Review: Sebastien's

Le Dîner au restaurant Sebastien

As we were in the mood for French food tonight, my sister and I decided to pay a visit to Sebastien's at Greenwood Avenue, a fairly new French bistro, which was very conveniently open from Monday to Sunday. It's run by its eponymous owner Sebastien Reullier, another Frenchman who has found success in the Singaporean food industry.

When we got there, I was really surprised to see how crowded it was, especially on a Sunday evening. Generally though, a crowded restaurant is a good sign, assuming you ever manage to find a parking lot, which we did eventually.



It was even more packed inside then I had imagined. Thankfully, we were still seated promptly, and bread arrived seconds after we were seated, I kid you not. I was very impressed. Unfortunately, the bread could do with some work, as it was crusty beyond reasonable expectation.

I took a walk around, and was astonished to see that the gourmet shop that used to adjoin the restaurant had been replaced by a wine shop, and the gourmet store, rather than closing down, had simply moved to a new location. Coupled with the obvious popularity of his restaurant, it's a clear sign that Mr. Reullier has hit paydirt.

True to form, Sebastien's serves traditional bistro favourites like boeuf bourguignon and pot-au-feu. While the prices here are not exactly bargains, they are pretty reasonable. But enough of that, let's get to the good stuff.



To start, I had the Cassolette D'Escargots aux Champignons et Beurre Parseille, or baked escargots with mushroom and parsley butter ($15). The escargots were stuffed into cremini mushroom caps and baked. Now, I'm not very fond of baked mushrooms, as they tend to dry out in the oven. These were no exception, and the whole thing was a bit on the bland side, which I felt had something to do with the departure from the traditional garlic butter to parsley. All in all, I thought it was rather comme si comme ça (3/5). On the