their long cheese ailse and racks of dairy and fruit and nut products.

After class, I joined some friends at Wylie Dufresne's WD50 for dinner. I was glad that my friend had picked this restaurant, from Dufresne's Top Chef appearences, as I had sampled molecular gastronomy at Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck in Bray and decided that most of the dishes (like oyster and passionfruit) were parings of tastes that were odd and a little off. The one dish that I liked the best was the most traditionally cooked beef stew, which was phenomenal but hardly molecular. The whole dinner, in terms of taste, was somewhat stilted and never really achieved that happy satisfaction for me. Well, I have to report that WD50 was much the same, all of us felt it was strange that glowing online reviews had praised the food and the experience and these reviewers clearly eat there extremely often. While it was not bad, certainly it was very interesting, I would stop short of calling it delicious or even tasty. I'm not sure that I would eat there more than once, as the food is more weird than comforting.

The tasting menu is very long and has ample food, you start with small plates which grow larger and more substantial. The few dishes that jumped out at me were the poached egg in the shell, pumpernickel, caesar dressing, lily bulb, which was an egg served with a cracked edible egg shell on the side. We were told that this was edible kaolin clay, which had been thinned out, speckled and formed over a balloon, then popped and cracked to resemble a real egg. Another dish was the rock shrimp, miso noodles, chicory, yuzu, this was actual noodles spun of solidified miso soup (a really odd taste) and dusted with dehydrated chicory. As you stired the dish together, some of the noodles melted slightly to form a noodley, gooey mess that tasted like all its component parts together but nothing like the original. The best items were the desserts of apricot

Babka, Cake and Bake, Sourdough at Brooklyn Kitchen.

Maison Premiere
298 Bedford Ave, between Grand St & 1st St
Brooklyn, NY 11211
Neighborhood: Williamsburg - South Side
(347) 335-0446
maisonpremiere.com/

WD-50
50 Clinton Street,
New York, NY 10002-2401
(212) 477-2900

Review: Santi

2012-01-01T11:13:00.011+08:00

I have been surprisingly busy as I prepare to start a new job, and as such I've been prevented from blogging about one of the more enjoyable meals I had in 2011.

Much has been written about all the celebrity chefs who have set up shop in Marina Bay Sands, and of course the untimely death of Santi Santamaria made instant headlines, but it was not till fairly late in the year that I finally had a chance to have a meal in Santi. Tapas are served at the bar (go figure), and if the high bar chairs are not to your liking, there is a row of low seats next to the glass walls which are only slightly less uncomfortable. The front of house is rather dimly lit, too, so most of the photos are not fantastic; until I had the bright idea of holding the plates up to what little light there was.

There are some cuisines for which it is extremely difficult to find a good restaurant, and Spanish food (tapas in particular) tends to be one of them, as evidenced by my rather ambivalent reviews of the various Spanish tapas bars I've tried. Given Santi's reputation, however, I was fairly optimistic of finally having credible tapas.

A small morsel of roasted zucchini and mushrooms on lightly baked bread was just what was needed to whet the appetite.

Like any tapas bar worth its salt, Santi offers food in both tapa and racione portions, with prices of the latter roughly twice the former (although in some cases they were considerably more). I love gazpacho, and at $4 for a tapa and $8 for a racion, Santi's Gazpacho Andaluz was very affordable, and quite delectable: fresh and spritely without being sour, sweet and rich without being cloying, and with a slight savoriness hinting that the tomatoes had been roasted to concentrate their flavours.

Santi offers two kinds of ham - Iberic Lomo and Iberic Ham "Joselito" - but I didn't really want to pay $60 for the "Joselito", and $10 for the lomo by comparison didn't seem so bad. While there was certainly nothing wrong with the thinly-sliced ham and the toasty croute that it lay atop, I did think that it was probably one of the more overpriced tapas on the menu.

Manchego cheese, I feel, is superbly underrated, and Santi serves up wicked cubes of manchego drizzled with an unctuous oil to accentuate the delicate, slightly astringent pungency of the sheep's milk. Eating this reminded me of my college days, when I would buy wedges of manchego from the market to eat with seedless green grapes as my weekly indulgence; it's quite disturbing to think I haven't had this delicious cheese since then.

Soon, it was on to the hot tapas, and I had originally ordered a tapa portion of prawns "al ajillo", only to discover to my dismay that for $8, all you get is two prawns. The racione portion isn't much better; you get six or seven prawns for $30. The prawns are given a marvellous heat from the garlic and the chillis, though the garlic could be somewhat overpowering for some, and the amount of oil used was, I thought, more generous than the number of prawns in it.

The mushroom "revuelto" had a lovely creamy texture, with the eggs clearly having been slowly cooked to ensure that they were not over-scrambled, but all said and done, this was essentially scrambled eggs with mushrooms which, at $8, was probably not the best bargain in the house.

A dish of forest mushrooms and asparagus, however, was a much more sensible order (and, incidentally, no longer seems to be on the menu), as it's not something you're likely to prepare at home. Earthy, juicy mushrooms and the distinctive, slightly ferric asparagus, lightly seasoned with salt flakes, are impossible to resist.

My favourite tapa, however, was definitely the octopus "a la plancha". Supple and yielding, the grilled octopus had a wonderful char that imbued it with an extraordinary smokey flavour, and a large dollop of salmorejo, or tomato cream, gave it an extra fillip of sweetness. At $6, this was the dish that offered the best returns.

Although part of the fun of ordering tapas is not knowing for sure which you'll like the best, that can also be a significant downside, especially in Singapore, where tapas are not exactly cheap. Another problem is that tapas tend not to be that substantial, leaving you hungry even after you've had a few orders. Consequently, croquettas are almost always indispensable, and Santi's version features a rich bechamel filling, and after a few of these, you should be feeling pretty full, so I suggest only eating them towards the end of the meal.

At some point I was getting a little bored of tapas, so I decided to order some of the main courses found at the bottom of the tapas menu. One of the more intriguing (which now no longer seems to appear on the menu) was some roasted pork ribs, which look really phenomenal in the photo, but they took something like half an hour to arrive, and when they did, they were rather tiny; hardly what I would call a main course, and barely enough to share (which was the whole point of the dish). Given that they weren't that cheap either, it's far more advisable to pass on the pork rack, and order the next main course instead.

Our final dish was a tender, quite possibly sous vide, chicken breast (also apparently no longer on the menu), glazed with a fine, almost syrupy sauce. Although a main course, this didn't cost much more than the tapas, and is highly recommended should it ever make its way back onto the dinner menu.

Santi undoubtedly serves up the best tapas in Singapore, but you should certainly expect to pay for it. This can be mitigated if you stay away from the more expensive items, and stick to those that are really worth it (e.g. gazpacho, manchego, octopus, chicken), and stay away from the fixed price tapas menu, which offers you a fixed number of tapas and a drink. Skip the drink and use the money to order a la carte, and before long you'll be planning your next trip to Andalusia.

Santi
10 Bayfront Avenue #L2-03, Casino Level 2,
Marina Bay SandsTel: +65 6688 8501
Website

Review: Suburbia

2011-12-28T10:55:00.004+08:00

Instead of another meal at Braise or Chinois by Susur Lee (although I suppose I could have given Il Lido another try), I thought I would try something new after coming across a restaurant in Sentosa's directory named "Suburbia", and I was rather tickled by the restaurant's setting in the beautiful surroundings on the fringe of Sentosa golf course.

Nestled against rolling hillocks, the scenery is so pleasant that the majority of the restaurant is in fact dedicated to al fresco dining, which can be a little daunting at night when squawking cockatoos fly overhead. As with all outdoors dining, however, I can well imagine that the pleasantness of the experience will largely be dictated by the vagaries of the (recently very mercurial) weather.

The menu is extensive, ranging from classics like Waldorf salad, to hearty fare such as grilled beef tenderloin

My appetiser of cream of wild forest mushrooms was thick, with coarse bits of mushroom adding both texture and flavour. Having said that, though, I did think the soup could have been thinned out with some vegetable stock, so as to produce a smoother, more liquified offering.

S had the Lobster Thermidor, which had been sauteed and then, it would appear, baked with hollandaise sauce and grated parmesan cheese, and served with new potatoes. S had no complaints about how the dish tasted, but I felt that in terms of presentation, more effort could have gone into sprucing it up: the lobster was meant to be the star, it was true, but it looked naked and, ironically, lifeless as it lay forlornly on the stark white plate.

I ordered the honey-spiced French duck breast, as I was intrigued by the "caramelised Sarawak pineapple", with pink peppercorn and grand marnier sauce. I suspect this was a local interpretation of duck a l'orange, but there were a few little hiccups with this dish. First, although the helping of duck was very generous indeed, I thought the duck breast was a bit tough, which was an indication that the duck was a little old. Second, apart from a thick round of pineapple sitting at the base of the dish, there wasn't much pineapple flavour to speak of. Third, I wasn't sure that pineapple was a suitable substitute for orange, as unless the pineapple is unripe, it tends to be much sweeter than it is sour, and the characteristic tanginess of duck a l'orange is lost. Still, it was a valiant effort.

All in all, Suburbia is a pretty decent place to have a meal in Sentosa if you're not looking for something that's too fancy, and while it may not measure up to the more impressive offerings in Resorts World Sentosa, there's no reason it can't be considered for a nice family meal.

Suburbia
30 Allanbrooke Road, Sentosa
Closed Mondays
Tel: +65 6376 5938
Website

Recipe: Compte, Polenta and Spinach Tart

2011-12-21T11:40:00.004+08:00

Z. and I have been trying to eat more vegetarian these days, he is vegetarian almost completely (although by choice) and this decision was bourne out of his belief that the modern ways in which we farm animals is unhealthy and overly hormonal, as well as a need to be lighter and more clean-eating. He does have one meat day a month and I haven’t converted completely, nor do I think I would, but I do eat much more vegetables and much less, in particular, red meat then before. And no, it’s not the same, not even remotely so, vegetables don’t have the density and deep taste of meat, eating no meat makes me slightly grumpy and tired.

Being vegetarian, even part-time, is not at all easy, this is particularly for home-makers or women cooking for a large household. To be committed to it, you really have to overhaul not just the way that you cook but also the way that you grocery shop and stock your home. This is compounded if you have some people who eat meat and some people who don’t, or if you only have vegetarian food say, twice a week. One solution, I suppose, would be to eat meat if you wish, at lunchtimes, when you eat outside the home, but then just cook and stock vegetarian food at home for dinners.

A few things that I’ve come to notice, you need to change the sauces you have, of course, no seafood product and not as many meat-related sauces. Obviously, it takes awhile to slowly replace your pantry and it’s not always healthy, because it’s not easy to get vegetables to taste good. Many vegetarians just default to carbs, like oily Hokkien Mee, or worse, instant Maggi noodles. change is that you have to be properly set up for more steaming, if you don’t want to be perpetually eating stir-fried or roasted food or eggs, all the time. Eggs aren’t exactly that healthy, you won’t be ingesting as much fat as meat but probably just as much cholestrol. You definitely need to learn more tofu recipes, incorporate more beans, nuts and fruits in food, to find different tastes and textures without compromising on oil or sauces for flavours.

So being vegetarian, really takes a lot more time and effort but I suppose even that would remind you to be more concious and aware about what, and how much, you are eating. This recipe was something that I came across from Ottolenghi, one of my favourite places to eat in London. He is well known for encorporating world flavours, particularly vegetables and herbs, into his recipes. His recipes also tend to have many ingredients, so I’ve tried to simplify it. I would definitely put in the Compte, as it lends a very distinctive taste to the tart. Ottolenghi suggests using swiss chard but I had spinach, so I used that. I jumped on the chance to make this because it’s a good recipe to use up salad leftovers- I had a lot of fresh baby spinach, so I chopped and wilted them gently in a pan, if you do something similar, remember to squeeze out the moisture. I also added olives, shitake mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes because I had some and omitted any salt from the recipe, as the two ingredients are naturally salty. If you are really hard-working, you can also caramelize white onions and add them in.

Compte, Polenta and Spinach tart
For the pastry:

170g plain flour, plus extra to dust
60g quick-cook polenta
20g finely grated parmesan
140g unsalted butter, fridge-cold and cut into cubes
50ml water
A pinch of salt

For the filling:

200g comté, grated
200ml cream
3 eggs
10 kalamata olives, 10 shitake mushrooms or sun-dried tomatoes, sliced
¾ tsp black pepper
200g chopped spinach, (washed, wilted and drained)

In a food processor, work all the pastry ingredients except the water to fine crumbs, add the water and mix until it starts coming together – if it's still very crumbly and dry, add a tiny splash of water and pulse again. Tip out on to a work surface lightly dusted with flour, and work until the pastry comes together. Gently roll it out into a roughly 5mm thick round disc. Lifting the pastry with a palette knife, turn it around as you roll, then use a rolling pin to lay it in a deep, 24cm fluted tin. Cut off any excess hanging over the edges and use the offcuts to patch up any gaps. Chill in the freezer for 10 minutes.

Heat the oven to 180C. Place a circle of greaseproof paper on top of the pastry case, fill with baking beans and bake for 20 minutes, until just golden. Remove the paper and beans, and bake for another 10 minutes, or until the pastry is cooked through. Remove from the oven and reduce the temperature to 150C. While the pastry is cooking, mix together all the filling ingredients except the spinach, then pour into the cooked tart case and dot with spoonfuls of spinach. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the tart is just set and golden. Leave to cool for 10 minutes, remove from the tin and serve warm.

Review: Wok and Barrel

2011-12-14T15:15:00.007+08:00

It seems like new places to eat are springing up (and perhaps also shutting down) in Singapore faster than overnight toadstools. One specific kind of "new place" is a remake of old favourites from hawker centers and the one that I visited last week was particularly delicious, as you can see from their profile pictures.

This is usually spearheaded by a member of the more-corporatised younger generation, who's gone to business school or left some fancy banking institution to modernise the family business. Funan Weng, formally from Ghim Moh food center and now in Tanjong Pagar's Maxwell Chambers is one such place. Wok and Barrel, a charming little eatery I was introduced to in Duxton Hill, is another such place.

Wok and Barrel used to be a food stall at the Maxwell food market selling Nasi Lemak. Now, they still offer up their delicious fare, except in larger portion sizes, in a hip location and more importantly for Singapore, with air-conditioning. These re-made food favourites trade off a bit of that charred authenticity for a cleaner, more comfortable environment, catering more to professional lunches than everyday meals.

Both places have a very simple and organized system for placing orders, a bit akin to a primary school tuckshop. You simply tick off your choice of lunch set, Nasi Lemak with a range of choices, Beef Rendang, Chicken Curry or Crispy Pork and add-ons, like sides of Otak or local drinks, Barley or Lime Juice. In setting up their own eatery, I guess these stores now get the added margin of beverages and desserts but there’s probably a trade-off with volume, especially in areas like Duxton Hill. Their two signature desserts are gula meleka panna cotta with red bean ice cream and sticky toffee date pudding.

Wok and Barrel seemed to be doing a brisk business and I would definitely come back with friends. The area is gorgeous, just off the pedestrian-only Duxton Hill shophouse area if a little quiet and inaccessible particularly for lunch. If you come for dinner, they have a trendy fusion menu which includes local bah chor mee pastas and banana crack parfaits.

The food is well-prepared, I tried the Crispy Pork, which was a little un-crispy for my taste (it was a bit like floured, fried bacon) but still very good. Each set comes with an omellete, ikan bilis, cucumber, sour shredded vegetables and coconut rice. A word for the purists though, I am not a fan of overspiced chilli, nor of achar and I could happily eat both, which means that it wasn’t very hot or “shiok” as some of my chilli-fanatic friends prefer.

Wok and Barrel
13 Duxton Hill, Singapore
Tel: +65 6220 0595
Opening Hours
Tue–Sat: 12pm – 9.30pm
Sun: 12pm – 3pm
(Closed on Mon)

Christmas Fruitcake in Pictures

2011-12-12T14:27:00.006+08:00

A few weeks ago, we posted about Christmas Fruitcake and received fantastic response. We spent the weekend baking the Christmas fruit that had been soaked for over a month in rum. (The glace cherries become a tan-gold colour after all the soaking, so being the traditionalist that I am, I chopped and soaked another batch of green and red glace cherries and candied peel, just so there would be a shot of colour through the cake!)

Although it was a fairly small run, for family and friends, it was the first time I got to bake in awhile and it really felt great. I'd forgotten how therapeutic it was, weighing out the butter, sugar, flour, toasting the nuts and folding the batter and citrus peel into a rich, moist crumb. The smell throughout the house was really heavenly and the stack of honey-brown, brandy-brushed cakes has been flying off the shelves! We managed to get these lovely photos to share of the entire, delicious process. Thank you for all your support and feedback and have yourself a Merry Christmas!

Recipe: Lemon Rhubarb Cake

2011-12-06T16:44:00.004+08:00

I'm not going to moan on about work again, I promise, but what does it say that as the early days of winter darken, I am *finally* posting the last of the rhubarb series, which I made into a lemon rhubarb cake.

After looking out for it this year, I realized that one can find rhubarb in Singapore after all, it is sometimes available at Cold Storage and Jason's, however, it is not fresh, turgid and thick like in England but a rather sad, scrawny version.

I just used a simple lemon Cake Recipe, from the Barefoot Contessa Ina Garton's Party Ideas and added the chunks of rhubarb to the batter before baking. I also like to replace 1/2 a cup of flour with ground almonds (or hazlenut/almond mix, leftover from macaron baking) and I added another contraband, poppy seeds.

226.8g unsalted butter (room temp)
2 1/2 C granulated sugar
4 extra-large eggs (room temp)
1/3 C grated lemon zest (6-8 lemons)
3 C all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp kosher salt
3/4 C lemon juice
3/4 C buttermilk, room temp
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C)
2. Cream butter and 2 C sugar, add eggs
3. Add lemon zest
4. Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
5. Combine 1/4 cup lemon juice, buttermilk, and vanilla.
6. Alternate flour and buttermilk, begin and end with flour
7. Bake 1.5 hour
8. Pook holes all over cake. Cook remaining sugar with lemon juice and pour over if desired, if not, sprinkle lemon juice over cake while it is baking.

Tha family ate this one up and I really savoured the mixture of the citrus kick with the slight vegetal bitterness of the rhubarb. Till next year, my beauties!

Miscellaneous Food: 10 Souvenirs from Paris

2011-12-06T16:40:00.005+08:00

While we usually don't reprint content, this list by David Leibovitz was just too brilliant not to share. The original article can be found on his intelligent, educational bloghere.

"In the reverse direction, outside of France you’ll often pay hefty prices on French-made items; certain goods one can buy in France quite cheaply. Of course, shipping, exchange rates, taxes, and other costs figure in to those prices when you see them in a store in New York City, but if you’re coming to France, here’s a few things you might want to check out. I didn’t include things like chocolates, macarons, or other obvious things simply because, well, they’re pretty obvious.

For bringing stuff back, although you can buy zip-top freezer bags in French supermarkets, the very heavy ones aren’t available, so you might want to bring a few from home for securing whatever you schlep. Bubble wrap and packing tape are not easily available, so you might want to pack a few sheets along and a small roll of tape if you plan on buying things in glass jars to carry home. I slip small jars into socks then put them into shoes in my suitcase, which cushions and protects breakables.

Wine and some cookware are cheaper in Paris, but they’re hard to carry, especially with luggage restrictions. Certain French companies manufacture their cookware in Asia so it’s not always a bargain to buy it France. (Plus you always pay a 19.6% tax on all purchases in France.) If you’re a wine or absinthe collector, perhaps it’s worth carrying bottles back; La Poste sells boxes specifically for shipping wine, with Styrofoam inserts for two bottles.

The rules are constantly changing about what you can and can’t bring back to your home country. So it’s always best to check the website of your government customs agency for the latest information. Few countries allow fresh fruits, vegetables, or meats to be brought in from other countries unless they’ve been heat-treated, which means sealed in a can. Jars are iffy and are sometimes confiscated.

At present, you can’t bring things like mustard or jam on the plane, and I’ve heard third-hand accounts of chocolates from La Maison du Chocolat and Ladurée macarons being taken away at security. The rumor is that they know what boxes to look for, take them away, and then eat them.

1. Mustard: I like Edmond Fallot mustard quite a bit (you can find it at swanky prices in gourmet stores like La Grand Épicerie, or at normal prices at G. Detou), although when I first moved to France, I had my groceries in a sack coming home from the supermarket, and I had a giant jar (think a quart) of Amora mustard in there, since it was so inexpensive. A woman sitting next to me, said, “Très bon…et très forte!” (“Very good…and very strong!”) If you don’t want to mess with jars, mustard is also sold in plastic squeeze bottles as well.

(And although I’ve never tried it, I know folks addicted to Savora, a spiced mustard-based spread from the same company. It fetches very high prices in the states, no doubt because folks are accro, or ‘hooked’. Which may be the reason I have yet to taste it.)

2. Salt: I’m a salt chauvinist and although it sounds elitist and annoying, I really do use exclusively French salt. And that’s not just because I live in France. I get salt whenever I travel. But no matter how many little bowls of white, gray, and whatever-colored crystals are lined up on my counter top, I always reach for the little bowl of French salt first.

The last few years, fleur de sel de Guérande has been in short supply because of untimely rains, when the salt was supposed to be harvested. But you can find it in certain shops and markets, as well as its cousins, fleur de sel de Noirmoutier, Île de Ré, and from the Camargue. Depending on where you shop, and the provenance, a 125g (4 ounce) container costs between €3-€5 in France. The price is about double elsewhere. Coarse gray salt is a bargain in France, too, and just about every supermarket sells it for roughly €1.25-€1.50 for a 500g (about a half pound) bag. I buy it and grind it myself in a blender or mortar and pestle, and use it for cooking and baking.

3. Biogaze: When I worked in the restaurant business in San Francisco, I worked with quite a few French people. And in the restaurant business, as you can imagine, there were quite a few burns. After one of my French co-workers took a trip back to France, he returned with several packs of Biogaze, saying it was great for treating superficial minor burns. And sure enough, these pre-moistened layers of gauze are great for kitchen brush-ups with heat. A pack of ten costs approximately €9 and you can ask for them at any pharmacy.

4. La Roche-Posay Sunscreen: For many years, the FDA would not allow these amazing sunscreens to be sold over-the-counter in the US. But I saw them on shelves on my last visit, selling for a whopping $29, plus tax. In France, my favorite sunscreen is the Anthelios XL (the ‘fluide’ one is for the face; the others are thicker lotions) and costs about €11. It’s extremely liquidy and feels like water going on, so there’s no gunky, creamy feeling meaning that you can wear it without feeling like you’ve got a layer of pastry cream on your face. Depending on the season, stores like Parashop, which are all over Paris, often discount it or put it en promotion.

(Note that a parapharmacie sells cosmetics but not remedies or pills or drugs. Regular pharmacies do fill prescriptions, as well as carry cosmetics. In France, over-the-counter drugs are, indeed, sold over the counter. So although you might not see them on the shelves, you can purchase some things, like Biogaze, without a prescription.)

5. Lentils from Puy: Until regular lentils, these compact, sharp-edged lentils are grown in volcanic soil and allowed to dry on the stalk. Their terroir gives them a minerally flavor. But what’s even nicer is that they don’t turn to mush when you cook them. About 25 minutes in boiling water with an onion half, a bay leave, some thyme, and maybe a few chunks of bacon. Drain, season, and serve. Or add tiny cubes of cooked carrots, celery, and fennel, let cool, and toss in some crumbled goat cheese and nuts—voilà, the perfect side dish or lunch in about half and hour. I always keep a bag on hand and they’re about one-quarter of the price in France than they are outside of France. Most well-stocked supermarkets sell green lentils and although you can find regular green lentils easily, if you see the lentilles de Puy, grab those.

6. Kitchen Gadgets: Although large cookware is unwieldy and not always a bargain in France, small gadgets and paring knives, especially those made in France, are. Outdoor markets always have stalls of people selling everything from Opinel knives to little tartlet molds. Yes, you can buy them at the specialty shops around Les Halles, but they’re not selling madeleine molds for €2 or wooden-handled Nogent paring knives for €5.

If you’re not able to hit the market, La Vaissellerie, which has shops all over Paris, also has quite a few kitchen gadgets available inexpensively.

(Tip: The cutlery with the bee or fly on the handle may be labeled Laguiole, but is not the authentic, high-quality cutlery from that region. The name was never trademarked and a real Laguiole knife will not cost less than €50. Two reputable makers of Laguiole cutlery are Forge de Laguiole and Laguiole en Aubrac, among others.)

7. Christine Ferber Jam: Every American I know goes nuts over these jams and jellies from the famed Alsatian jam-maker Christine Ferber. I make my own, and as much as people want to quiz me about which one to buy, I’ve only tried one or two…but her flavors sure look tempting. And I know many a folk who’ve returned home from their trip with a lone jar, who write frantically wondering where they can get more in America. (You can’t.) The best selection is at La Grand Épicerie, however Da Rosa sells them as well, although they’re a few more euros per jar.

8. Salted Butter: Really great salted butter is available in every French supermarket (Tip: Look for one with a blue and white label and aux cristaux de sel de mer, or ‘with sea salt crystals’) and if your home country allows it, you can bring back blocks of this butter and store it in your home freezer for months. If traveling during non-summer months, I put blocks in zip-top bags and bring them to friends, too. Most butter will survive a several hour trip just fine, but if you bring an insulated freezer bag and ‘ice bricks’ (ask a friend or your hotel to chill it overnight) over with you, you can make good use of them on the return trip.

If you want to bring back top-quality French butter, you can buy Bordier butter at La Grand Épicerie, Da Rosa and Breizh Café or Pascal Bellevaire butter, which is pretty great too, at any of their fromageries or La Grand Épicerie.

9. Speculoos Cream: I lugged a few jars of this spread back to the states to friends, and I got notes in my Inbox with expletives from them a few days later, saying I’ve ruined them for life. This gingersnap-like Speculoos cream is a bit of sweet-spicy heaven in a jar. It’s just a few euros in most supermarkets and can be found in the same aisle with the jams and chocolate-hazelnut spreads.

10. Valrhona Cocoa Powder: I hesitate to call for specific brands in recipes when I’m writing them up because 1) it’s frustrating when you want to make a cake and you need to mail-order for something, and 2), Not everyone can afford the same swanky products. However I do find that this French-made cocoa powder is much darker and more flavorful than any other and because it makes such a difference, I’ve found that the results are dramatically different (ie: less intense) if made without it. If you’re a dedicated home baker, you can buy a 3 kilo (6 1/2 pounds) of this cocoa powder at G. Detou for around €35. It’ll keep for a few years in your pantry because it’s packed in air- and light-tight bags. If you’re not a dedicated baker, you’ll be happy to know that it comes packed in three individual bags, so you can split the booty with friends.

Bonus #11: Hazelnut Praline Paste—I had to add this one at the last minute because I brought some American friends into the shop of John-Charles Rochoux last week and after they were done swooning over the tiny spoonful offered, they picked up four jars of this spread made of darkly caramelized hazelnuts, using fresh nuts of the highest quality, then ground to a smooth paste. Words can’t describe how good this tastes—just make sure not to put the it in your carry-on: it’d be a shame if the customs officers got to enjoy it, instead of you."

Recipe: Salmon Fishcakes

2011-11-07T13:57:00.004+08:00

Sometimes food doesn't have to be complex. Sometimes it can be really, really simple. Like this recipe for salmon fishcakes, which I got from a South African colleague. He reminisced about growing up in a community where there wasn't a lot of refrigeration, so his mother depended on tinned food to feed him as a young boy.

These are really simple to make, you can use tins of red salmon but you can also add fresh fish to them, or even chunks of scallop or crab and mashed potato, red scallions and capers, if you're feeling fancy. They taste best when they are served piping hot!

Ingredients:
(Serves 6)
1 can or 16 ounces red salmon
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley or cilantro
ground black pepper, to taste
2 large eggs, well beaten
1 cup fine dry bread crumbs
3 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup of vegetable or flavourless oil
5 tablespoons flour
juice of a lemon

Method:
1. Turn salmon and liquid into a medium mixing bowl. Flake with a fork, removing or mashing any bones (they are edible).
2. Mix in chopped onion, parsley and pepper.
3. Mix beaten eggs with salmon. Add enough bread crumbs, about 1/2 to 3/4 cup, to make thick enough to shape into 12 small patties.
4. Roll patties in flour. I found it easiest to shape them (I prefer mine small and bite-sized), then drizzle and pat dry flour onto the patties, taking care to fry them before they became wet again.
5. In a large heavy skillet over low heat, melt 2 tablespoons of butter with 1/2 cup of oil; add patties.
6. Fry patties slowly on one side; turn patties and fry until brown on the other side. Some people prefer to pan-fry the patties with just the oil, I find this presents a problem with making the patties stick but it's probably healthier.
7. Serve with ketchup, cilantro chiffonade and a squeeze of lemon.

* Thank you to M. for the gorgeous photographs!

Miscellaneous Food: Christmas Fruit Cake 2011

2011-11-03T10:29:00.008+08:00

It's that time of year again, my favourite season, when fall fades into the carolling whites of winter. We've been soaking Christmas fruit for some time now and this year, we’re also offering some fruitcake for sale. This is a limited production because we're really baking for family consumption so the cakes are baked with great ingredients and lots of love and care. The fruits are soaked in good rum for six weeks, folded into a rich, moist crumb with fresh citrus peel, whole vanilla pod scrapings and nuts, then baked for an hour and a half, to a smooth, honey-brown finish!

There are two sizes available, a 6-inch square cake for $40 or loaf cakes of 3-inch x 6-inch for $22 each. The cakes come individually wrapped and ribboned, self-collection (in Singapore only, sorry!) in mid-December. Perfect for your own enjoyment or as gifts for friends and family!

Please email weyzhan@gmail.com or leave a comment with your contact information, to place orders.

Review: Keystone Restaurant

2011-10-02T10:40:00.004+08:00

Whoever owns Keystone Restaurant really has a thing for rocks. "By its nature, a Keystone is an architectural feature, which... encompasses strength and resilience, and its mighty characteristics make it the most integral part of every structure", the restaurant's website declares.

Fair enough, I suppose, but it's only if we remember that "keystone" also describes a type of limestone does that explain why all the tables are set with grey and black tablecloths, or why the waitresses are all kitted out in ashen suits, and why the plates have slate inlays.

Even the bread, it would appear, is in theme. Not that I'm complaining; the jet black sphere of focaccia bread, dyed with (I think) squid ink, is served piping hot, and when broken open exudes a lovely aroma of rosemary and olives. I'm not usually impressed by bread at restaurants, but I must say this was excellent.

The restaurant considers itself modern European, which unfortunately means a penchant for the menu to describe everything in only proper nouns ("Pistachio & Peanut Butter | Custard | Brittle | Chocolate Pool"), but, more positively, also a willingness to explore different flavour and texture combinations, such as an amuse-bouche of toasted tomato crostini with bone marrow, which was both crunchy and unctuous.

Modern European doesn't necessarily mean a lack of Asian flavours though, as the lobster and ginger consomme demonstrates. The broth, perhaps darker than I would have imagined, carries with a subtle heat and the distinctive taste of the ginger rhizome, while the supple ravioli enfolds the lobster meat like an upmarket shrimp wanton.

A starter entitled "Shimeji and Shiitake" was not exactly what I had expected, for I had envisioned the mushrooms being the main event, but it turned out that "Baby Spinach | Asparagus | Fennel | White Truffle Emulsion" meant the dish was in fact a baby spinach salad with mushrooms. Still, the delicate nuttiness of the spinach leaves, together with the earthy mushrooms, and what appeared to be pine nuts rather than fennel seeds, made for a fairly enjoyable salad.

The petite portions of the appetisers are misleading, however, as the main courses soon revealed. The sous vide Norwegian salmon, glazed with kome migu miso, is enormous, and a generous bedding of julienned sugar peas ensures that there's always something to go with it. Sous vide is a marvellous way of cooking a fatty fish like salmon, for it ensures that the salmon does not become tough and leathery, but instead retains its oleaginous mouthfeel and beautiful colour.

Unfortunately, sous vide technology was not entirely sufficient to prevent my La Sirena chicken breast from drying out slightly (as far as I'm concerned no Western chicken breast can beat a properly-prepared Hainanese chicken rice breast), though it was a valiant effort, and with a sauce of melted Gruyere cheese, it was easily overlooked.

The desserts at Keystone are, perhaps, the keystone, for the passionfruit cake was the perfect combination of light, fluffy coconut sponge and sweet passionfruit sorbet, served with an intense raspberry sauce to counterbalance the sugar content.

The valrhona fondant I had was a thing of beauty - having baked these things myself, I know how difficult it is to make them appear attractive, but Keystone's version was perfectly formed, without any hint of cocoa dusting or any of the other common imperfections. Served with a sudachi (a Japanese citrus fruit) sorbet, and with peach spheres (really they were globules rather than true spheres), I could think of no better way to end the meal.

Food at Keystone certainly does not disappoint, but at $38 for three courses and coffee, Keystone's set lunch seems somewhat steep to me, especially for a relative newcomer located in Stanley Street, which is its biggest drawback, for it is impossible to find a parking lot at lunchtime. Perhaps it would do well to remember that a "keystone" species is also one that has a disproportionately significant effect on its environment, and if Keystone Restaurant aspires to that position, there is still some evolution in its future.

Keystone Restaurant
11 Stanley Street
Tel: +65 6221 0046
Website

Miscellaneous Food: Pierre Herme's Macaron Cookbook

2011-09-19T11:23:00.012+08:00

This week, I celebrated the launch of the Pierre Herme book in English in a big way by baking with C. and K. of MadBaker fame. I picked the two flavours that had the biggest impact on me when I tried them in Paris, Jasmine and Olive Oil. These were flavours that both my baking buddies had never considered but they gamely agreed to have them a go. K was even gracious enough to lend her gorgeous photographs to the occasion, please visit her blog for more beautiful macaron creations here

The session was relatively without incident. Clearly, the baking gods were smiling down upon us, even with white chocolate recipes that are prone to seizing up. The Italian meringue recipe for the shells is not different to what I usually use, only the addition of colouring surprised me- there is quite a lot of colouring added and it makes the batter somewhat softer than I am accustomed to.

For the first recipe, we steeped jasmine tea in cream, which was then added to the melted white chocolate. K's concern was the too-high proportion of liquid to solids in Pierre Herme's ganache recipes, which is something that has been brought up before. Mine was the amount of tea used, I knew from my experience with Darjeeling tea tarts that a copious and wasteful amount of tea must be used to extract flavour in cream or custards. The recipe called for just 25g of tea, which seemed improbable, given that we were then diluting it with a far more flavourful white chocolate.

Both concerns as it turned out, were accurate, we reduced the cream:solids ratio to 1:1 for the jasmine recipe which worked out well but the flavour was still weak and like the earlier Earl Grey macarons, dissapated fairly quickly. In his footnote, Pierre Herme says he uses Sambac jasmine essence for this macaron, which is definitely something I would consider if I made this again.

The book, I concluded, is quite a fascinating read about all the different flavours, sorted in buckets like staples and then "fetish" flavours. Some of the photography is just beautiful and breath-taking, for example, the pure-white Alba truffle macaron, which is shot against a panel of mirrored glass, or the ostraica caviar macaron, sitting amonst jet black caviar in a vat of dark lilac ice cubes. However, some of the photography shows smashed macarons and collapsed interiors.

There are also some inexcusable errors in the book, which really should have been spotted by the copy editor and which leads me to suspect that there wasn't a recipe tester. For example, in the carrot macaron recipe, the ingredients list excludes the chocolate ganache, while the method includes it. For the Milk Chocolate and Earl Grey Tea Macaron, the ingredients list includes 12g cocao pate but nowhere in the method does the ingredient appear.

For the olive oil macarons, we used a strong, fruity Provence oil from A L'Olivier, which wound up being somewhat too strong. I was looking for the greenest Italian olive oil, thinking this would have the strongest flavour but we would have been better off with a young but fruity French olive oil. If you are going to try the recipe, I would strongly advise using a single vineyard oil, I've bought one before from a Parisien farmer's market that would have been perfect for this purpose.

We emulsified the oil into the ganache, which formed a fragrant, smooth paste, then loaded the inside of the macaron with diced Sicilian green olives that had been washed of their brine. These Silician olives are darker green, larger and sturdier then the regular Greek Kalamata olives and they are fantastic, turgid and chewy, with a real salty kick.

K. did most of the heavy lifting of sifting and macronage for these, while C. and I got to do the fun parts, like slicing, piping, matching and filling. I stacked them with dark chocolate ganache macarons in assortment boxes and overall, I'm really happy with the way the recipes turned out, even if we probably will move on to the more conservative flavours!

* Having now made some additional flavours, I realize that there is two added issues- first, the addition of colouring to the egg white tends to make the shells soft and wet. Also, some recipes call for compotes which are frozen into jellies (like in the Arabella macaron), without gelatin. These frozen jellies are then sandwiched within the ganache but when they start to melt, they also make the macarons shells wet and soft.

Recipe: Prune Cake

2011-09-13T19:43:00.005+08:00

Doesn't it look delicious? It is, too. This is a family secret recipe, a prune cake with a small amount of cocoa (to darken it), that is moist, delicious and yet fairly healthy. The method used in this recipe is similar to a sticky toffee date pudding and produces the same soft and loose crumb texture. I'm not a prune fan but it is so, so good, chock full of smooth, sweet fruit and then just a little decadent with the chocolate. A huge hit at home and I would think, very acceptable for older folk and kids.

Ingredients:
320 grams pitted prunes
250 ml water
200 grams all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
50 grams cocoa powder
230 grams butter, room temperature
210 grams caster sugar
5 eggs
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:

1. Boil the prunes in the water until the prunes soften. Strain the boiled prunes to reserve 160 ml of juice. Allow the prunes to cool, then chop finely.
2. Pre-heat the oven to 165 degrees Celsius.
3. Sieve the flour, baking soda and cocoa powder separately. Mix them together and sieve again.
4. Prepare a 7-inch by 10-inch baking pan. Using a paper towel, spread a thin layer of butter on the bottom and sides of the pan. Line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper and spread with butter again. Dust the pan with flour and discard any excess flour.
5. Using an electric mixer, cream butter and caster sugar together until pale yellow and fluffy.
6. Add the eggs one at a time. Mix until creamy. Do not overbeat. If the mixture curdles, add a spoonful of the flour mixture and resume mixing.
7. Add the vanilla extract to the prune juice.
8. Fold the flour mixture and prune juice into the batter. You can use a mixer on low speed or fold by hand.
9. Add the flour mixture alternately with the reserved prune juice. Mix well each time and always end with the flour mixture.
10. Fold in the chopped prunes, mix well and pour into the baking pan.
11. Bake for about 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted in centre comes out clean.
12. When the cake is ready, remove from the oven to cool for about 5 minutes in the baking pan, before inverting the cake to cool over a wire rack.
13. The cake is best served at room temperature after resting overnight.

* A huge thanks to M. for the gorgeous photo.

Miscellaneous Food: The New Miette Cookbook

2011-09-13T19:36:00.006+08:00

I don't know if you've heard me say it before but my favourite bakery in the world is Miette, in the San Francisco Ferry Terminal. My friends all cringe when they hear me talk about it yet again but you have to remember that back in the day, it was one of the first bakeries to champion the use of local produce, organic, fresh dairy and it was helmed by a home baker who got her start running stalls at farmers markets.

I loved everything about them, from their little loaves of lemon tea cakes to their packagine, stickers in cool powder tones and cursive fonts that walked the fine line between elegant and cute. Miette's tagline is American, impeccable and charming. Even the owner's name, Meg Ray, is so impeccably and charmingly American, don't you think?

When the Miette cookbook eventually hit the market, I didn't hesistate to pick up a copy and was excited to finally be able to execute some of the treats that I had enjoyed for so long. For those who are interested, yes, the book is much cheaper online then in Singapore bookstores.

No sooner had the book been delivered, I received a retraction notice for mistakes in the book. Upon reading the book, this is very apparent, in one recipe, 1 1/2 cups is converted as 7.5 oz while 1 1/4 cups is converted as 4.5 oz. The 61 reviews on Amazon point similarly to poor technical editing and poorly-written and therefore unclear directions, and the price has plunged from the initial $28 to $15. Luckily for me, American consumer rights meant that Amazon would send me a new copy of the corrected book in October and I could also keep the copy that I had already received. No such luck for people who bought it in stores in Singapore.

We had decided to test two of the recipes, the first the lime meringue tart and the second, the tomboy cake and the third recipe we made was David Leibovitz White Chocolate Ice Cream. However, this day of baking was not destined to be as successful as last month's. First, I bought lemons instead of limes. Nothing loath, we made the custard for the ice cream, melted down the white chocolate and churned the ice cream and swirled in some artisinal grape jam from Lisbon that I received from my Portugese neighbour (no incidents here).

Then we grated the lemon, squeezed the lemon juice and stirred the curd over a water bath. Ray's lemon curd recipe is not unusual, but what stands out about it is a high proportion of lemon rind and a huge amount of butter that is stirred and melted into the cooling lemon curd. We doubled the recipe but if it seems too little, not to worry, it really lightens and puffs up as butter is stirred in and as the mixture cools.

We used her sweet tart pastry for the tart shells, as opposed to the graham cracker crust, graham crackers being in rather short supply in Singapore! This doesn't give you as nice a honeyed colour on the tart but the texture is lighter, flakier and saltier. It is a really interesting recipe, it calls for cream into the tart batter, which I'd never done before (but which makes a lot of sense).

The most annoying part of the recipe, for me, was the boiled icing. In theory, this shouldn't be hard to make at all. Boiled icing is the starting point for macaron meringue, for marshmellows and for buttercream icing, utilising the same method of heating a sugar syrup and pouring it into beaten egg white. The first time though, I didn't read the recipe carefully, which said, beat for 10 minutes only, if you continue beating, the icing will become hard and stiff and impossible to swirl. I realized this mistake precisely as I was trying to swirl the icing. We wound up beating the whole lot into buttercream and starting over.

The second time, I neglected to use a candy thermometer and the mixture became too hot. C. turned off the flame and the sugar started to caramelize. I turned the flame back on, realizing this but then even as it uncrystallized, the mixture became even hotter. When it was poured into the egg white, we started to see little grains of sugar, becoming visible in the previously smooth icing. Great. From then on, it was a balance of trying to smoothen out the icing without beating it stiff.

This recipe really does work well and the lemon tarts are gorgeous when they are cold. However, I started to feel that Ray leave out a lot of the technique in her writing. The recipes are okay, in fact, the lemon curd recipe is excellent but there is very little instruction on presentation and what there is, is pretty skimpy. It makes it sound like everyone should know how to level a cake evenly or swirl icing with a spoon. There aren't really step-by-step pictures in the book either, the pictures unhelpfully cut out when the going gets tough.

For example, what I did at first, pipe the lemon curd with little tips in the center, is actually not helpful to layering on the boiled icing. To ensure that the icing covers the curd, it's better for the curd layer to be flat, rather than domed. It is also easier to work with cold curd, so that it doesn't shift around as much, when the icing is piped on top of it. It would also have been helpful to have some idea of how much icing to pipe in- too much and you wind up swirling the meringue out and overflowing the tart shell, too little and it can be hard to form any swirl at all. It took a long time to get these going and they don't even look anywhere as pretty as in the book.

The tomboy cake is another example of a really interesting recipe but a rather screwed up presentation guide. This is one of the first instances where I've experienced a recipe where the chopped chocolate is melted with hot water! This is added to eggs beated with oil, then buttermilk and vanilla essence are added and the dry ingredients, flour, cocoa and leavening agents. Most of the chocolate from this recipe actually comes from the 1 1/4 cups of cocoa, because there is only 60g of actual chocolate. The resulting mixture is somewhat thick and gunky.

This went into two 6 inch pans and the recipe actually says 2 6-inch cakes can be made. However, we experienced two exploded cakes and were only able to salvage enough layers from both to make one cake. This was my first experience with a cake doweler and I have to say, it's a really nifty little device. It's essentially two levels, attached by a thin wire that cuts through the cake.

As we started to stack the cake, the puzzled of why the cakes seemed to be a little dry, so low and violently bloomed was solved. C. picked up the crumbs of the cake cap, expecting to taste something really fudgy and moist, instead she let out a scream. "It's tasteless, it's tasteless!" Alas, between the both of us, we had neglected to add the substantial amout of sugar, right at the end of the recipe. One of the odd things about the recipe, was that the sugar was added right at the end, with the dry ingredients. Having got to that stage in the recipe, we'd both assumed, incorrectly, that the sugar had already been incorporated and hadn't given it a second thought.

The only good thing about baking mistakes is that if you make them with the right person, gales of laughter ensue. We were already well onto piping the layers with raspberry-flavoured buttercream and it was much too late to cry about spilt milk. Tasting the cake with the buttercream seemed to suggest that the buttercream had more than enough sugar for the both, in fact, as C. corrrectly surmised, people would probably like the cake for the often-quoted reason "it isn't too sweet".

Piping a tomboy cake is not easy and I felt there were insufficient instructions to making it look presentable. Although there was a fair amount written about each layer, there really needed to be more photos that showed in between steps, rather than each layer as completed. As you can see from the photos, we would have done better if we had used a larger star tip, if we had known to only pipe one layer of icing on each cake base and if we'd known better how to smoothen the top surface. You can really only take one shot at doing the top surface and often what happens is that the icing gets pushed out toward the edges of the cake, in fact overflowing the cake surface.

That's how we wound up with the crumbs and smears on one part of the cake (near the top layer). This is a really fiddly cake to ice and doesn't allow any room for mistakes as all the layers are exposed. I also don't know that it's the best chocolate cake that I've eaten but it is pretty good and dense. C. had also tried the hot milk cake and found it quite dry, similarly, this cake was not very moist but it did have a slightly sticky texture and thick crumb, if you like this sort of very typical dark American chocolate cake.

All in all, I'm not sorry I bought the Miette cakebook but I do think it's more of a charming book than it is an instructional one. C. contrasted it to Dorie Greenspan, whose products are quite rustic and not good to look at but which have a great taste and technicality. Also, we weren't sure how much would be omitted, given that Ray is the proprietor of Miette, she might not be able to share all her secrets with readers.

Review: Zambuca

2011-09-13T12:11:00.000+08:00

Despite being so out of the way, the Pan Pacific Hotel has a rather impressive stable of restaurants catering to a variety of tastes: you have Hai Tien Lo serving high-end Cantonese cuisine, Rang Mahal handling posh Indian food, and Keyaki's dependable Japanese offerings in their adorable rooftop garden.

Strangely, however, I don't think I've ever been to Zambuca, a stalwart of the Italian dining scene.

The restaurant is a rather dramatic affair at night, as the liberal use of dark colours throws the pristine white tablecloths (which are illuminated by spotlights) into stark contrast, and suffuses the entire restaurant with an intense, respectful, and indeed almost sepulchral atmosphere.

Seated in couches at the right of the dining hall gave us a clear view out into Suntec City, which, for some reason, cast a rather ethereal blue light on its surroundings.

A lovely champagne peach Bellini as an aperitif, and dinner was ready to start. Zambuca is one of those rare restaurants that offers a set menu for dinner, and what is even rarer is that the set menu price can be discounted with the use of appropriate credit cards. Although I cannot now remember how much dinner cost, I do recall thinking at the time that it was surprisingly affordable.

Our amuse bouche was a delightful mushroom-topped crostini, which married the crunchy toast with the slippery, supple mushroom bits in a delectable bite-sized morsel.

I was under the impression that a waitstaff had told me the soup of the day was "mushroom soup", so I was somewhat surprised to receive a pumpkin soup, but it may well have been that I was not listening very carefully, and in any event the pumpkin soup had a wonderful golden hue and a lovely velvety texture, with just the right amount of natural sweetness, making it an extremely enjoyable first course.

S had a pair of grilled scallops on puff pastry and accompanied by some chicory. The scallops appeared to me to be plump and delectable, and sure enough they were wolfed down without much difficulty.

The problem, I find, is that while serving food on slate plates or tablets is visually quite attractive, they make for terrible photos because the dark rock absorbs a great deal of light. Still, I had no complaints with how my tenderloin actually tasted, and the vegetables with which it was paired (some sliced asparagus and wilted spinach) provided sufficiently contrasting flavours and textures to liven up the medium-done steak.

S's prawn capellini looked a little heavy-handed with the tomato sauce, but I suppose this sort of thing is to a large extent a matter of taste - in particular, how much of a taste you have for tomatoes.

We shared a tiramisu, which no self-respecting Italian restaurant can afford to leave off its menu, but unfortunately I was not particularly impressed with Zambuca's offering: it was rather thick and dry, with very little sponge, so it felt like I was eating a particularly dense clotted cream which had hardened after being left untouched for too long.

Overall, Zambuca serves extremely respectable Italian cuisine in a classy and comfortable setting, and with a fairly unbeatable set dinner, there's really no reason not to come here with friends or loved ones to unwind on a Friday night.

Zambuca
Level 3, Pan Pacific Hotel
7 Raffles Boulevard
Tel: +65 6826 8240
Website
(Closed Sundays)

Review: Luke's Oyster Bar and Chop House

2011-09-11T21:33:00.000+08:00

If you are in the mood for a splurge, this is the new place in town to do it. Filled to the brim with buzzing expat-y types and with prices to match ($75 for a lobster pot pie), the first thing that strikes you about Luke's is its smart, poshly convincing New York-esque exterior.

Despite chef Travis Masiero's mantra of serving up home-casual cooking, this is unlike most chop and chowder houses in the USA, the best of which tend to be fairly rugged affairs (think Swan Oyster Bar and Peter Lugur's).

Luke's is definitely on the upscale, city-fied end of the date or ladies-who-lunch restaurant spectrum, sort of a cleaned-up and Sex-in-the-city version of Pearl Oyster Bar. This is one of those urbane spots that tells you Singapore has arrived, although arrived at where is a very apt question with the serious over-congestion of our roads.

The produce is lovely, oysters from both coasts are fresh and unlike the typical Singaporean buffet experience, the briney taste of the ocean still lingers. Unlike the typical buffet meal or the shuck stations of the USA, these are $6 per piece or $60 per dozen. There is Happy Hour pricing before 6pm for oysters and beer though, something you might want to consider if you are more on a budget.

We also tried the traditional New England clam chowder ($17), served in a small glass jar, with a generous serving of clams, the crab cakes and the scallops, which I thought were the two best dishes.

We enjoyed the starters with the home-baked corn bread, which, served warm and crumbly with some creamed butter dusted with paprika, was probably one of the best I've had in a long while. I also enjoyed the salads ($24), the Caesar Salad and the Beetroot salad (mixed with greens, mint leaves, orange sections and radish), were both generously sized and excellent.

The crab cakes were dense and heavy with crab meat ($45 for 2) and the scallops were fat, juicy and perfectly seared. We also ordered the old-school hash browns, this was served as a round disc of light rosti, or shaved potato, this had been crisply fried and was delicious.

The lunchtime menu features a traditional New England Lobster Roll ($45), steamed lobster chunks with home-made aioli, served in a toasted hot dog bun. I was slightly disappointed by the lobster roll, as I felt the meat was a bit soft and the bun could have been fatter, thicker and more well-toasted (it really shouldn't be like a soft Gardenia hot dog bun). I have heard similar complaints from other diners that the bread (not cornbread) was also too doughy and the food too salty.

I'm nitpicking here though, as there really aren't any lobster rolls to be had in Singapore, so short of flying to New York or bestirring to make it myself, I'll have to get to Luke's to get my fix.

The menu also includes meats like prime ribeye ($82) and well-marinated lamb chops ($65), which I tried on a subsequent lunch visit. The steak was good but not really memorable (memorable being the wild perfection of Osteria Mozza's $200 Bistecca Florentina). Also, without ordering a meat, to be honest, most men would probably leave dinner slightly hungry. Though, with a crowd this rich, white and thick, that probably isn't an issue. Business was packed from the start of the evening at Happy Hour and the restaurant runs two punctual covers, which is a good thing to know if you're intending to linger on dinner.

It is impossible to get a table even mid-week, unless you have booked ahead. Given Singapore's rising affluence and the foreign population, unless the economy tanks, I would really expat it to remain that way!

Masiero, who has overseen a few restaurants either as chef or consultant since he moved to Singapore several years ago (Wine Garage, Spruce and Spruce Taqueria), knows his way around a casual all-American menu and delivers well into what the his following wants. This place has the beautiful control and standards of a owner-operated place, with all the charm of a family-operated restaurant.

I'm really pleased to see his success, as he is the most self-effacing and diffident chef. He's friendly and competent but not oozy, much like his well-trained service staff. There are a couple of shortcomings, none more so than the top restaurants in Singapore, which is why I think if you want a really good meal on a special occasion, this is definitely the place to head to.

Luke's Oyster Bar and Chop House
20 Gemmill Lane, Singapore 069256
Phone: 6221 4468
Website
Closed on Sundays

Review: Taratata Bistrot

2011-09-11T19:15:00.010+08:00

As the 10th year anniversary of 9/11 came and went, I couldn't help recalling what the dining scene was like 10 years ago, and musing to myself that, although there've always been hotel restaurants, it wasn't that long ago that the only place you could generally go for French bistro food was Au Petit Salut at Holland Village.

Times have changed since then, and these days you're more likely to find French food in the CBD, as is the case with Taratata Bistrot, a restaurant that's one of the latest editions to Keong Saik Road. Certainly, as you can see, the look is absolutely spot-on, what with the maroon-backed booths, salt-and-pepper tile flooring, and lamps that could pass for being gas-fired, though I'm not entirely sure about the lack of the door; the proprietors may have been trying to go for that Parisian summer feel, but it does get somewhat uncomfortable.

Set lunches are priced at $28 for two courses and $32 for three (including coffee), and the menu changes pretty frequently, but hostess Beatrice is always on hand to explain what's on offer, which, as you'd expect, is classic bistro fare like charcuterie, boeuf bourguignon and cassoulet. In the kitchen are the owners, Philippe Nouzillat and Bertrand Raguin, who are obviously old hands.

My crab starter salad was a little unexpected; the menu had said something about "stuffed tomato", so I envisioned an enormous heirloom tomato stuffed with fresh crabmeat, and as a result I was disappointed with what I received, as it was essentially a garden salad with some crab mayonnaise, which was resting on rather than stuffing a tomato cross-section.

The soup of the day was a mushroom soup, which was quite decent, if a little light-coloured. It is a bit unfortunate that we generally do not get tasty mushrooms in Asia, as it makes it difficult to satisfactorily produce staples like mushroom soup: it's a little bit like trying to create good sushi in Liechtenstein.

Sadly, I was rather underwhelmed by my main course, a grilled onglet steak served with a Madagascan peppercorn sauce. The steak was rather small, and it was smothered with sauce which contained a great deal of peppercorns, and as a result went from being piquant to excessively peppery quite quickly. The beans were nothing special either, but the fries were actually excellent.

I didn't try the sauteed cod fillet, but it seems the fries don't come with everything, while the beans do.

The creme brulee was served in a classically shallow dish, but also rather untraditionally accompanied by vanilla ice cream. Although it looked spectacular when it was first served, with a brilliantly scorched surface, I soon discovered that underneath that attractive crust, the creme brulee was in fact very runny, which is probably the last adjective you want running through your mind when eating a dish with eggs in it.

The molten chocolate cake arrived with some luscious vanilla ice cream and an unexpected moat of creme anglaise. The problem, I find, with serving something familiar like warm chocolate cake, is that small errors are instantly magnified by the lens of ubiquity, and as a result, the fact that the caked had been slightly over-baked was instantly recognisable due to the unusual viscosity of the chocolate lava.

Overall, I wasn't all that impressed with what Taratata had to offer. Still, the restaurant is new, and it looks like they're putting a lot of effort into new dinner menus, so we may yet see exciting things from the Nouzillat-Raguin duo. In the meantime, though, it's probably safe to say that the French bistro scene in Singapore is not yet exhausted.

Taratata Bistrot
35A Keong Saik Road
Tel: +65 6221 4506
Website

Recipe: Torrijas

2011-08-31T09:38:00.016+08:00

It should come as little surprise that I am not, a natural morning person. I have, on occasion in my life, been an unnatural morning person but given my rathers, I'd start at 10am and then with a short break for dinner and a shower, happily settle into work at 8pm and work through the night.

Strange therefore, that breakfast should be one of my favourite meals. It is not something I eat often, I usually skip breakfast all together but once in awhile, I like to get up and cook breakfast. I think this has something to do with breakfast foods, like milk, honey, eggs, bacon and how they smell, drifting through the house, especially on a cold winter's day. I'm convinced also, that my soft spot for breakfast is because when I was little, once a week, my mom would make french toast or bacon and eggs for a family breakfast.

This is a really wicked recipe for Torrijas, contributed by my Spanish colleague. I'm told it is the Hispanic take on french toast and that soaking in egg or milk is inherant to their desserts, witness for example, the Tres Leches cake. I've tried it at home and I completely concur, the deep-fat frying in oil is completely off-putting but I couldn't stop myself from devouring a slice and then another, and then a third. The syrup pairs orange, cinnamon, honey and white wine in a brilliant and addictively sweet and sharp combination.

Ingredients:
1 pint milk
4-6 eggs
1 loaf white bread
4 tablespoons sugar
Vegetable oil for frying
1 stick cinnamon

Wine syrup
750 ml white wine
4 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons sugar
Rind of ½ an orange
Rind of ½ a lemon
2 sticks cinnamon

Milk syrup
750 ml milk
4 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons sugar
Rind of ½ an orange
Rind of ½ a lemon
2 sticks cinnamon

Method:
1. Boil the milk into a saucepan with the cinnamon stick. Set aside to cool.
2. Beat all the eggs in a deep dish.
3. Cut the bread into thick slices of about ½- inch, and soak them in the warm milk. Press the bread lightly between your palms to remove the excess liquid. To ensure that the bread does not absorb too much milk, 2 day old bread is preferred. Wide breads such as batard or bloomers are also recommended.
4. Remove from the milk and coat the bread in the beaten egg.
5. Heat the oil in a deep pan and deep fry the bread until golden brown. Drain the excess oil by placing them on paper towels. Arrange the toasts on a serving plate and garnish with additional orange rind, lemon rind and cinnamon sticks.
6. For the wine syrup, place all the ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Continue boiling to reduce the liquid so that it will be infused with the flavours. Repeat for the milk syrup.
7. Set aside the wine and milk syrups to cool. Remove the cinnamon sticks, orange and lemon rinds from the syrups and use to coat the bread.
8. We usually serve the toasts with either the wine or milk syrup. For those that do not have a very sweet tooth, a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar will be equally nice.

* Cook's note, I used baguettes for this picture because I couldn't find another suitable bread on short notice. However, the look and texture of the final product does vary considerably based on the bread used, so if you want a more presentable product, it's better to use a stiffer bread.

Recipe: Mont Blancs

2011-08-30T17:19:00.010+08:00

Before I start, I want to wish my dear friend C. all the best, as she sets out on a new life path, I hope you will know all the sweetness of dreams pursued. This post was possible only because of her patient and provisional help, in fact, I've found the secret to posting good step-by-step photos- have someone else execute the steps for you!

This is her demonstration of the first step to glorious tea-time treats. This dough is Dorie Greenspan's Sweet Tart Dough, which she weighs out to 20 grams and then presses into individual, greased tart tins. These are then baked blind for 20 minutes, till just browned. They are then filled with frangipane and baked again, so don't overbake them the first time. The recipes for both are easily available online.

This post, like all good things, was bourne out of greed. I never used to like Mont Blancs, in fact, I never used to like chestnut. I still don't really. I like little ones, Chinese ones, water chestnuts and those hot crackling ones you used to be able to buy on the streets of Beijing, roasted over a charcoal brazier, but big honking, glazed sweet and cold but starchy inside ones? Yuck, no way.

For years, I thought of Mont Blancs as a sickly sweet yet starchy tart and trying some pretty poor versions did nothing to improve my opinion. It wasn't literally, until last year when I was in Angelina's, in Paris, with a couple of friends and our host, SW, urged me to try one and I thought, "well, why not". I don't know if it's because it was their specialty or because we were having a really great tourist shopping day, but it really worked its magic.

It was light and fluffy, yet sweet and with just a light hint of chestnut sweetness against a dense base of tart and cream. I couldn't stop eating it and enboldened, I stopped on my way out and bought a large bottle of chestnut puree to tip into future macarons.

Months later, of course, this hadn't quite worked out the way I'd expected and the jar was still sitting there, front and center in my pantry, mocking me. So when C. suggested Mont Blancs, I jumped at the chance.

My contribution to this process (and I do mean almost my only contribution), was to suggest that instead of pastry cream inside the Mont Blanc, we could use chocolate mousse. I'd just stumbled upon the recipe from one of my favourite blogs, Canelle Et Vanille's mouth-watering Donna Hay-esque blog and had fixated on this fantastic picture of her tri-chocolate mousse. My goodness, I'd never seen white, milk and dark chocolate so prettily juxtaposed.

Of course, it wasn't till I started the recipe that I realized, with a sinking horror, how much additional work is involved to elevate this mousse to a whipped lightness. This is the how the pate-a-bombe is made, you whip together a mix of glucose, egg yolk and sugar and water. I was slightly alarmed at the sticky, pastey texture of this and I think I may have shortchanged it a little water but it turned out alright in the end.

I tried to follow her recipe exactly, chopping the chocolate and mixing in the pate-a-bombe vigourously into the melted chocolate. I then whipped thick cream and added to the chocolate. For those of you who are counting, that's three times that you have to wash your mixing bowl, for just the mousse alone.

If I ever, ever willingly offer to make these, please know that despite my protestations to the contrary, I must be in love with you. I'm reminded of the Bruce Lee movie where his mean boss at a Chinese restaurant tells him that he will only ever be a "deeshwasher". That's what I think one needs to be an accomplished chef, a really, really good washer-up.

I suppose good things come to those who work and wait. Stir, till it's all mixed. These are the most gorgeous moments of baking, when your chocolate swirls into the cream and all the world is a deliciously carefree mixing bowl.

Eventually, when it starts to resemble chocolate again, refrigerate it for a few hours and this is what you come away with. The colour darkens substantially as it cools.

These are the tarts bases after they've been baked and cooled.

Scoop the chocolate mousse carefully and neatly onto each. I know, I should have used a small melon ball scoop. You can also use a piping bag, if you are using pastry cream, use this instead of the chocolate flavour.

Having tasted both, I prefer the dark, rich base of the chocolate and I love the mix with the crumb of the tart and the chestnut. Some people though, prefer the pastry cream as it is lighter but I find it doesn't provide enough contrast to the chestnut.

Pipe the chestnut streams around and over the ganache. This is the most fun part of the process! As you can see from the picture, Angelina lies, clearly- their bottled chestnut puree is actually not of the same texture that they use in their Mont Blancs, it is far too soft.

This can be remedied by mixing the chestnut with buttercream (beware, it does curdle) and or perhaps by chilling the chestnut until it thickens slightly. I like the light taste and texture of the Angelina's chestnut puree so the next time, I think I will mix it with fresh chestnut puree. Now seeking some Paris-bound mules to bring some back for me.

When they are done, top the Mont-Blancs with icing sugar and chocolate nibs or gold leaf.

Be warned that they are painful little things to craft and very fast to eat. But, they were the first things that I've made in awhile that received raptrous approval from both Mom (aka particular discerning bad cop barometer) and brother (aka particular discerning good cop barometer) and I really thought they tasted fantastic, well-balanced, rich and sweet.

Review: Spring Court

2011-08-30T10:11:00.004+08:00

Sometimes it seems like the Chinese food market here is dominated by just a few names, like Crystal Jade, Imperial Treasure or the Tung Lok Group.

Search a little harder, however, and you will find that there are plenty of other Chinese restaurants, some with very illustrious histories, which still exist and continue to serve very fine food. Sometime last week, I went to just such a place: Spring Court was founded in 1929 and is still a family-run business that now operates out of Upper Cross Street.

Although pretty unassuming from street level, the restaurant is actually huge, occupying a towering four floors, and on a Sunday night, the place was packed. I suspect this has something to do with the fact that Spring Court is currently celebrating its 82nd anniversary, so there are a number of promotions going on, making it extremely value for money. The promotion we enjoyed, for instance, lasts till the end of September, and allows you to order a Peking duck for only 82 cents if your bill comes up to $82 or more. It's hard to think of a better deal than that, if you ask me.

What's really special about Spring Court, however, is the fact that you can still tell it's a family-run restaurant from some of the food it serves, because some of these dishes are like something out of someone's (very professional) kitchen.

The scallop porridge, for instance, is a nice bowl of congee (a little thinner than I am used to) with plump, sweet scallops lurking within. With a sprinkling of freshly-cut chives, this is probably one of the healthier things I've eaten in a Chinese restaurant.

Speaking of eating healthy, I really enjoy eating popiah, but it's not something I get to eat very often because it's so tedious to grate the ingredients and stew them into the sweet, juicy filling they have to become. Why don't I just buy popiah from food courts or hawker centers then? Well, for one thing, I'm quite particular about my popiah, and I find that most commercial sellers don't do a very good job, because the filling tends to be bland, mushy, and not very generous in terms of what you get.

At Spring Court, however, I was happy to see that there was no such problem. The popiah rolls were enormous, and stuffed so full with ingredients that they were virtually bursting at the seams. In fact, they're so large that it's probably difficult for one person to finish one all by him or herself, so you can imagine how we had a slight problem with 8 rolls for 7 people.

Although Upper Cross Street may be a little inconveniently located, it should be said that parking is a breeze as a result of two public car parks located across the road from the restaurant. Service is brisk and pleasant enough, so if you're getting a little tired of the same old Chinese cuisine, maybe it's time to try something more homely at Spring Court.

Spring Court
52-56 Upper Cross Street
Tel: +65 6449 5030
Website

Miscellaneous Food: Chocolate Figs and Cocoa Nibs

2011-07-17T23:40:00.007+08:00

Guess what I did this weekend? Okay, no prizes. I was very fortunate to have two gifts, one of some chocolate ganache and the other, the company of my friend C. for a day of baking. When I reflect on the activities that I've had around blogging and food, one of the most rewarding must definitely be the friends that I've made in the process, people who not just share similar interests but who have brought so much laughter and friendship into my life.

When I say a day of baking, I really mean that it was mammoth. Ambition, much like smoking and obesity, must be catching, for we encouraged and encouraged each other over the week to make not one, but three desserts.

To keep things simple, we made only chocolate shells because I had been generously gifted some chocolate ganache from E. my always-effeversent chocolatier friend. He runs what is in my opinion, the best and most stylish chocolate store in Singapore, so I am really grateful for some of his produce to improve my macarons.

I also wanted to use up two products that I had bought in my travels (I am always doing this, accumulating a pantry full of weird and wondrous ingredients that I afterward struggle to use up).

These were cocoa nibs and chocolate covered dried figs from Australia, which we sliced up and buried in the ganache. I still have some other interesting ingredients up my sleeve, ie. in my pantry, like chocolate covered coffee beans.

The macarons were the easiest part of what we made this weekend and were piped and dried rather quickly. We moved on to making something really exciting, a delicious chocolate and chestnut mont blanc, which I'll show you next.

But first, more gratituous pictures of the products. Gotta love these Wilton trays, they look so professional and stack neatly into one another, so they are a cinch to store in bulk as well. A friend asked me what the allure of macarons is and for me, it's consistency, a drive to produce blindingly exact rounds, each more similar in that marvellous light, airy texture, dense flavourful filling and perfect compact shape than the next.

I was really pleased with how these turned out, high feet, rich ganache and a little surprise in the middle. Next, I'm thinking of sanwiching the ganache with a square of fluffy, home-made vanilla bean marshmellow or perhaps a strawberry marshmellow. I wish I wasn't so busy with work, I dream about making up a roster of flavours and selling these online!

This is a picture of what I did with them afterward. Made up gift boxes that I packed with the intense passionfruit cupcakes, mont blancs and a tube-sleeve of chocolate macarons.

Review: Novus

2011-07-13T22:54:00.014+08:00

Disclaimer: The meal on which this review is based was made possible and paid for by the good people at FoodNews, a food media consultancy, to whom I should acknowledge my substantial thanks for their unstinting hospitality.

Earlier this year I had lunch at Novus, a modern European restaurant situated in the delightful National Museum of Singapore (which, to my great shame, I must confess to never having properly visited). I had quite enjoyed that lunch, and was looking for an opportunity for a return visit, so it was by happy coincidence that I received an invitation to a tasting of a new summer truffle menu the restaurant was unveiling.

For some reason, I had always thought that Novus was a molecular gastronomy restaurant, and as such it was never really on my radar. After two visits, however, I can safely say that that is a misconception, save for the fact that executive chef Stephan Zoisl, having spent some time in Heston Blumenthal's kitchen in The Fat Duck, has incorporated a few valuable avant-garde techniques in his cooking.

Novus is a very large restaurant, and that is evident from its mouthful of a name: Novus Restaurant, Bar, Cafe & Courtyard. The restaurant itself has a long central bench/couch, with tables on either side of it, and flanked by another row of tables against the tall arch fix windows, which in the daytime let in a generous amount of sunlight. With a seating capacity of 48 in the main restaurant, 60 in the dining room, 60 in the cafe and 50 in the courtyard, Novus is an ideal venue for events and conferences, and is often used as such. The size of the main dining hall also meant that the lighting that evening was a little dim, so some of the photos may not do sufficient justice to the food, but I'll try to make up for it with a more detailed review.

An amuse-bouche of tuna tartare and salmon roe, atop a petite crostini drizzled with aceto balsamico combined both sweet and sour, with just enough saltiness from the roe to awaken the appetite for the meal that was to follow.

One of the things I really like about Novus is the amount of care that goes into making your dining experience a pleasant and memorable one. Capitalising on the idea of a museum visit, Novus thoughtfully prints little placards containing bite-size tidbits of information about each dish, and waitstaff place them next to you as they serve each course, ensuring that you are never left wondering what has gone into your food, and more importantly, contextualising the key ingredients of your dish, so that, for instance, you appreciate what goes into the making of buffalo mozzarella. Oddly, however, there was no information card on the summer truffle, which I have since discovered is a species of truffle, visually similar to the black truffle, but of a less intense aroma, which was evident throughout the meal, as, despite the generous truffle shavings on many of the dishes, I was surprised to find that the scent of the truffle did not dominate, as I had expected, but languished subtly in the background.

We were served multiple dishes from each course to showcase the summer truffle, beginning with a veloute of Jerusalem artichoke. I quite enjoyed the mellow nuttiness of the soup, which went particularly well with the delicate flavours imparted by the truffle shavings.

The foie gras anglaise was an unusual method of cooking the goose liver: the main event was a custard made with duck consomme and goose liver parfait, within which was also concealed gingko nuts, stuffed morels, roast foie gras slices, duck confit, all topped with truffle slices. This version of foie gras was not really to my taste, unfortunately, as I found the custard rather runny. On the bright side, however, the fats in the foie gras were able to soak up the perfume of the truffle slices, making each mouthful an almost ephemerally truffle-scented one.

Novus's version of beef carpaccio uses 200-day aged grain-fed Black Angus beef tenderloin, with a quivering poached egg in the middle, surrounded by mozzarella spheres and cherry tomatoes, and sprinkled over with shaved pecorino. The carpaccio came in generous quantities, so much so that the dish nearly resembled a beef tartare in its robustness (and the poached egg), so I was grateful for the luscious mozzarella pearls and the juicy tomatoes, which made the dish less heavy, and more complexly textured.

Main courses were up next, beginning with some ocean trout stuffed with summer truffles and konbu seaweed, resting on a bedding of parsley creme and potato sabayon, and adorned with cottage cheese gnocchi. One of the drawbacks, I think, of having a "themed" menu, is trying to figure out how to incorporate the themed ingredient with the main ingredient, and the trout dish was an example of this. I really enjoyed the trout and its accoutrements: the fish was silky and melting, the gnocchi was soft and supple, and the parsley creme was lovely, but I could not quite tell how the truffle added to, or improved on, an otherwise fantastic combination. To me, the truffle shavings seemed like a distraction at best, rather like the proverbial gilding of the lily.

What of the next dish, which was an organic chicken breast stuffed with truffle salsa and cooked en sous vide, served with root vegetables and truffled potato gratin, and sauced with a dark glaze? Here I thought the addition of the truffles made sense, in that the delicate flavour of the chicken benefitted from an extra fillip. As for the chicken itself, this was where the advantages of sous vide cooking presented itself, for the chicken breast was moist, juicy and tremendously tender. I was not, however, much taken with the potato gratin; for some reason, it was swimming rather unabashedly in cream.

The last of our main courses was an impressive plate of sliced Black Angus beef tenderloin, with wild mushroom duxelles and black summer truffle, a colourful melange of new potatoes, radishes, celery and bell peppers. Accompanying this kingly offering was a side dish of "triple-cooked French fries" - potatoes boiled, chilled, fried, chilled again, and then deep-fried. It is difficult to do justice to this complex dish, which seemed a riot of sensations, textures and colours. The tenderloin was exceptional - uncompromisingly meaty, with just a hint of truffled earthiness - and the French fries were likewise an artful combination of technical sophistication and gastronomic fulfillment.

I was having more than a little difficulty taking shots of the desserts, so the restaurant very kindly turned up the lighting (seeing how well the dessert photos turned out, I did think I should have asked for more lighting from the start). Truffles no longer made an appearance at dessert, but were replaced by more conventional ingredients: in this case, a layered creation of white chocolate and raspberries, draped with dark warm chocolate sauce. I was a little sceptical of the white chocolate to begin with, but my doubts were put to rest as I savoured the mild creaminess of the white chocolate and the contrasting tartness of the raspberries. While perhaps one of Novus's simpler dishes, it was nonetheless undoubtedly effective in its powerfully concentrated flavours.

A signature dessert at Novus has to be the Valrhona Chocolate Test, an indulgent series of mini-desserts arranged in ascending order of cocoa content, namely, a 38% aerated chocolate mousse, a 55% chocolate souffle, a 66% chocolate creme anglaise, a 72% chocolate truffle and a 85% chocolate sorbet. Like something out of the mind of Willy Wonka, this is quite simply a chocoholic's fantasy, and it exhibits the kitchen staff's keen familiarity, if not facility, with chocolate-work. An outstanding tribute to a wonderful ingredient, the Chocolate Test was intoxicatingly enjoyable.

Our final dish for the night was an updated version of a fruit salad: an elegantly abundant assortment of seasonal fruits (blueberries, mangosteens, oranges, raspberries, strawberries), served with chocolate crumble, elderflower granite, wild strawberry espuma and cassis ice cream. Beautifully assembled, and with just the right amount of sugar and citrus, this was the perfect end to a sumptious dinner, cutting through some of the richness of the preceding courses.

Overall, I can't help being impressed by my two visits at Novus. Many of the dishes reviewed above are available for lunch and dinner (some on the regular menu and some only on the seasonal truffle menu), and in them is revealed Chef Zoisl's willingness to push the boundaries of both taste and presentation with his innovative and captivating style of cooking, as well as his ability to stay true to classic, simple flavours and combinations. Set lunch, at $32 for two courses and $40 for three, is prix fixe even with seasonal menus featuring white asparagus and summer truffles, and so is an excellent way of trying some of Novus's more unique offerings without having to break the bank. While prices are higher for dinner, given the generous portions, the inventiveness of the cooking, and the thoughtfulness of the service, I would not say they are unreasonable; rather, if you are looking for something apart from the usual French and Italian fare that eating out always seems to present, or a dinner destination with a charming and evocative ambience (with complimentary parking upon request), Novus might just be Exhibit A.

Novus Restaurant, Bar, Cafe & Courtyard
93 Stamford Road, 01-02 National Museum of Singapore,
Tel: +65 6336 8770
Website

Review: Osteria Mozza

2011-07-06T21:31:00.016+08:00

After telling people that I'd been to db Bistro Moderne, I began to receive advice that I simply had to try Osteria Mozza, located right next to db Bistro Moderne and opened by celebrity chef Mario Batali, of Spotted Pig and Babbo fame.

Mozza has a rather irritating policy of having fixed seating times, so our reservation was for 8.15pm (the earlier seating was at 6.15pm), and consequently dinner did not begin till close to 9. That having been said, however, one sees the good sense of such a policy during the weekend - people were still streaming in at 10pm on the Saturday night that we were there.

Much like the original restaurant in Los Angeles, the eatery in Singapore comes as a pair: an upmarket osteria on the left, the centrepiece of which is an amazing "mozzarella bar"; and a casual pizzeria on the right.

Osteria Mozza has a rather extensive menu, and there were about twelve appetisers to choose from, such as an excellent grilled octopus with potatoes, celery and lemon. While it may have sounded simple, the octopus was truly delicious. I was expecting a baby octopus, and was a little apprehensive at seeing a tentacular segment from what was obviously an adult specimen, but my caution was put to rest when I tried some: the octopus was charred and smokey, and accentuated by the fresh and zesty celery strips and lemon juice.

A towering column of butter lettuce leaves with hazelnuts, bacon, gorgonzola and egg was Mozza's version of a garden salad. A beautiful combination of colours, and an amazing array of textures - leafy lettuce, crunchy hazelnuts, creamy gorgonzola and soft, supple eggs - meant that this dish was quickly devoured.

Although resembling a crab cake, this appetiser was in fact a crispy pig trotter with frisee, apple and mustard, and was, as you can see, unfortunately taken under rather poor lighting conditions.

After that, it was on to items from the fabled mozzarella bar, such as burrata with grilled asparagus, brown butter, guanciale (unsmoked bacon made from pig cheek) and salty breadcrumbs. Burrata and asparagus is not the most common of combinations, but if you think about it, not entirely unnatural, for the blend of slight bitterness with rich creaminess works well in a typical asparagus-hollandaise dish, so why not here?

The ricotta with raddichio, spiced walnuts, honey and fried rosemary I didn't enjoy quite so much, but I put this down mainly to the fact that I prefer burrata to ricotta, and because I don't like walnuts or the sharpness of raddichio.

There was nothing to dislike, however, about a platter of buffalo mozzarella with parma ham. A large dollop of soft, luscious mozzarella, on a bed of blushing pink ham, is quite easily my idea of comfort food. Both cheese and ham were some of the freshest I'd ever tasted, and I could probably have eaten a second and third helping in lieu of a main course.

As should be clear by now, I'd gone to Osteria Mozza with quite a big group, which was conducive to sharing. The restaurant, very obligingly, serves its pasta in two sizes - individual and family portions - so we had a family crockpot of maltigliati (flat, ribbony pasta that's like tagliatelle on steroids) with duck ragu, which was rustic and completely satisfying.

The linguine with clams, pancetta and spicy chillies, however, was rather less impressive, as the addition of the pancetta left an overpowering sensation of saltiness. The chillies, too, were slightly overwhelming, which obscured the delicateness of the clams.

Mains, fortunately, were universally well-received, beginning with the braised short rib with horseradish gremolata. Meltingly tender and unctuous, it was unfortunate that we only ordered one helping, although given that most people were already full by this time, that was probably for the best.

I have often remarked that I am not very partial to fish, but even I had to admit that the grilled whole snapper with herbs and extra virgin olive oil was delectable: the snapper, although a little small, was wonderfully fresh and sweet, and scented through by the herbs that had been stuffed into its belly. The olive oil which the fish had been cooked in, when mixed with lemon juice (from a whole lemon which had been grilled together with the fish), as well as the fish's own cooking juices, created a mellow, citrusy sauce that accentuated the fish's clean taste.

Finally, the meal's piece de resistance was a large porcini rubbed wagyu rib-eye bistecca, which was a thing of beauty. Intensely meaty, but with a perfect, melt in your mouth quality, this was probably why our ancestors became carnivorous.

Osteria Mozza, unlike some of the other celebrity restaurants in town, is not merely a flashy name without any substance, but is a credible contender to being the best Italian restaurant in town. However, as is to be expected with a restaurant with that sort of reputation, the best Italian meal in town is not likely to come cheap. So, save up for a special occasion, and splurge on a deliciously big meal at Osteria Mozza!

Osteria Mozza
2 Bayfront Avenue
B1-42/46 The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands
Tel: +65 6688 8868
Website

Review: Sol Tasca

2011-07-06T12:53:00.005+08:00

I was reading one of the foodie interviews in the papers the other day, and the interviewee commented that there was still a lack of good food from (amongst other regions) Indochina in this country.

To that I would add that there is a severe lack of good Spanish food, although to be fair My Little Spanish Place was not really bad - merely imperfect.

It was with some curiosity and interest, therefore, that I learned that two new Spanish restaurants have opened recently: Sol Tasca at the Fullerton Waterboat House, and Sabio at Duxton Hill. As Sol Tasca was closer, and since Groupon was offering a discount, I made a reservation and sat back to wait.

Well, that's not strictly true. I was early, so I decided to examine the restaurant and take more photos while the light was still good. As can be seen, the address of the restaurant at the Fullerton Waterboat House is not entirely accurate: it is not actually in the Waterboat House; rather, it is under it. To be more precise, it is under the bridge, which means that it can be quite warm, as the air is somewhat still, unless you are seated in an exposed area by the bridge, with a fan to improve air circulation. Perhaps to make up for the less than ideal location, Sol Tasca offers what it calls "the longest happy hour in town", and a live band from Wednesdays to Saturdays (who are actually quite good).

Sadly, however, the food, while tolerable, was not at all memorable. The patatas bravas, for instance, were little cubes of potatoes that looked like they had not been sufficiently fried, and the spicy tomato sauce that covered them looked, at best, poorly prepared, and at worst, manufactured.

The next tapa (incidentally, there seems to be some disagreement over whether the singular of "tapas" is "tapa" or "tapas") was sauteed mushrooms with balsamic vinaigrette. Now, I love mushrooms, and there was nothing actually wrong with these, but the problem with this tapa, as well as most of the other dishes, was that it simply did not taste Spanish. Unlike the tapas from My Little Spanish Place, there was no hint of that hearty earthiness that characterises Andalucian cuisine, with its liberal use of garlics, peppers, olive oil and sherry. The mushrooms, although certainly palatable, were, to put it bluntly, boring.

The sauteed chicken with garlic and chilli continued the disappointing trend. Some of the chicken pieces looked like they were not fully cooked, and those that were tasted no different from ordinary cooked chicken.

The beef balls in sherry tomato sauce, at least, stood out, for they boasted a robust flavour that was quite unusual, and they were bathed in a rich, full-bodied sauce. Their irregular shapes also advertised that they had been hand-made, which is, of course, only proper.

Finally, then, was the main event: seafood paella. As you can see, the lighting by this time was rather poor, but you can just about make out the mussels, peppers and prawns. When the paella first arrived, I thought it was decidedly small, but after some digging, it turned out that the paella dish was much deeper than I had thought. Unfortunately, more was not necessarily better; the paella seemed to me a rather insipid helping of stodgy rice and questionable seafood.

Sol Tasca is a nice place to come after work, where you can chill out to a jug of sangria and the soothing strains of "Oye Como Va", but for good Spanish food, go to Spain.

Sol Tasca
#01-04 The Fullerton Waterboat House
Tel: +65 6533 8913
Closed Mondays

Miscellaneous Food: Florence and London

2011-07-05T17:29:00.006+08:00

We were fortunate to recently take a much-deserved break from work for a trip to Tuscany and along the way, we stopped by in London to visit with some friends. The winding country roads took us to some beautiful, rustic villages, which I remembered well from previous trips there in 2007 and 2009 and while it was good to visit old loves like Solociccia in Panzano, written about here and La Giostra in Florence here, we also found some even more amazing restaurants, primarily in Florence. (In the other areas, we ate mostly in little family-run agriturismo farmhouses or cooked fresh produce at home, purchased from farmers markets)

I would highly recommend both these places, it was like soaking up the sunshine and rawness of the countryside. The first is Trattoria 4 Leoni, set in a beautiful side-street courtyard, perfect for the midday shopping stop and for watching beautiful people. Try the hand-made pastas, especially the pear argula ricotta ravioli , the duck ragu papardelle, the frito misto or the calamari. Their dishes were really delightful, delicate yet with robust flavours. The location is fairly central, just off the commercial stretch so I would recommend the place more for lunch, that way you can fully appreciate charming the semi-outdoor location and charming tuscan crockery.

The other place is definitely a dinner place, also fairly central but out of the small, tall nexus which borders the Piazza della Signoria and a slight trek outward to where the Opera is. This place is called La Sostanza and Frommers calls it "Il Troia" or the through, because people have been lining up at the long communal tables since 1869 to enjoy huge amounts of some of the best traditional food in the city. Despite that omnimous name, I have to say that this was the most mind-blowingly delicious and inspirational meal I had had in a long while.

It is a typical hole-in-the-wall, tiled, cramped, busy and flooded with noise and kitchen aromas, one of those eating experiences that you know will be good because so many people can't be wrong. We had heard of it from a friend whose wife is a Hermes reseller and who is frequently in Europe, he did not recommend it to us, rather he ordered us to go here and so we dutifully made a booking (absolutely necessary as there is not a spare seat in the house, on any night). Upon sitting down, we were entertained by the local family who runs the place, half of whom communicate in no English and a number of hilarious, typically Italian gestures. The menu is short and simple, starters are things like chicken soup with dumplings, or a peasant form of brodo, or ribollita, common to the Tuscan countryside.

There are two mains that are particularly popular, the Bistecca Alla Florentina, which is sliced thickly and slapped over a charcoal grill at the back of the restaurant, and the Petti di Pollo al Burro, the thick chicken breasts fried in butter. The bistecca was excellent, I've had many of them in my life and this ranks as perhaps one of the top two.

When we arrived, I spied a huge block of fresh butter sitting on the marble kitchen counter and out of the corner of my eye, I saw the chef pick up a small frying pan and shovel a large icicle-shape pick of butter into it. This was thrown over the charcoal grill and he started to flour and batter some chicken pieces. These were then fried into a sweet, caramel brown, entirely immersed in the crispy hot butter.

It might look like nothing on earth but looks are deceiving. The flavour was out-of-this-world good, it was like a glorius meld of chicken and cotten candy, like eating the first fried chicken you'd ever tasted, probably like the first chicken Adam and Eve ever tasted. The fried chicken in butter at Sostanza should really be amongst the 10 foods to try before you die. I've been jogging every week since I've been back and I still feel guilty about this dish.

Just to cap it off, we had two slices, because it was that wicked good, of their meringue cake, topped with tiny, sweet wild strawberries, known in France as "fraises des bois".

On the way back through London, we were fortunate to stay with D. and S. who are also big foodies. Of course, we clattered through all my old memories, the roast duck at Goldmine and Four Seasons in Bayswater, the cupcakes at Hummingbird Bakery, sandwich stores near LSE and the Petersham Nursery but the most rewarding part was being introduced to new places, like Ottolenghi in Notting Hill, where we went for Saturday brunch. Turns out I'm really behind the curve, when I looked it up online, the chef is dead famous and has been writing recipe columns for The Times, there are too many blogs with odes to the place and even Colin said he'd already been there when he was studying in the UK, some three years ago!

Shaded by a white awning, this small unassuming cafe afforded a beautiful variety of savoury and sweet treats. It's rare that a place can successfully do both but here, you really could choose between thick quiches, tomato ricotta tarts and quinoa salads, as well as lemon marscpone tarts, muffins, chocolate slices and everything was so well-done. The flavours were rich and sweet, full-bodied and colourful. The tastes slanted a little toward the Medittaranean, as most of the new restaurants are but were generally what I've come to refer to borrowing from world cuisine. I'm so inspired that I actually want their cookbook (a Huge compliment, I don't hold with cookbooks generally) and I've printed a few of their recipes to try soon.

What a wonderful, recharging break! For those looking for some decent but inexpensive places to stay, check out The Hempel and The Arch in London and Residenza Il Maggio and Giglio Bianco B&B in Florence. In London, the hotels were delightfully modern and luxurious, in Italian cities of course, the rooms will be more rustic but they were well-cleaned and safe. We paid about 130£ and 80 Euro for some very central, lovely stays and service.

Trattoria 4 Leoni
Via de' Vellutini, 1-red
50125 Florence, Italy
055 218562

Trattoria Sostanza
Via Porcellana, 25/r, Florence, Italy
055 212691

Ottolenghi
63 Ledbury Road
London W11 2AD
020 7727 1121
ledbury@ottolenghi.co.uk

Residenza Il Maggio
Corso Italia 13
Florence
055 2658185

Giglio Bianco B&B
Via Romana, 28
50125 Firenze, Italy
Tel. +39 055225873

Review: Gaia

2011-06-25T12:47:00.005+08:00

A new Italian restaurant has recently opened its doors at the Goodwood Park Hotel, that beautiful grand old dame of colonialism on Scotts Road.

Named Gaia, for the earth (which, incidentally, being Greek, is a rather strange name for an Italian eatery), it is one of the latest residents to occupy the side of the hotel facing the carpark as you enter from Scotts Road (previous denizens being Thumper and Bice), and is run by the same good people behind Oso Ristorante, who are clearly in expansion mode.

The interior of the restaurant, it must be said, is lovely. Upon entry, you are greeted by an arresting bar, before walking past a long corridor that fills you with an endless sense of space and comfort.

The dining room itself is no less charming; there is a good mix of classic dark woods, white tablecloths and impressionist artwork, contrasted against the more contemporary glass wine cellar (with private dining room).

Where it counted the most, however, I thought Gaia fell somewhat short. To be fair, I was only there for lunch and could only sample a set lunch menu, but if a restaurant cannot manage a set lunch that is a serious concern.

The carrot soup, to start, was too thick for my taste, and (what amounts to almost the same thing) not very well-blended: I could feel carrot bits being caught in my teeth, and I found a sliver of some onion skin as well. Despite the drops of chilli oil on its surface, this soup failed to excite.

The linguine vongole was cooked with tomatoes, which is not that common for the dish, but was, I thought, a worthwhile addition, for the linguine took on a more complex character with a sunny, fresh sweetness. Unfortunately, as my father observed darkly, the meat of the clams fell away from the shells rather too easily, which was, he said, normally a symptom of lack of freshness.

Dessert was a multi-layered chocolate mousse with almond toast - a very pretty affair that was also a little difficult to eat with a spoon, because the mousse offered so little by way of resistance. The mousse was enjoyable enough, though I would have preferred the chocolate somewhat darker.

Overall, I was a little disappointed with what Gaia had to offer, although to be fair there is only so much that can be on display during a set lunch. Perhaps, as with any new restaurant, Gaia requires a little more time to truly find its feet, but until then, I will probably be sticking to Gordon Grill when I'm at Goodwood Park Hotel.

Gaia
22 Scotts Road
Goodwood Park Hotel
Tel: +65 6735 9937
Website

Miscellaneous Food: A Morning in Harriann's Delights

2011-06-06T16:25:00.030+08:00

Trays of gula meleka kueh kosui squares, dusted with dessicated coconut and ready to eat

I have some really exciting and delicious pictures to share. My friend Sharon gave me a creative and generous birthday present, I was allowed to spend a morning with the chefs at her family's three-generation kueh kitchen. The definition of "kueh" in the dictionary reads: (Cookery) (functioning as singular or plural) (in Malaysia) any cake of Malay, Chinese, or Indian origin, which isn't particularly helpful. I would instead say that "kueh" refers to a multitude of traditional desserts or sweets, made most typically from tropical pastes like green bean, mung bean, peanut, coconut or gula melaka (palm sugar) and baked, but most often steamed, in skins of rice flour, sweet potato or a similar carbohydrate-based dough.

These kueh keledik are made from seasonal purple sweet potatoes, instead of regular orange sweet potatoes (the name for both sweet potato based kueh is the same). These were a big hit with their unique colour and piquant flavour.

Trays of kueh, sliced and whole, waiting for sale

The process of making kueh is extremely tiring and time-consuming. In fact, it really is a dying art as few places make these sweets in a home-made and wholesome way. Certainly, the well-known commercial stores (as evidenced by their ingredient lists) do not. Harriann's Delights, still makes all their kueh in the traditional way, with all-natural ingredients. The riot of colours that you see here are all from the ingredients themselves and everything is made fresh.

The implements of the trade

Grinding sweet potato into a puree, mixed with tapioca flour, for the kueh keledik

Although I was quite clear that working in commercial food operations is not easy, it wasn't till I was standing in the stiflingly steaming, bubbling kitchen, that I realized how daunting the heavy lifting, pouring, stirring, the mechanical, chemical action that goes into rendering kueh is and why most young people and home cooks wouldn't appreciate the hard work and scale of this Gargamel's lair. There was absolutely no worry that I could pinch recipes, most of the chefs had memorized the process and had simplified the proportions into large pack sizes.

Sharon looks remarkably cheerful for a bright and early Saturday morning.

Blending the rice flour and potato for ondeh ondeh

I myself love kueh, particularly ondeh-ondeh (balls of juicy, liquid gular meleka wrapped in thin potato flour skins, kueh dadar (gula melaka-drenched shaved coconut, wrapped in a thin pandan pancake) and kueh salat (a two-layered cake sandwiching a steamed coconut jam, known as kaya, against glutinous rice, stained at the fringe with the blue colouring from a tropical flower known as the bunga telang) but I am definitely one of the new-generation that don't dedicate myself to making kueh anywhere as often as I make Western dessert.

Pouring out the batter for huat kueh into papered moulds. Huat kueh (Hokkien) or fatt gou (Cantonese) translates as 'properity cake', "huat" meaning alternately 'to distribute', 'to explode- with reference to its cracked surface after steaming' or 'luck' and 'to strike riches'. These cakes are most often brown from gula meleka but also white or pink and decorated with a red dot when used for prayers during religious or New Year seasons.

Arriving at 8am, I had already missed the 3am shift to rice potatoes, grind palm sugar, sieve sugarcane juice and the like, for the morning sales at the wet market. These kitchen preparations were for their more modern store at Jalan Bukit Merah and moved at a slower pace, allowing Sharon and I to dabble in new ondeh-ondeh flavours toward the later morning. The chefs were really gracious, if a little amused in answering my many questions.

Waterchestnut kueh, made from cooking diced water chestnut with fresh sugarcane and water chestnut powder, then spread, cooled and sliced into fat squares.

A close-up of the waterchestnut kueh, I just love its verdant colour, springy texture and the cool refreshing sweetness of the sugarcane with the crunchy turgid chestnut pieces. I thought this would be a very adult kueh but strangely, children really warm to it.

Growing up in Singapore, I've been lazy about seeking out or appreciating kueh as often as other desserts. I'm also quite a terrible snob about kueh, refusing to fatten myself on pedestrain versions. Here's an example of what I mean- when making Kueh Salat, the kaya, or coconut jam, requires many hours of continous stirring by the stove to naturally thicken and smoothen the coconut, pandan and egg mixture. The commercial method is to introduce a thickener, like flour or gelatin.

The other common cheat is a big tablespoon of blue food colouring, which produces an inky, navy Smurf-esque colour, as opposed to the gentle cornflower blue of crushed bunga telong. The liquid food colouring will also have a messy application, as it inveriably seeps deep into the rice layer, leaving tell-tale patches and sometimes, a layer of soaked-soggy rice. Also, if the glutinous rice is hard or dry, it is a sign that the grains were not soaked overnight and froze up when cooked. I can't tell you how many of these I've been served, with insistences of "it's good, it's good!". The problem with sub-par kueh recipes is, it's just floury coconut on dried rice, steamed with blue food colouring- ain't no magic in that!

The trays of steamed kueh reminded me of those National Geographic photographs of clothing dye in India. These are kueh salat, yam, sweet potato and gula meleka kueh kosui.

I've often felt therefore, that the gap between good and average kueh is very discernible, unlike in Western desserts, where small fluctuations in texture are tolerable, even sometimes, negligable, given the heat and chemical reactions the baking process. They may make the difference between sublime and excellent but barring big flaws, as long as the cream is not sour, the sponge not collapsed and the chocolate not hydrogenated fats, the natural sweetness of most Western desserts covers up many flaws and satisfies the sugar high to end a meal. The variability of cakes allows them to be coarse, or fine, dense or aerated.

Tossing cubes of gula meleka kueh kosui in fresh, dessicated coconut.

The hallmark of kueh on the other hand, is refined consistency and the ingredients in kueh are very savoury. We all know what happens if potato is boiled too long, or inadequately steamed. A sub-standard kueh has a terrible and obvious mouth-feel, it is too hard, too thick or grainy or worse, too suddenly-crunchy or runny within. It tastes like it was stained by a sour streak of yesterday's curry gravy, or made with masses of ground horse-hoof powder. Somtimes I am convinced that it is this narrow margin of error, combined with the tediousness of the process, that has led to the decline of kueh's popularity amongst home-cooks and consumers.

Original ondeh-ondeh, dusted with fresh dessicated coconut. The store also makes chocolate ondeh-ondehs and durian ondeh-ondehs on special order.

These were the flavours that we experimented with, I made original gula meleka ondeh-ondeh, salted caramel ondeh-ondeh and ondeh filled with cheese (and raspberry cheese), then tossed in grated parmesan cheese. It isn't as easy as it looks to roll the fillings within the thin dough. Some of the ondeh-ondeh balls leaked when swirled in boiling water and we needed to use more solid paste or cheeses!

Thankfully, I've now been inspired and educated (not to mention hugely entertained) by my morning in the kueh kitchen and Sharon's family is holding the fort on this cultural food and remain dedicated to their craft. The Tans have been in this trade for the last two decades, prior to Harry and Ann’s involvement, the former’s mother, Madam Chia Ngak Eng, ran the stall at Tiong Bahru for more than forty years.

In the last decade, Madam Chia handed over the operation to Harry, which marked the birth of HarriAnn’s Delights. He has since adopted his mother’s traditional recipes and even improved some of them to cater to the palates of the modern customer, while remaining true to the standards of fresh ingredients, daily production, personal preparation and customer service.

The fruits of our labour, literally

Apart from kueh, they also make other authentic treats like glutinous rice with boiled peanuts and fried shallots, pumpkin and yam cakes and traditional new year cookies. What I really like about their product is that their prices, at $2 for 5 ondeh-ondeh, make it very reasonable to order a large tasting selection of kueh or party platters for guests. If you're interested in an order, call Sharon at 97492311.

Harriann's Delights
30 Seng Poh Road,
#02-25, Tiong Bahru Market
Open from:
Tuesdays to Sundays, 6am to 2pm

Blk 146, Jalan Bukit Merah #01-1092
Tel: +65 6273 0852
Fax: +65 6273 0825
Open from:
Tuesdays to Saturdays, 7am to 4pm
Sundays, 7am to 3pm
www.harrianns.com

Review: La Strada

2011-05-30T15:32:00.004+08:00

Increasingly, I find very little reason to venture into Orchard Road. The profusion of concrete, glass and human throngs invariably means that it's one of the hottest places in this country, and, unless I have some reason to buy something from them, window-shopping at mall after mall seems rather soulless. Additionally, I have always felt that the Orchard Road district suffers from a disproportionate lack of good food, despite the crowds and spending power it attracts.

That is not, perhaps, quite true of Scotts Road, which has four restaurants owned by the Les Amis Group in a row. Of these, one of the cheapest is La Strada, a contemporary Italian restaurant that is Les Amis' way of expanding its market share out of high-end, refined food of the sort offered by its flagship restaurant as well as FiftyThree.

With its glass frontage, La Strada is brightly lit during the day, an advantage that is fully exploited by the white tablecloths and the wooden furniture. A good balance of starkness and naturalness - neither too uptight nor too casual.

As I spent some time waiting for my lunch companions, I had plenty of opportunity to sample the bread basket, which was fairly generous. In addition to grissini, the restaurant offers a number of varieties of bread, from foccacia to mini-baguettes. You risk, of course, eating too much bread, but that is your own affair.

Three course set lunches at La Strada aren't too expensive at $36, and you are given a wide selection at every course (although not a few of these come with a price supplement). The garden salad was a melange of ingredients, both exotic and quotidian: radish, red cabbage, tomatoes, pomegranate seeds and fresh greens. Laced with a tart dressing, it was both healthy and enjoyable.

My linguine al granchio was packed with flavour from the fresh mud crab flesh. The tomato sauce was not creamy, being white wine-based, and was therefore quite enlivening and piquant, given the chilli that had been added.

La Strada's linguine vongole was also deftly handled, which is rare for many restaurants, because the level of turnover is not always sufficient to ensure that the clams are fresh, and the white wine sauce is often watery and thin. At La Strada, however, not only were the clams scrupulously fresh and clean, they were also fairly numerous, and the white wine sauce had just the right balance between clam juice and white wine, properly reduced, so that it was rich and tasty, but also fresh and piquant.

My mother also enjoyed her main course of pan-fried fillet of barramundi with salsa verde and aceto balsamico, which was unsurprising, as the generous slab of fish, although simply presented, looked like it had been cooked perfectly.

La Strada has been around for a while, and under the stewardship of the Les Amis Group, it's easy to see why. It may not be the cheapest place to eat in Orchard Road, but it is probably one of the better ones. Service is friendly and well-trained, the set menu offers a considerable amount of variety, and the food itself is of a fairly high quality. So the next time you're out shopping in Orchard Road, why not plan an enjoyable meal at La Strada?

La Strada
1 Scotts Road
Te: +65 6737 2555

Recipe: Pandan Chiffon Cake

2011-05-16T09:45:00.010+08:00

We are the featured recipe on the brilliant Notabilia's "Cooking with" series! P. is a transplated-to-Singapore teacher and writer, who has brought with her a keen sense and compassionate eye for all that is unique, artistic and fun in our little island. Her blog has a wonderful way of surprising me with the diversity that I should be better appreciating in my own home and I'm sure, if you're a dedicated Singaporean, that it will do the same for you. See the full post here.

"I have often teased Weylin, of Only Slightly Pretentious Food, pi-02-05-03 (a lifestyle blog), and dear friend, that she should quit her coporate-y day job and become Singapore’s answer to Martha Stewart. In her spare time, she cooks, decorates, flower arranges, designs, letterpresses, and crafts. Mark my words, “One day.”

Pandan chiffon cake is one of my favorite local treats. I’ve wasted many coins at Bengawan Solo, a local bakery, to cure my fix."

o o o o o

Pandan cake was ubiquitous when I was growing up in Singapore. I never liked the colour green in baked goods nor the strong taste of bottled pandan flavouring so, for years, I shunned it in stores and at parties. Then one day, a wonderful family friend and fellow baker made this cake, from a recipe that she claimed was augmented out of one of those thin, simple “Asian Baking” type paperbacks that you can buy near the check-out counters of NTUC.

The aroma of her home-made version lingered through the house and the warm, inviting, and dense fumes of coconut coming from the oven drew me immediately into the kitchen. I never knew that pandan cake could smell like this! I realized that the recipe really draws and benefits from the use of local produce but you must take the time to use fresh pandan and coconut milk. It might seem tedious to grind pandan leaves for essence but trust me, the cool, green, full-bodied, and fragrant taste is entirely worth it. This cake quickly became a favourite in my family too and is one of the few desserts that my mother and aunts, who can’t take a lot of (and anyway, dislike) rich cream cakes, really enjoy. It’s relatively healthy, very light, and a cake that really celebrates living in the tropics!

Pandan Chiffon Cake

Ingredients:
18 stalks pandan leaves
water
1 coconut, grated, or 300 ml coconut milk
9 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 tablespoon caster sugar
8 egg yolks
160 grams caster sugar
150 grams cake flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Method:
1. Make fresh pandan extract by blending the pandan leaves and a small amount of water (just enough to liquefy the pandan leaves) in a blender or a food processor. Make sure the pandan leaves are very finely ground. Strain the liquid and let it stand refrigerated, overnight.
2. The mixture will separate into two parts, water on the top and a thick, green juice that sinks to the bottom. This is the pandan extract and this recipe calls for 2 1/2 tablespoons of this juice. Gently pour away the water. If you have excess pandan essence, freeze it in ice cube trays for subsequent cakes.
3. Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius.
4. Buy fresh grated coconut from a wet market (300 ml is about 1 coconut’s worth of milk) and extract the fresh coconut milk by squeezing it from the grated coconut. To extract the coconut milk, you have to add a little water to the ground coconut and then wring the damp coconut in a cheesecloth or towel. I gave the recipe to a friend who was wringing dry coconut until her helper said, “Mam, must add water first.” Only buy the fresh coconut on the day of baking, as it will not keep more than a day.
5. Beat the egg whites with cream of tartar and the tablespoon of caster sugar until stiff. You can omit the cream of tartar, as I do, but your cake will have larger air pockets, as the cream of tartar helps to bind the beaten egg white tightly together.
6. In a separate bowl, add the remaining 160 grams of caster sugar to the egg yolks and whisk. Add the coconut milk and the 2 1/2 tablespoon of pandan extract together, then add the cake flour, baking powder and salt.
7. Fold the egg white mixture into the egg yolk mixture gently and pour into a bundt pan. This recipe works best with a bundt pan to ensure that the chiffon rises and bakes evenly.
8. Bake the cake for 35 minutes, cool and slice the cake out of the pan with a thin bladed knife.
o o o o o

P. of Notabilia welcomes recipes from Singapore and beyond for her monthly "Cooking with…" column. Priority is given to original recipes that have not yet appeared online. Contact her at her blog if you have something to share!

Recipe: Strawberry and Rhubarb Pie

2011-05-16T09:08:00.007+08:00

Here are the first of the Rhubarb photos. I decided to make three sweet desserts with the rhubarb, a strawberry rhubarb pie, a lemon and rhubard cake and rhubarb crumble ice cream. I've been reading about rhubarb since my earlier post last week and I now know that it's a relative of buckwheat and it is a traditional and Chinese medicine. In 1542, rhubarb sold for ten times the price of cinnamon in France and in 1657 rhubarb sold for over twice the price of opium in England.

Hothouse or strawberry rhubarb is sold from January and field-grown or cherry rhubarb is sold from March. I also learnt that the National University of Singapore studied the toxicological and anti-neoplastic potentials of the main anthraquinones from Rhubarb, so why isn't it sold here! Apparently only a quarter of rhubarb is sold fresh and the rest is sold frozen or for industrial purpose.

This pie is really easy to make and surprisingly delicious and comforting. I say surprisingly because rhubarb can be an acquired taste. If not well-stewed with sugar and lemon juice, it has a very vegetable-like, celeriac taste, with an open, slightly tangy and bitter note right at the end that doesn't always sit well with people, especially, as I discovered, young children. In this recipe though, the rhubarb cooks in its own juices and that of the strawberry, which helps to naturally sweeten and flavour the pie filling.

With the proliferation of blogs nowadays, I find it very rare that I turn to a paper cookbook anymore. How did we bake in the days before the internet? This recipe came from Smitten Kitchen and it is ridiculously, unthinkingly easy. You can use any pie dough recipe, either her butter flaky pie dough recipe or, as I like to use, Dorie Greenspan's perfect butter pie crust recipe from her book Paris Sweets (her crust incorporates ground hazlenut, which I feel gives it a bit more body and flavour). I always make a large quantity of dough, roll it out between parchment sheets and then roll them away and freeze them for sudden use. It's a godsend that these things can be frozen!

Roughly halve the strawberries (quarter, if they are large) and chop up the rhubarb. I left my fruit pieces fairly large, just slightly under an inch for the rhubarb, so that the filling would be more chunky. I used a large punnet of strawberries and 2 sticks of rhubarb. Toss them all in 1/2 a cup brown sugar, grate in a few slivers of lemon rind and add a 1/4 cup of fast-cooking tapioca.

I wasn't sure what this was, so I used tapioca flour and it turned out fine, essentially the tapioca is used to thicken, to produce that goopy smeary goodness that we know of as pie filling. While the fruit is macerating, bake the bottem half of the pie at 160 degrees C. It should be baked blind (weighed down by beans or pie weights) at first, then baked uncovered for another 5-10 minutes to a pale brown.

Pour the fruit in and slice up the remaining dough to make the lattice grid. When laying on the lattice, make sure to tuck the ends of the dough down against the sides of the pie base, I find using the new dough strips as tape at the sides helps to keep the pie together and the filling inside the caviy. While I was baking the pie, I realized that I didn't have a proper deep pie dish and had to improvise using a tart pan that was a bit too shallow.

Place the pie back in the oven, turn down the heat to 140 degrees C and bake for an hour or so, until the filling has thickened and the fruit is cooked through. You can brush the lattice with an egg yolk glaze or butter to make it brown and shiny. After baking, cool the pie throughly. This will help the filling, which may be a little runny when you remove the pie from the oven, harden slightly and set. Having used a tart pan, I set the pie on a plate while chilling, so that the filling wouldn't run all over my fridge!

Slice up the pie with a sharp knife, pushing all the way to the bottem when cutting. Serve in wedges with vanilla bean ice cream and mint leaves.

Review: Da Luca

2011-05-08T19:25:00.007+08:00

Now that, increasingly, I rarely go out for meals, it's usually my father who susses out new eating spots.

We went to one of his most recent discoveries, which turned out to be almost a hop, skip and jump away from our place, is a casual Italian trattoria in Goldhill Plaza called Da Luca. Helmed by the eponymous Luca Pucciani, formerly of Garibaldi and Gunther's, who has decided to strike out on his own, Da Luca is a rare Italian restaurant amidst the profusion of Japanese eateries (which, in the current climate, tend to be somewhat under-patronised).

Located on the ground floor, just adjacent to the car park, the restaurant is cheerily lit, with simple checkered tablecloths and earthenware crockery, which, with some imagination, makes you feel like you're deep in the rustic Italian countryside, which I suppose was the intended effect.

Some reviews online have, predictably, criticised the service. I say predictably not because the service is actually poor (far from it, in fact), but because, first, the service industry in Singapore is widely-acknowledge as being somewhat deficient, and second, Singaporeans just love to complain about other people, without casting an equally critical eye on their own expectations and behaviour. Coming back to service, Chef Luca pops out periodically to engage the customers, his affable personality certainly makes that an enjoyable experience, while head waiter Razib is solicitous, attentive, and professional. While some of the part-time waitstaff may of course be less well-trained, as long as you make enough of an effort to be patient, understanding, or even friendly, I fail to see why service here should be off-putting in any way.

One of the special starters for the day was a crab salad served with Hawaiian papaya. I had originally envisioned a leafy salad with shredded crabmeat and some diced papaya, so I was rather surprised with what was eventually served, which was a creamy crab dressing atop a papaya half. I must say I did not really enjoy this - although the papaya was delightfully sweet, the crab emulsion was too creamy and rich for my taste.

The restaurant has a fairly wide selection of pizzas, although, as with all pizzerias, I tend to find that only two or three are particularly alluring. The prosciutto e funghi was generously sprinkled through with sliced ham and mushrooms, and, as thin-crust pizzas go, was pretty decent.

As I've remarked before, the ubiquity of Italian restaurants in Singapore means that, after a while, dishes start looking suspiciously familiar. A stracci with braised rabbit looked like a mix n' match off L'Ancora's menu, so it was perhaps unsurprising that there was also a braised duck pappardelle, which was something of a star attraction at Garibaldi, and which I eventually had. The pasta came in wide strands which were rather filling, so it was fortunate that the portion wasn't too large. The duck ragout was sweet, robust and tasty, with the duck shredded very so finely that it was almost a sauce.

One of Da Luca's best dishes is undoubtedly the pork chop. I am not normally fond of pork in Western cuisine, as I'm a red meat sort of guy, and as such consider pork to be the poor, anaemic cousin of beef and venison. However, the pork chop here is really quite excellent. It's meaty and tender, with a rich mouthfeel, pairing perfectly with the roasted potatoes and field mushrooms that it is served with.

We did not have an opportunity to try the desserts, but there was a complimentary helping of what appeared to be Italian petit fours: light, airy fingers of dough, dusted with icing sugar, and to be enjoyed by dipping into a thick custard sauce.

Da Luca is a homely Italian restaurant that has the potential to become a neighbourhood favourite if its standards remain consistent, which is great when you find tire of going to posh, upmarket restaurants, but would like to simply chill out with a bottle of vino rosso and a hearty lasagne.

Da Luca
1 Goldhill Plaza, #01-19/21
Tel: +65 6258 4846

Review: House

2011-05-07T10:16:00.002+08:00

You know what I don't like about brunch? I mean sure, you get to wake up late and meet up with friends, sit on a sunny veranda listening to the birds chirping and watching the flowers bloom, and eat a sumptuous meal that would otherwise be the stuff of dreams, but what I really dislike about brunch is that you only get one meal when you could otherwise have got two!

Only joking. I rather enjoy brunch, with its connotations of the weekend's languid embrace. Every once in a while people will ask me where's good to go for brunch. There are the usual suspects, like Rider's Cafe, Jones the Grocer and Mimolette, but each of these has its drawbacks. The food at Rider's is outstanding, but you have to make reservations a year and a day ahead. Jones has great atmosphere but somewhat dismal service, while Mimolette seems to reside in the shadow of Rider's. One of my current favourites, therefore, is House, which I find strikes a happy compromise between atmosphere, food and service.

In terms of atmosphere, the decor is fairly eccentric, with glass, concrete, chalkboards, and stencils all making an appearance. There's even a strange sort of indoor pavilion you can dine under.

A crowd-pleaser is the House truffle fries, which I suspect suffers from a surfeit of truffle oil. It's not bad, by any means, but I feel that for a dish like this, less is probably more - what you want is a truffle aroma, not a truffle deluge.

House has a very extensive menu, but it's comforting to see that they offer a traditional fry-up: toast, scrambled eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes and sausages.

If fried stuff isn't your thing, there is also comfort food like bay prawn capellini topped with pecorino cheese. Crunchy prawns packed with umami goodness, and spicy heat from fresh cut chillis, what's not to like?

The mushroom risotto was an attractive dish as well - diced tomatoes and thyme leaves added vibrance, and the risotto is cooked with a rich veal jus. I thought it would have made more sense to cook the risotto with mushroom jus, though, as the intensity of the veal stock rather overwhelmed the delicate flavours of the mushrooms. The risotto however, was well-cooked, al dente and glistening, without being stodgy and filmy.

The warm strawberry shortcake is a (H)ouse specialty - alternating layers of strawberry and cake, doused with vanilla bean cream. I'm not a fan of strawberries, but it certainly looks pretty (though we perhaps could have done with a bigger portion).

My favourite dessert, however, is the bitter chocolate tart, which is everything I think a chocolate dessert should be - intensely dark and decadent, with the right balance between sweetness and bitterness. Big enough so you don't feel shortchanged, but small enough so you don't suffer from a chocolate overdose, it's a perfect way to round off a long, relaxing weekend brunch.

House
8D Dempsey Road
Tel: +65 6475 7787

Miscellaneous Food: Kimberley Hotel Restaurant

2011-05-05T09:27:00.005+08:00

After reading about his fantastic meal at the Kimberly Hotel, I followed Chubby Hubby's lead and headed there for a meal while last in HK. I dragged many of my friends with me to sample this meal, especially after hearing that a large group was neccesary to try all the delicious and large portions. After a lengthy planning period, we had a great group, with two in particular who trekked out to make the initial booking and to make a pre-payment, which is neccesary if you want to have the roast piglet.

As often mentioned, the facade of the hotel is faded and the inside of the restaurant looks even more like something out of Macau, with gilt and tufted chairs everywhere, fake pussy willows and peonies and a complimentary karoke monitor stuck to one wall. One thing that I felt Chubby Hubby's post didn't stress, is how huge (huge, not large) the portions are. In the end, we didn't wind up with as many people as I thought, thanks to last-minute flakers (don't you hate those!) and we drastically shortened the menu but this is how much food we had left over. We felt awful about it and each bag did go home to worthy families.

We started with separate dishes that were reminescent of a "cold dish" or "leng pan" that you find at wedding banquets. One was salt and pepper squid, one was a deep-fried salmon skin. I forget what the others were, since even those two excellent, crackly dishes were clearly too generous to be finished. One of the odd dishes that we were served was a large basket of char siew pao. Even though it was very tasty, we all thought it was a bit out of place and filled up our much-needed tummy space.

We then had a lovely double-boiled soup and the salt-baked chicken, followed by a giant crockpot of lemongrass braised beef ribs. All of the dishes were excellent, piping hot, fresh and with clean, distinct flavours. Suffice to say that we were full mid-way through the meal but we kept eating and eating determinedly.

That is, until the roast piglet showed up. It definitely lived up to the hype of being a thing of beauty and the crispiness, the succulent, light mouth-feel of the skin and the sticky glutinous rice, ah, it's too much! It was a truly lovely dish and one that, I think, is probably best executed in an industrial restaurant kitchen. Everyone oohed and aahed over the tray that was wheeled in, posed for photographs and munched their way satisfiedly through their slice. An excellent highlight!

There were a couple of vegetable dishes in between the middle and the finish, which we could hardly manage but the ending was particularly sweet. They brought out bowls of noodle that were really simple and resembled maggi noodles (or the instant mee goreng type noodles) - I don't know if it was the combination of chives, dark soya sauce or onion oil but they were fantastic! Not just delicious but comforting in that unexpected yet spot-on way.

And, just as we thought we were done and way too full for any dessert, they brought out hot-steamed malaikou, wafting it's warm, lightly-caramelized fragrance across the table. The best malaikou I have had, in memory - I would eat it anytime. Overall, it was easily one of the best meals I have had in Hong Kong and I would definitely return with my family. You should try it!

Kimberley Hotel Restaurant
28 Kimberley Rd, Hong Kong
Tel: 2723 3888
Website

Ruminations on Rhubarb

2011-05-03T15:27:00.005+08:00

It's been a busy winter travel season- just last week, I glanced at my passport and was shocked to realize how many countries I had traversed in the last few months and what good use I had made of my scarf and boots this year. It wasn't until last week that Z. and I both had a few precious days off from work and could indulge in a short holiday.

Thanks to the generousity of D. and S. and J., we spent a spring sun-filled week revisiting old haunts from my brief time in London and soaking up the wonderful food and scenary in Tuscany. Although I had planned to do nothing but lounging and reading, of course, we got caught up in making the most of our visit. This was particularly because we stayed with our friend S, who is a practicing chocolatier and showed us the most marvellous, windwhirl, suspension-of-reality time in London, with a morning walk though Notting Hill, followed by Sunday breakfast at Ottolenghi and a drive through the Richmond deer park to visit Petersham Nursery.

We're now safely back in the little red dot (in time to cast a vote) and boy, were our suitcases weighed down by large rocks of Italian hams, cheeses, mushrooms, olive oils and bottles of Pimms and packs of hot chocolate for Colin. If you were a customs officer, you'd probably think Singapore was at war! One of the more odd purchases that I stuffed into my case was a long, wrapped package of fresh, organic rhubarb. I have an unhealthy fascination with rhubarb, fuelled by its inavailability in Singapore. Every time I see it, when in a temperate-climate grocery store, I get an uncontrollable urge to make a pie, or a tart, no matter whose house I am staying in.

There's just something about it that says springtime, raddiocio and rabbits, even though I know that as a child, I probably wouldn't have eaten rubarb. Even now, I don't like celery, unless stewed into a soft and fragrant odori. Oddly enough, the rhubarb plant actually originated from Asia and it has been suggested that it was often used by Mongolians (one of the places I've been in the last few months is Mongolia and I can confirm that they do not use it anymore!), the plant grew wild along the banks of the Volga and was thought to have been brough there by Eurasian tribes like the Huns or Mongols. Apparenly, it also has a long history in traditional Chinese medicine but its use in food was a recent 17th century innovation, after sugar became readily affordable.

The stalks of rhubarb can be light to dark green or rose to pale red and the leaves are toxic. I picked all my stalks to be really thick, thinking it was like picking sturdy celery but I've since discovered that, if I want to cook my rhubarb in long pieces, I should have chosen the more delicate and pretty stems. I was glad to read that I could also freeze them for later use but I'm not sure I'll need to for these are the desserts that I've devised to make over the week- Strawberry Rhubarb Pie, Lemon Rhubarb Cake, Rhubarb Crumble Ice Cream and an intriging Rhubarb Beetroot Cake. Any other suggestions?

Review: db Bistro Moderne

2011-04-17T15:28:00.010+08:00

Many apologies for the radio silence; work has become more than a little hectic, and dashing from deadline to deadline means that there never seems to be any time for blogging the places I've been to, the most recent of which is db Bistro Moderne, one of the celebrity chef restaurants at Marina Bay Sands.

I've been to db Bistro Moderne in New York, which was a pretty classy affair, notwithstanding the famous, rather messy db Burger, so I was surprised to find that the version in Singapore is a lot more traditional, with conservative red leather-upholstered booths, and lots of dark woods.

The food, too, was more classic and rustic than I had recalled it being in New York, starting with a plate of grougeres. This is over and above the usual bread basket, so if you're hungry (and you should be, as I explain below) it takes some effort to restrain yourself from pigging out on all the initial carbohydrates. It was somewhat disappointing, however, to discover that the grougeres were quite cold: while I can understand that it is much easier to bake them well in advance of service, it does detract from the enjoyment of eating what would otherwise be warm, light, airy, cheesy choux buns.

One of the special appetisers for the night was a lovely plate of sweet, juicy heirloom tomatoes served with goat's cheese. The combination of the crumbly, slightly tart cheese with the excellent flavour of the tomatoes was irresistible, though I thought the portion was slightly petite.

The Assiette Lyonnaise is advertised as a selection of terrines and cured meats, but I wasn't expecting what eventually arrived. Various terrines and cured meats had indeed been baked into a loaf, from which a slice is cut, giving you a cross-sectional view of some quince jelly, foie gras terrine, and other charcuterie, surrounded by a crust of pain de campagne. Very rustic, and very tasty.

I didn't try the spicey tuna tartare, but it was certainly an artfully presented affair, featuring a mix of harissa, cucumber, radish and sesame seeds.

The butternut squash soup was a little too thick for my liking, but otherwise was a resplendent orange, and full of the sweetness of the butternut pumpkin, with a few pumpkin seeds for added texture.

Moving on to mains, this was when we began to realise that, true to his word, Daniel Boulud had indeed kept prices roughly similar to his New York restaurant, without compromising on the size of the portions, which were, by Asian standards, enormous. The coq au vin featured a thigh and two drumsticks, served with a heaped portion of wild mushrooms, pearl onions, and spaetzle on the side. The sauce was as dark as molasses and looked as rich, but as I was struggling with my own main course I was not able to sample the coq au vin.

Rather ambitiously, my sister and I decided to share a massive cote de boeuf as our main course. It arrived with much fanfare, perfectly cooked and displayed with pride in a copper frying pan, and served with all the traditional trappings like bordelaise sauce and gratin dauphinoise. Robustly meaty and yet comfortingly succulent, the cote de boeuf was marvellous, though really it should be shared between at least three people.

The restaurant's version of steak frites is likewise a 8oz sirloin steak served with bearnaise sauce and french fries. While not as tender as the cote de boeuf, which was to be expected, the sirloin was tasty, and the fries were very nicely done: crisp on the outside but fluffy on the inside.

Almost everyone was too stuffed for dessert, and I would have passed too, were it not for the fact that a floating island is such a rare sight on a Singaporean menu that I just had to order it. Although suffering somewhat in terms of presentation (whoever heard of a rectangular island), the meringue was poached to an cloudy perfection, and the rhubarb-infused creme anglaise was a nice change from the plain, vanilla custard sauce.

All in all I enjoyed what db Bistro Moderne had to offer: a return to traditional dishes, with some updated touches thrown in, cooked with a deft hand, and at value for money prices. Although Marina Bay Sands is not exactly a convenient venue (Saturday night crowds are insane), restaurants like db Bistro Moderne, at least, give you something to come back to (although I suppose so does the casino).

db Bistro Moderne
10 Bayfront Avenue
#B1-48 The Shoppes, Marina Bay Sands
Tel: +65 6688 8528

Miscellaneous Food: March Macaron Madness Part 2

2011-03-17T15:38:00.010+08:00

So many people ask me about the process of making macarons and before you walk away with a physcologically disturbed idea of the process, I should say that if I sounded a bit dark before, it's becuase I've had a Black Swan week, or month, really.

Macaron baking is a really beautiful and rewarding process, for which the delicious end-product is just icing on the cake. When done right, it's usually about morning sunshine and flowers in the kitchen.

Just ask my macaron serf. I always tell people that macarons are not that hard but in truth, her job makes macaron making a cinch. She does a lovely job of sifting almond meal and icing sugar and look, she even smiles on demand! This is her best "i-get-paid-in-macarons-sad-look". From time to time, I have to replace my over-qualified and highly competent macaron serf, as in this case. L. has gone back to her day job as a hard-nosed, alpha corporate lawyer and is no longer available to sift my almond meal. I miss her.

After you sift for what seems like hours, you mix up a beautiful meringue of egg white and sugar, fresh and cut through in its smooth, glossy thickness and do the hokey-pokey of macronage. That is, you stand at the table and do a dance while folding all the nut, meringue and sugar together. I'm serious about a little wiggle, it produces airier macarons.

I snapped these pictures one Saturday morning because I thought they'd show that the process really is quite stress-free and relatively clean (although Z. gets major brownie points for living with me, my kitchen escapades do from time-to-time, spill over into the living room and migrate yes, even into the bedroom). Thanks to his help and tolerance, I usually have the privilege of listening to music or catching up with girlfriends while going about macaron-making.

The best thing about it for me, as I hope these pictures also show, is how beautiful and tactile this process is. While some people find it tedious, I actually like that it takes as long as it does, it is very consuming and really gives you time to relax and think.

After the macronage, you gather your wits and piping bag and pipe rows of what are hopefully, beautiful, consistent and risen macarons, like so. I've had a lot of friends over for the odd session of baking and somehow, piping, whether it be macarons or cupcakes, always stumps everyone and it's probably because I interject with what I think are helpful, but are probably just overwhelming statements of advice.

Like, place your hands over the bulge of the bag, not the twist-top! Squeeze down in a long, deliberate stream! Keep the piping tip parallel to the tray and keep the tip high enough to let the batter flow out like magma but low enough so that you have control over the spout and the speed. Stand over the tray while you pipe, so that you can see the pencil outlines of the round shapes.

It sounds really complex, but I always think that if you played with your toothpaste as a kid, this is probably the most intrinsic and instinctive part of the process. Piping swiftly, evenly and confidently is the best feeling in the world. At some point, you will get to feeling like the world turns on a jazz tune and a tray of perfection.

Macaron shells are very temperamental creatures, I find that they really suck energy from you so if you make them while in a calm but contemplative and unharried mood, they tend to take their bearing from the unrushed environment. These slightly deflated shells, for example, were the result of distractedly mixing the colouring gel into the beaten, rather than the raw egg white.

They are also very susceptible to oven temperatures, so 11 minutes at 170 degrees C, or 13 minutes at 160 degrees C, that's really something that you work out on a tray by tray basis and that's really the most frustrating (for me, at least but I'm not a scientist-type) part of the process.

Then whisk them out to cool and to be matched. L. was a champion at this game, she would sit, limbering her fingers, like a diamond dealer in Antwerp and rapidly shuffle shells within a grid pattern, like a carbohydrate game of Puzzle Bubble until she had two identical strings of Cortillion candidates.

If I was making chocolate shells, they would then be piped with a fat snail of dark, pure Arugani chocolate ganache, or perhaps they would be flavoured and coloured (like the pastel pink shells), then filled with salted caramel buttercream and stacked high on a cake plate for a little girl's birthday tea party.

This past weekend, faced with a leftover mound of home-made pineapple jam, I fulfilled a long-held curiousity of mine and stewed some rosemary into the jam, then made the pineapple tart macarons that Macaron Mentor Karen had objected to.

She was right, while still delicious and decidedly unique, they aren't entirely macaron-like. The chewy shells and jam have too similar a texture but the taste was good and they went down well, particularly with the older folk.

Miscellaneous Food: March Macaron Madness Part 1

2011-03-17T11:48:00.010+08:00

I always joke that when I get stressed, I bake and the more stressed I get, the more I bake but in this past week, that joke's really caught up to me. I was feeling so in limbo, so neither here nor there that I looked desperately around for something to make me feel more grounded, more alive, more joyful. Of course, I could have gone for a super healthy 10-mile run but where's the fun in that? I decided to fall back on an old love, or else known as, baking macarons to surfeited collapse. I couldn't even bear the thought of emotional baking, so I baked in monotone. Literally.

Part of the macaron therapy is that it's such a tactile process, turning eggs, so gooey and fragile that you can pop them with the slightest pressure, into turgid crumbly shells with the smoothest, dryest skins. I love how you can run your finger gently over them, feeling every ripple and seed of almond or hazlenut meal. Other people like to pet dogs, I just like to stroke my little macaron shells. Go figure.

And I can't even begin to explain the pleasure and gratification I derived, watching the butter beat fiercely round the bowl and the meringue whip into cream, then feverishly piping lines of evenly sized macaron rounds. I always think creating these interlocking armies gives me a innate sense of control and order but I think it's really the consuming focus and reassurance of the repetitive motion that soothes.

This sudden burst of activity was also a good opportunity to de-stock some of my pantry. I'm such a food trafficker- everywhere I go, I look for unusual or artisan produce and in the last year, I've been particularly attracted to "things that would be interesting in a macaron filling". I think it drives my Karen my Macaron Mentor, crazy because from time to time, I message her late at night with "pineapple tart jam in macarons" and she messages back "yuck!".

That hasn't stopped me from amassing a veritable collection of intriging locavore products, from left to right, single-origin chocolate covered cocoa beans that my cousin bought me from Columbia, chocolate covered figs and chilli lime chocolate from Australia, marron (chestnut) paste from Cafe Angelina in Paris, passionfruit mango puree from Sadaharu Aoki and hand-milled raspberry jam. The item that I was most excited about was a recent purchase from a fresh growers market, a brown bag of cinnamon muesli with dried figs, coconut and pumpkin seeds.

I made just the pale almond hazlenut shells and concentrated on concocting three flavours. One was an old favourite, the pale tan, salted caramel filling and the two were new flavours, darjeeling tea and vanilla yoghurt with fig, coconut and cinammon muesli, which are the darker taupe and bright white fillings respectively.

During my recent trip to Australia, I discovered Adriano Zumbo's macarons, one particularly spectacular yoghurt, apricot and pistachio macaron (and one that I found seriously underwhelming was his verdant green and too-wet rosemary and apricot). I wanted to do something similar using the muesli, so I decanted a large scoop of thick greek yoghurt and tipped the scrapings from a vanilla pod into swiss meringue buttercream to produce the distinctive sourish creaminess of yoghurt, flecked with resplendent black little vanilla seeds. It was surprisingly easy and stable to work with, the only flaw was that the initially strong sourness faded rapidly overnight.

I packed two of each new flavour and four salted caramel macarons into parchment wrapped boxes and delivered them over the next day. From the feedback received, I wasn't the only one who loved the way the muesli filling slowly released the flavours of coconut and cinnamon into the yoghurt buttercream, it was the unanimous new favourite from even picky customers like my mom!

Recipe: Red Stewed Pork

2011-03-11T14:33:00.004+08:00

We are featured on the wildly popular and delicious blog, Chubby Hubby! A. was kind enough to feature our submission for his braised and stewed contest. This dish is a sure-win, with a deep fragrance and smooth, savoury taste. Click hereto see the full contest article.

Our prize-winning recipe was taught to me by one of my Shanghainese colleagues. He and his wife grew up in the 1970s and 1980s in China, when meat was a scarce commodity and a big treat. This was the dish that his wife cooked for him, when they were still friends, that impressed him into thinking she was a really fantastic catch. Maybe it'll work some magic for you too.

Ingredients:
600 grams streaky pork
2 Tablespoons of oil for frying
2-3 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 inch of ginger, sliced
1 spring onion, sliced
1 star anise
1 teaspoon Szechuan peppercorn
1 cinnamon stick
2 Tablespoons light soy sauce
1 Tablespoon oyster sauce
2 teaspoons dark soy sauce
1 Tablespoon Chinese cooking wine
2-3 Tablespoons rock sugar

1. Plunge the pork into a wok of cold water, then slowly bring the water and meat to a boil and boil the meat for 1-2 minutes. Remove the pork and let it cool, then slice into 1/2 inch thick pieces.
2. Heat the cooking oil in a cleaned wok, add the garlic, ginger, spring onion, star anise, Szechuan peppercorn and cinnamon stick, then stir for a few seconds until the garlic becomes golden.
3. Put the pork slices into the wok and fry for half a minute
4. Pour water into the wok to cover the meat well, add the light soy sauce, oyster sauce, cooking wine and 2/3 of the rock sugar, then turn up the heat until the water boils.
5. Cover the wok, turn down the flame and simmer slowly for at least 1.5 hours
6. Before serving, turn up the heat again to reduce the sauce and season with the dark soy sauce and remaining rock sugar to taste.

Recipe: Pineapple Tart Dough

2011-03-07T13:51:00.004+08:00

It only begins to feel like a Chinese New Year, when I start the process of making pineapple tarts. Even though it's tedious, there's something cathartic about it, like the slow shedding of a year into the next, with the stamping of each tart. I always try to involve friends in this process, not just because it helps with the workload (hehe) but because it's such a good way to sit and talk for awhile. I find that I have to find new pineapple victims every year though because most of my friends have wised up to my schemes.

This year, I was privledged to have M. and S. come by to help with the stamping and filling of tarts. I had already made the jam, as described in previous posts here and here and S. asked for the recipe for the light and crusty dough, so here it is, in pictures. There are subtle differences between this recipe and the previous ones linked for pineapple tart dough, that's becuase over the years I've refined my proportions somewhat.

Step 1: Chop up 2 1/4 blocks of cold unsalted butter (250grams each) and add it to 1kg of sifted plain all-purpose flour. I try to use a European butter like President, Lurpak or Elle et Vivre, given how much butter goes in! For the flour, I use a regular Prima flour, I have used some premium brands before but don't really find that it makes that much difference. Add a pinch of salt.

Step 2: Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. If you start with small pieces of butter, or even grated butter, this will be a much easier process but I'm usually too lazy. Your butter should be cold though, to make it easier to slice up and to prevent the dough from melting into a soft lump.

Step 3: Add 4 egg yolks and 1 egg white, beaten together lightly, 1 1/2 Tablespoons of ice-cold water and the juice of 3 limes. I like to freeze a shallow bowl of water before I begin making the dough, then remove it to thaw after I've rubbed in the dough. This ensures that the water is really ice cold.

Step 4: Mix well into the batter. This is also where, if you like, you can add 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla essence or vanilla seeds for the taste.

Step 5: Try to knead the dough as little as possible, stop as soon as it all adheres together, to prevent a tougher texture.

Step 6: Divide the balls of dough into 4-5 seperate pieces.

Step 7: Flatten the dough within clingwrap. This makes it easier to store, to freeze (the dough can be frozen for 3 months and if you are intending to keep it raw for more than 3 days in the fridge, you should freeze it) and then to roll out (still within clingwrap) then stamp, neatly.

Recipe: Yuzu Tarts

2011-03-07T12:08:00.006+08:00

I Was intending to rest this weekend, having travelled in spats for most of the month but Colin easily convinced us that a trip to TOTT was long overdue. The place is a wonderland of kitchen appliances, steamers, knives, pots and all manner of culinary goodness, including some gourmet ingredients for tarts and savouries. I was immediately reminded of the Japanese yuzus that I had from a recent trip, still sitting in my fridge. Between yuzu tarts and taking a break, what's a girl to do?

I filled half of the sweet tart dough with chocolate ganache and then the other half with yuzu cream, made from the Pierre Herme lemon cream recipe, also found here on this blog. In place of lemon juice and rind, I used yuzu rind and juice and topped up with a bit of orange juice.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup sugar
Finely grated zest of 2 yuzus
2 large eggs
1/4 cup fresh yuzu juice, topped up with orange juice
180 grams unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

Put the sugar and zest in a metal bowl set over the pan of simmering water. Rub the sugar and zest together until the sugar is moist, grainy and very aromatic. Whisk in the eggs, followed by the yuzu juice. Keep whisking to stop the eggs from scrambling. The bubbles will get bigger, and then, as it gets closer to 180 degrees F, it will start to thicken and the whisk will leave tracks. As soon as it reaches 180 degrees F, remove the cream from the heat and let it cool. Strain it into the container of the blender and discard the zest.

Turn the blender to high (or turn on the processor) and, with the machine going, add the butter about 5 pieces at a time. Scrape down the sides of the container as needed as you incorporate the butter. Once the butter is in, keep the machine going—to get the perfect dreamy, airy texture, you must continue to blend the cream for another 3 minutes. I kept the machine going till the cream thickened up into a spreadable consistency but you can also leave it to harden in the fridge.

Later, when they had set, I topped each yuzu tart with a raspberry and the chocolate tarts with melted, smooth ganache and then flecks of goldleaf. There's something about tarts that makes me so happy on a sunny Saturday! These little cases are a real treat too, I'm thinking of filling them with darjeeling cream (like mini darjeeling tea tarts) for future tea parties.

Recipe: Pecan Butter Cookies

2011-03-07T12:06:00.002+08:00

If you are looking for an easy-peasy snack, this is one of those brilliant cookie dough recipes that you can make ahead of time (like Dorie Greenspan's World Peace Cookies) and freeze for later use. The dough is rolled into spherical logs and then cut into rounds for baking.

This quintessential "Cookies with Milk" recipe is great to use with children who like to help with baking and really helps when you need some quick kid dessert in a pinch or for bringing to school or birthday parties. You can also add some chocolate chunks as a treat or to replace part of the sugar; I've adapted the recipe from the Williams-Sonoma cookbook and have already cut the proportion of sugar in half as I find American cookie recipes in particular a little too sweet.

Ingredients:
200 grams unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
A pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup pecans, chopped

Method:
1. Cream the butter, sugar, salt and vanilla with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy.
2. Add the flour and pecans and continue mixing.
3. Roll the dough into 2 cylindrical logs and wrap in cling wrap. Refrigerate until firm, at least four hours.
4. Pre-heat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius.
5. Cut the log into slices of about ¼-inch thick and place on baking trays lined with parchment paper.
6. Bake for 14-16 minutes until edges are golden brown.
7. Cool completely on wire racks.

Recipe: Roast Beef

2011-01-18T22:46:00.004+08:00

What do you see when you look at this photo? I don't know about you, but I see beauty. Beauty in the freshness and redness. Beauty in the rich seams of fat running through the meat, like so much geological strata. Beauty in the arch of the rib bone. It's sad, when you think about it, that fresh, respectable produce should be considered the province of the well-heeled, and yet we think nothing of children sporting iPhones, or young professionals aiming to buy flashy cars with their first years' paychecks.

Which is why I think Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's The River Cottage Meat Book is one of the best food books I've read. Not only is it an excellent cookbook, it's also an apologia - an intellectual and philosophical defence, and advocacy, of the love of meat. More importantly, however, Fearnley-Whittingstall preaches respect: it's fine and dandy to love eating meat, but do you really respect the animal that gave up its life for your steak? Do you understand how meat should be reared, fed, husbanded, slaughtered, aged, carved, cooked and served? Would you bat an eyelid if you learned that the lamb in your stew had been boiled rather than simmered?

I often reread parts of Fearnley-Whittingstall's work, and I am constantly rewarded with new insights, and forced to re-examine many of my own views and beliefs. It's true, of course, that one needs to either have a lot of time or money (preferably both) to live religiously by the author's example (he rears his own cows and makes his own sauces), but that doesn't mean one can't try.

With that in mind, I decided to cook a roast rib of beef for New Year. I've always found the thought of cooking an entire forerib fairly intimidating - something which was not helped by my mother's gloomy prognostications of undercooked beef and oven racks being unable to support the weight of massive pieces of meat. Having read and re-read the recipe provided by Fearnley-Whittingstall, however, I was convinced by the simplicity of his prescribed method, which is as follows:

1) Depending on how many people you plan to feed (1 rib will feed about 2 to 4 people, depending on whether you have any side dishes), buy a roast of between 2 to 6 ribs ($56 per kg at Huber's Butchery). Most home ovens will not be large enough to accommodate a full 6-rib roast, so ask your butcher to cut the rib into half.

2) Preheat your oven to 220C. Trim off as much excess fat from the rib as you like, leaving as much as you feel comfortable with (some fat is necessary to lubricate the meat and keep it moist). Season with salt and pepper, and then place the rib in the oven to sizzle for 30 minutes. It is important to notice that this "half hour sizzle", as Fearnley-Whittingstall terms it, is a pretty reliable guideline: almost all meats of any size can be seared in the oven at 220C for 30 minutes without drying out, save for very small (less than 1kg) joints of meat or game birds (e.g. pigeons or small chickens), which therefore require a shorter sizzle. Conversely, large roasts may benefit from a slightly longer sizzle (e.g. 45 minutes).

Those who are familiar with cooking meat will recognise this as essentially a browning process, and the advantage of doing it in the oven, rather than on the stove, is that there's no need to keep turning the heavy piece of meat to ensure an even sear, and you'll only need to clean the inside of your oven, rather than all over your stove top (albeit your oven will get rather oily as the oil spatters).

3) After 30 minutes, your meat will have developed a nice, brown crust, like the one you see in the picture above. Turn the oven down to 160C (you can leave the oven door ajar for a minute or two to help it cool down more quickly), and then continue to roast your beef, using the following timelines as a guide: 9-10 minutes per 500g for rare, 12-15 minutes per 500g for medium, and 18-20 minutes per 500g for well done. The shorter cooking times are for joints of 5kg and above. Having used these guidelines myself, I must say they are uncannily accurate, although for best results I would of course recommend a meat thermometer (the temperature at the thickest part of the joint should read: 50C for rare, 60C for medium and 70C for well done).

4) Take the beef out of the oven, and let it rest, lightly covered with some tin foil to keep it warm, for half an hour. It it exceedingly important that the meat is left to rest, as this gives the meat's juices a chance to settle down and redistribute back into the meat, ensuring that the meat will be moist, rather than dry, when it is served. While the meat is resting, you can use the time productively to prepare a quick sauce, or check on whatever side dishes you've decided should accompany the beef.

5) Carve the meat on a large cutting board, preferably one with an indented rim to catch the juices that are bound to be released. As you can see, although the photograph is a little dim, Fearnley-Whittingstall's timelines really do work, to produce, in my case, an amazing medium-rare prime rib roast, which I served with simple mashed potatoes.

It should be apparent by this point that a beef rib roast need not be a daunting affair at all, and in fact it is one of the most simple dishes I've cooked. For something so uninvolved, however, the results are invariably stunning, and no one can resist a roast rib, so you be sure that the roast will be demolished in no time.

If I haven't convinced you by now, The River Cottage Meat Book really is a worthwhile read, and I strongly recommend it to anyone who cares about, or would like to know more about, their meat.

Miscellaneous Food: New Zealand Part 3

2011-01-17T22:46:00.022+08:00

I apologise for the long wait in between posts - it's been one of those weeks, or months, rather, at work. Thankfully, there'll be a bit of a breather before the next onslaught, and hopefully I can catch up on a few more posts.

Day 5: Napier

Lunch

Before we knew it, it was Day 5, and we were in Hawke's Bay - arguably New Zealand's wine capital. I had originally planned for us to arrive in Napier just in time for lunch at Fox on the Quay, a restaurant by the bay that promised "fine food, casual dining". Unfortunately, I had forgotten that it was a Monday, and, as a result, the restaurant was closed. While we did manage to lunch somewhere else nearby, the food was pretty mediocre, and quite a disappointment after we had been looking forward to a good meal.

Nonetheless, that was quickly forgotten after an entire day of wine-tasting at two artisanal wineries, as well as at Napier's flagship winery and vineyard, Mission Estate, which rounded off with a lovely tea spread of crackers, pate, cheese, and chutneys.

Fox on the Quay
14 West Quay
Ahuriri, Napier
Hawke's Bay

Dinner

I'd researched where to go for dinner when in the Napier area, and one recommendation which came up a few times was Terroir, the restaurant of the Craggy Range winery in Havelock, about 30 minutes' drive out of Napier.

It's easy to see how the Craggy Range winery acquired its name: it's nestled up against the most gorgeous mountain range which, in addition to being picturesque, must also do wonders for the micro-climate, and probably explains why Craggy Range consistently produces top-quality wines.

The winery itself is also beautiful, housed in muted, earthen colours of tan and sandstone. Partly because it was dinner time, and partly because of the location, there was a great sense of serenity, sobriety even, as if this were the altar upon which prayers to Dinoysius were answered, as opposed to the location of Bacchanalian delights.

Terroir, the restaurant, is no less visually impressive, with a magnificent fireplace in the centre of the dining room, the chimney of which also serves as the central pillar holding up the vault of the ceiling. The wooden rafters and beams give the appearance of a huge oak tree spreading its branches, in keeping with the restaurant and winery's terrestrial, natural feel.

Unfortunately, the food did not live up to its surroundings, with the meal beginning with S's starter of mille feuille of marinated oyster mushrooms and caramelised garlic vinaigrette. Although the puff pastry was delightfully light, the oyster mushrooms had been marinated in white wine or verjus, leaving them sour and unnatural. For $21.50, this left a rather unpleasant taste in the mouth, both literally and figuratively.

My Provencal fish soup, coloured with saffron, flavoured with Pernod and served with rouille, croutons and Gruyere cheese, was better, and certainly came in a generous tureen, but I thought it could have been richer and headier; though I suppose I was asking for it, ordering a fish soup in a restaurant called "Terroir".

The woodfired fish of the day was a sole, served with fried potatoes, aioli and a preserved lemon. By this time night was beginning to fall in earnest, hence the poor quality of the remaining photos. The portion was far too large for S to finish, though she did like the potatoes.

My seared lamb loin, served with a cauliflower puree and a red pepper, olive and caper salad, was enjoyable, which was unsurprising, considering how good New Zealand lamb is. However, in contrast to the size of the fish, I thought they could have served a larger portion of lamb, even allowing for the fact that loin cuts are generally the pricier parts of the animal.

We were very full and very tired from the wine-tasting, so we decided to forgo dessert, but I was more than slightly disappointed by what Terroir had to offer. While the food wasn't bad (perhaps with the exception of the mushroom millefeuille), I suppose I had expected rather more as a result of the ambience and reputation. Perhaps, when it comes to food and beverage in Napier, I might just stick to wine.

Terroir
Craggy Range Winery
253 Waimarama Road
Havelock North
Tel: +64 06 873 0143

Day 6: Taupo

Lunch

After Napier, it was time to head back North towards Auckland, and the end of our journey. All good things come to an end, but that was no reason not to get a few good meals out of Taupo, which was our next stop.

Like the city of Rotorua nearby, Taupo is dominated by a massive freshwater lake that is larger than all of Singapore, and that was sufficient excuse for me to make a reservation at the Waterside Restaurant, a pub facing the lake and its boardwalk, where we could put up our legs and enjoy watching people go by.

Since we were having a fairly late lunch, I didn't want to ruin my appetite for dinner, and so I had a tiger prawn and calamari salad, with a coriander, chilli and citrus dressing. Again, a surprisingly Asian-influenced dish, but the prawns were nicely pan-fried, and the squid was fresh and tender. I didn't quite enjoy the crispy "nest" that sat atop my salad, but apart from that, it was a nice change of pace from all the meat I'd been having.

S's fresh pasta was infused with fresh basil oil and tossed with warm bacon, baby spinach, sun dried tomatoes and feta cheese, which all added up to quite a substantial meal, but it was refreshing nonetheless.

Waterside Restaurant
3 Tongariro Street
Taupo 1128
Tel: +64 07 378 6894
Website

Dinner

Fishing is a fairly heavily-regulated activity in New Zealand, which was somewhat surprising, as I didn't think over-fishing would be much of a problem given the ratio of people to landmass.

With a huge body of water conveniently located right in the centre of town, water activities feature quite prominently on the list of tourist attractions in Taupo, and for a not inconsiderable fee to cover boat rental and fishing licences, tourists can be taken out onto the lake to try their hand at fishing for trout. Lake Taupo is home to two species of trout, the rainbow trout and the less commonly seen brown trout, and, as both are closely related to salmon, they make for very good eating.

Serious anglers will not, however, find fishing on Lake Taupo much of a challenge - using sonar, the boat crew take you to spots where trout are in abundance, and they set up all the fishing rods (affixed to harnesses so that you don't even have to hold them), and all you really have to do is reel the catch in.

In all, we manage to catch two trout that were of regulation size, but we had to give one away since there was obviously no way were going to be able to eat them both.

After the catch has been netted, one of the crewmen kills the fish by striking its skull with a pair of pliers, before slipping it into a plastic box where the fish, if it isn't already dead, suffocates its way to a slow and agonising death - so really the pliers are kinder.

When your time is up, or when you've decided you've had enough, your fish are gutted, cleaned and placed in plastic bags. If you return to land before 4pm, there is a good chance that you can smoke any excess fish; otherwise, you'll just have to bring your catch to a local restaurant that is willing to cook it for you, which is not really that difficult, since my impression was that just about any restaurant in Taupo offered such a service. The one we chose was Plateau, a contemporary bar-restaurant close to the lake (so that we wouldn't have to travel far to drop off our fish), and close to our hotel (so that we could get back for a shower and return to the restaurant just in time for dinner). More importantly, it had also been rated as Taupo's top restaurant by TripAdvisor, so I had high expectations (I really, really did not want them to ruin the very fresh and expensive trout).

S's seared diver scallops were beautifully plump and golden, and artfully decorated with rocket leaves and asparagus shoots. The earthy, slightly bitter asparagus and rocket perfectly matched the buttery nuttiness of the scallops, which were firm and tasty.

I chose a quail dish, which involved a leg of quail that appeared to have undergone a poche-grille treatment, as it retained a bit of blush despite being brown on the outside and cooked through, and served in what I believe was a mushroom consomme containing both sliced shiitake mushrooms and mushroom tortellinis. Once again, it felt distinctively Asian, but it was an enjoyable, light appetiser nonetheless.

Of course, the trout was the main event, and the restaurant certainly did justice to it: the trout had been stuffed with rosemary and lemon slices, and baked on a bed of zucchinis and celery. As if that weren't enough, it was also served with generous portions of mashed potato, which was some of the creamiest I've ever had. Although I'm not normally a big fan of fish, the trout was so fresh that it was impossible not to enjoy this. The flesh of the trout was salmon-pink, and so delicately smooth that there was barely a need to chew, and the melange of vegetables not only provided a brilliant colour contrast, but also tasted fantastic.

Alas, although our efforts were valiant, it was simply impossible for us to finish the entire fish.

However, as there is always space for dessert, we decided to share a white chocolate and vanilla panna cotta, which was a little too firm as a result of the white chocolate, and I thought the strawberry sauce was too syrupy, but otherwise a sweet ending to a staggeringly filling meal.

I was very definitely pleased with the food Plateau had to offer, and thought that it in fact was probably one of the best restaurants of the entire trip (together with the French Cafe), although I was only able to regain consciousness the next day.

Plateau
64 Tuwharetoa Street
Taupo 3330
Tel: +64 07 377 2425
Website

Day 7: Auckland

Dinner

Sadly, we'd come to the end of our journey, and, after braving an incredible three-hour traffic jam, it was time for one last meal in Auckland (technically there was breakfast the following day before our flight, but that doesn't really count), and I had already secured a reservation at Cibo, a trendy restaurant which was clearly the place to be seen on a Friday evening, because the restaurant was absolutely packed.

I was somewhat concerned when I noticed that many of the waiters were dressed in what floral shirts, sporting horned-rimmed glasses and pointed shoes. I have nothing against fashion sense per se, but I hoped that Cibo wasn't simply all style and no substance.

With a dish like "New Age gazpacho with stuffed baby vine tomatoes pickled spanner crab roasted garlic pannacotta and tomato essence", one can see why there was cause for worry. The dish was as pretentious as it sounded, with a number of discrete ingredients each vying for attention in a discordant cacophony of colours and tastes. It was not, of course, a bad dish; the baby tomato stuffed with spanner crab and the tomato essence, were actually quite nice, although I was rather less fond of the garlic panna cotta. The main problem, however, was that the separate components of the dish simply did not deliver a composite whole.

S fared better with her starter, though, which was a black sesame crusted tuna with crispy shredded duck and cashew nut salad palm with sugar dressing, although she did note that she could not taste the duck in the salad.

My main course was a char-grilled Angus pure eye fillet with red wine braised ox cheeks and a beetroot relish gremolata, which sounded pretty delectable, and indeed, the red wine braised ox cheeks were meltingly delicious, with a intense flavour of beef and red wine. Unfortunately, the restaurant had overcooked my fillet, and I was not at all impressed that one of the floral-shirted waiters attempted to convince me that this was because I had chosen to eat my beef cheeks first. He did, however, have the decency to concede that even if the beef continued cooking while it sat on my plate, it ought not to have been that overcooked, and I was given a new, properly-cooked steak within a short time, with no less than two apologies.

Sauteed prawns with caprino and chervil tortellini, served with toasted pinenuts and golden raisin butter with shaved pecorino were S's choice of main course (technically a starter, but she requested for a main course portion), and, notwithstanding the elaborate list of ingredients, looked like a very enjoyable and technically competent dish.

For dessert, we settled upon a compressed Valrhona cocoa with chocolate sorbet, milk chocolate mayo, sesame toffee and nut crisp. An elegant dessert, this was easy to enjoy, and we polished it off in fairly short order.

Cibo
91 St George's Bay Road
Parnell
Website
Tel: +64 09 303 9660

Review: Artichoke

2011-01-17T11:46:00.006+08:00

My reigning favourite cafe is a place called Cumulus in Melbourne, a gorgeous and stylish, tucked-away little place that churns out new, good food and brilliant eating experiences each time I'm there. Over time, I've come to realize that there really is a gold standard for good restaurants and good food, it all really Feels the same.

I can always tell because I feel inspired, while eating, I start thinking of recipes that would really work in and for the particular restaurant, or savour flavours that I can't wait to try out at home. Cumulus made me buy a mandoline and slice fennel like never before, frying it lightly with green olive oil and orange. Good food makes me feel, like cooking and like eating, no matter what day or week it is.

A mark of a good restaurant is also when, no matter what comes before and after, I leave feeling like the day just became better. No matter what the price point, the best of restaurant experiences, like Momofuku Ko in New York and Solociccio in Panzano, Tuscany, are when I leave dancing a little jig in my heart and hearing springs of jazz tunes. The best restaurants have the culinary equivalent of a Disneyworld je ne se qois, they make people feel... happy.

Just the other night, I went to just such a restaurant and I think this place, indeed, the chef, will not remain unnoticed for long. I'd love to say that I'm very plugged in to Singapore's eating scene but in truth, I entirely chanced upon this place, having seen a Facebook update by Yuan Oeij of Prive. I tracked down the restaurant Artichoke and found that it was in Sculpture Square, by the junction of Waterloo and Bencoolen street, in the shadow of an old orange, yes orange, chapel.

This square and chapel have been modified into buildings that house workshops and studios for 3D animation and art exhibitions and the garrison structure of the church and cobblestoned yard have been well-preserved.

I'm a sucker for beautiful names (how evocative is Sculpture Square?), purposeful Conservation buildings and restaurants that have the motto "We believe real cooks make real food with their own hands. Artichoke’s team epitomise this ideal, making our own fresh cheese, butter, pickles, condiments, sausages, cured meats and fish, baked goods and pastries in-house." What this means in restaurant lingo, is that I knew without even asking, that this place was run by a chef-owner. I called up and was given the last available late table for dinner that same evening- score!

The restaurant was kitted out in the cafe style that has become du jour, funky flooring, Ikea faux vintage lights, wood tables and I swear the Salvation Army must be running out of mismatched chairs. (I don't mean this in a mean way, my home and the living room from where I'm typing this, could be described in very similar vein). I noticed a few unusual things when I walked into the restaurant, one was the use of dukkah, which could have been attributed to the menu's somewhat Moorish leanings but which I associate far more with Australian cooking.

The second was the presence of three large tables of Caucasians or asian girls with white guys. I was surprised, the expat crowd in Singapore is notorious for supporting their own when it comes to food, even dodgy Italian joints employing entire families, so this is quite an achievement for a local chef. Then I realized what it was- while the earlier prejudice is true, what expats are also really good at, is sussing out a good value deal. And, this restaurant definitely was, mains averaged $26 and $56 for a shared plate for 2 or family-style, while desserts were $10, this in the center of town and with a convival, comfortable atmosphere. Hard to find.

I realized a third reason later on in the meal, which is that the food is actually very authentic. Having spent some time living in London with a Lebanese roommate, I am particularly picky about babaganoush, amongst other Middle Eastern dips. It is rarely ever fresh, tart and wholesome in Singapore but it was here.

They were delicious and despite being, I thought, really full from Colin's rendition of Gordon Ramsey for lunch earlier in the day (more on this later), I polished off all the light, Turkish bread with dips before I was cognizant of how much I had eaten. They were really good, two days later, I was in a meeting in the middle of the day and started day-dreaming about tasting the blended chickpeas and smooth olive oil.

When our Kin Soon mushrooms arrived, I could tell that they were perfectly, turgidly fried, still succulent with all their woody, musky sweet juices. Then the Kurabuta pork chop came to the table, dusted in panko and topped with shaved fennel and I thought that between the single-origin produce, the way the mushrooms were cooked and the fennel, this was quite a unique offering for a local-helmed kitchen.

Having been fortunate enough to catch Bjorn Shen as we left, I learned that he had been in Sydney and Brisbane before returning to Singapore and while he had been in chef whites, he'd spent the last few years in academia, teaching marketing. Bjorn is one of those playful, shaved-headed grill cooks (in Singapore, this is known as an ACS guy), very much like Engsu Lee of Peguin vs Crow, who is as irreverent and humorous as his food. After dinner, we were given a scrunched up brown bag and in it, we found three sour gummies. I'm not sure if this is entirely clever marketing (you know, I would have preferred a brown-bagged pair of macarons) but I did eat two on the way to the car and thought, boy but it's been a long time since I've had a sour gummy.

Remember his name, because although it is advertised as Moorish, the food really reminded me of the best of modern Australian like Ezard or Lotus and it lends itself to so many different directions and influences, that it's very exciting. It was unpretentious, it was honest and it concentrated on fresh, local produce which gave a real kick to the taste and flavour of the food. Unlike Bistro Soori, where I could identify the "borrowed" elements from at least six different brand-name restaurants in the appetizers, or Andre, where there was a little bit of trying for the sake of being creative-different (and bear in mind, I liked both of these restaurants), Artichoke really is simple and yet innovative at the same time, it is much more down-home an experience.

Like all new start-ups, there are areas for improvement in Artichoke, one is the service, which was patchy. We had to ask our server, what the specials on the board were and then he thought to tell us that three were already unavailable.

The menu is still fairly tight, particularly in desserts, where they don't yet seem to have a dedicated dessert chef and could use more feminine choices of lighter citrus desserts to cut through the fairly rich appetizers and mains. (We had the pear and almond cake with sweet cream and the date pudding with smoked milk custard, salted caramel and peanut crumble, the former was good, the latter outstanding and would have been even more so if the milk had been more chilled, ala a Tres Leches cake).

There are also some logistically odd dishes, like one special of Stolen lamb, a roast which takes 30-40 minutes to cook. Unless that is advertised to customers over the phone bookings ala Cocotte's signature roast chicken, I'm not sure how many would like to wait that long to get the meal. Lastly, I've also been told that brunch here on the weekends is more ordinary, with the usual mill-run eggs and bread-like cakes. Having seen tonight's dinner menu, I would assume that brunch would also have similar twists and turns in culinary combinations but I guess that remains to be seen. Overall, these are a very small price for the excellent experience we had. I'm already looking forward to going back with a bigger group for the twice-cooked lamb and pork belly with scallops, so look out for a more comprehensive review. I don't often say this, but this place is really, really good.

Artichoke
161 Middle Road @ Waterloo Road, Sculpture Square
Tel: +65 6336 6949
www.artichoke.com.sg
Opening Hours
Tue–Thu: 12pm – 10pm
Fri–Sat: 11am – 12am
Sun: 11am – 4pm
Park at Waterloo Central or NAFA carparks

Miscellaneous Food: New Zealand, Part 2

2011-01-05T21:55:00.013+08:00

Days 3 and 4: Rotorua

Lunch

Day 3 saw us driving into Rotorua, a quaint but surprisingly touristy city, where we had lunch at Relish, a laid-back, friendly cafe along Tutanekai Street, also affectionately known as "Eat Streat" due to the number of restaurants packed in one row.

The king prawns in S's salad seemed small to me, but they were fresh and crunchy, and dressed simply with some crisp salad leaves and soft ciabatta slices.

My chips were somewhat under-fried, as they were a rather pale off-white, rather than the beautiful shade of golden one would normally associate with chips, but otherwise my grilled sirloin was tasty and meaty, shorn of any distracting sauces and with only sweet roasted tomatoes as an accompaniment.

Relish offers simple lunches at decent prices, and their dinner menus look tantalising, so I was slightly disappointed that we couldn't come back for an evening meal.

Relish
1149 Tutanekai Street
Rotorua 3201
Tel: +64 07 343 9195
Website

Dinner

That evening, after a spot of rather lacklustre shopping, it was off to Bistro 1284, a highly decorated restaurant that has consistently been voted Rotorua's best restaurant, and that is frequently lauded for the quality of its lamb and beef.

So it was with some puzzlement that I regarded the starter: squid with Asian greens and a sweet chilli dressing, steamed in a bamboo steamer. It wasn't bad at all, but there is simply an ineffable incongruity at having such an Asian-influenced dish in what is, essentially, an upmarket meat house. It's like going to a curry house and being served foie gras and oysters.

Dining mishaps continued through to the main course, though this was mainly my fault: I'd got greedy and ordered a duo of lamb and beef, served with asparagus and bearnaise sauce, thinking that that would give me two bites at the award-winning meats. Unfortunately, the two cuts of meat were downsized, making it difficult for full justice to be done to them.

S, however, was very happy with her main course of twice-cooked pork belly with spiced apple relish, chilli and coriander rice cake, which was no surprise, as it balanced the tenderness of the pork, the sweetness and tang of the apple relish, as well as the spice from the chilli and the coriander, very deftly.

Desserts at Bistro 1284 looked a little uninspiring, however, so we decided on a change of scene, and landed up at Ambrosia Restaurant & Bar (1096 Tutanekai Street, Rotorua 3010, Tel: +64 07 348 3985), where we ordered the very last chocolate pudding, which was a fairly substantial affair, a dense and moist cake served with chocolate ice cream, a dollop of fresh cream and some blackcurrant sauce.

Bistro 1284
1284 Eruera Street
Rotorua 3201
Tel: +64 07 346 1284
Website

Breakfast

The next morning we got up bright and early to go white water rafting, and we decided to have a big breakfast before setting off, so it was back to Eat Streat, and a lovely cafe-restaurant named, appropriately enough as we were the only ones there at 7 in the morning, Solace.

For some strange reason, even though the size of portions during lunch and dinner is not remarkable, New Zealand breakfasts are enormous, and a solid breakfast is often more than sufficient to tide you through to dinner, unless you have a robust appetite. My stack of pancakes with banana slices, whipped cream and maple syrup was delicious, but oddly came paired with some rashers of bacon, which apparently is also what they do in the US. Oil and fat simply do not mix very well with sugar and fruit, so I can't really understand the logic behind this.

S had a nice big breakfast with buttery toast, fried eggs, and creamy mushrooms, and served with sweet grilled tomatoes. A rich, hearty meal that ensures you start your day with plenty of energy; enough, for instance, to tackle the Grade 4 rapids we were soon to encounter.

Solace Cafe
1111 Tutanekai Street
Tel: +64 07 349 1551

Dinner

After a good three or four hours of rafting, we showered and freshened up, and got ready to head out to dinner. I had made a reservation at the Aorangi Peak Restaurant, as all the reviews promised fabulous views across Lake Rotorua, but I was quite concerned at some of the photos I saw, which revealed tacky 80s decor and crockery. I was afraid the food would be equally dated, and wondered whether I was making the right choice, particularly as there were still so many unexplored restaurants in town along Tutanekai Street.

Being located atop a small mountain does, however, have its advantages, such as being able to watch the local wildlife play and gambol amidst the lushness. We saw rabbits, a herd of deer, and even a stately bull make their way across the meadow that was located just beyond the restaurant's boundaries.

In addition, the restaurant has a pair of friendly alpacas that wander freely about the grounds, and which diners can feed (remember to wash your hands afterward) - I imagine they must be a hit with children, and adults can take in the spectacular view on the veranda, where there is a small gazebo which is, presumably, used for weddings, given the amazing vista of all of Rotorua laid out below.

In terms of food, however, the restaurant had some decidedly bizarre offerings. I do not believe I have, for instance, ever had a duck confit as an appetiser. Although the duck had been suitably slow-cooked, the skin of the duck had not, however, been adequately crisped up in an oven or on a stove, and as a result the skin, instead of being delectably crispy, was somewhat limp and soggy. The salad was fairly fresh, but could really have done with more dressing.

S's starter was even weirder - sushi in a Western restaurant? It reminded me of an episode from Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, and I didn't take very much. It wasn't that bad though, and it was the closest thing to Asian food we'd had in a while.

S's fish filet looked much more traditional - floured and fried, served with a white cream sauce and some vibrantly coloured vegetables for contrast.

I, on the other hand, had gone the whole hog (or duck, rather), and ordered a duck breast as my main course, which turned out to be a mistake. Not only was it rather excessive to have duck for two consecutive courses, the kitchen had also decided to give me a second drumstick, in addition to the breast meat. This may have been in compensation for overcooking my duck breast, because I discovered to my dismay that it certainly was not pink, but a rather dry shade of brown.

Dessert was supposed to have been a chocolate fondant, but the liquid chocolate was far too thin, making it a far cry from the familiar, comforting molten chocolate cakes we so often take for granted.

Notwithstanding the spectacular view, therefore, the restaurant presented more misses than hits, although I suppose it is no doubt a romantic getaway on a Saturday night, or a fun outing for families on a Sunday afternoon.

Aorangi Peak Restaurant
353 Mountain Road
Tel: +64 07 347 0036

Miscellaneous Food: Hariann's Delights

2011-01-02T11:09:00.015+08:00

I've made my pineapple tarts, have you? I'm only done half, as I made a copious amount of jam this year and even then I wound up with 6 trays of luscious, filled-to-the-brim tarts.

If you are not the baking sort, I have a treat for you. I'm a big fan of Harriann's Delights, a nonya kueh-shop that makes the best Ondeh-ondeh. I tried these for the first time at a friend's home and was blown away by the warm, drippy, savoury gula meleka goodness and the sweet, thin-skinned covering of sweet potato dough and dessicated coconut. They also make a chocolate version of Ondeh-ondeh, which was also really popular.

This business is a multi-generational one, the sort I love because they make everything with such pride and attention to detail. Their pumpkin cake and other kuehs make for great party food, treats and gifts. In the Chinese New Year season, they are also making traditional chinese new year cookies, though I would also buy their kuehs to offer at my home.

The other thing I love about their products is how affordable it is to buy a variety for guests. Their original, chocolate, peanut and yam Ondeh-ondeh are $1.20-1.60/4 pieces and their Kueh Pulut and Kueh Salat are $1/2 pieces. The Kueh Kosui is $1/5 pieces. The glutinous rice and pumpkin cakes average $1.50-2 per serving.

Their Chinese New Year goodies range from the traditional pineapple tarts, peanut cookies, Kueh bangkit and love letters to the more unusual green pea cookies, melon seed wafers and honeycomb snacks. These are also very reasonably priced at $10-12 a bottle.

These pictures were generously provided to us by Sharon, who can be reached at 81748429 or sharon.tan@harrianns.com for orders. She is part of the third generation taking the craft to new heights and she graciously answered our 6 burning questions, which we love to ask of food businessses and entreprenuers. Enjoy!

Tell us about why and how you started this business?

Some 40 years ago, my grandmother sold Nonya Kueh to make ends meet and bring up her two children after her husband passed away suddenly in an accident. When she got on in years, she handed the business over to my father (Harry) who then founded HarriAnn's Delights with my mother (Annie) at the flagship stall in Tiong Bahru market.

By word of mouth, HarriAnn's has since amassed lots of fans and in order to cater to the Today's Customer, we have decided to modernize our shop front and packaging whilst at the same time still continue to produce hand-made and premium quality Nonya Kueh. This decision sparked the birth of the brand new HarriAnn's Delights!

Tell us about your vision for your food or your brand.

To be a leader in the Nonya delicacy market, especially in the perfection of the making of Ondeh Ondeh. And also to constantly strive to deliver the best quality food, beverages, services and value to all our esteemed customers.

What does it take to do what you do?

Must have a great respect for valuable tradition but at the same time be creative and innovative to meet the demands of the modern day customer. [Plus the ability to wake up as early as 4 am to prepare the food fresh every morning, =p]

Who are your food inspirations?

Dad and Mom. Dad for his creativity in his culinary fare - He is always in the kitchen experimenting with new flavours and tastes and surprising all of us with what he can dish up. And Mom for her steadfastness in harnessing traditional methods to ensure the food she produces is authentic and delicious. Together, Dad and Mom have created many unique and popular recipes for HarriAnn's Delights.

Tell us what you like and a personal quirk that you have.

I appreciate creativity and value for money and I look for that in products and services. The vendor needs to have a honest transparency of the products / services provide. A personal quirk that I have is that I drink only piping hot soup. Anything less and it has to be re-heated. This does not apply to any other beverages though. Guess that makes me all the more Teochew?

What would your last meal be?

Steaming hot rice over raw eggs 蛋捞饭. This is a very simple and humble dish that requires the freshest ingredients and the right balance of seasoning. Brings back memories of my childhood and reminds me that food has to be real and wholesome. Great tasting food need not always be lavish...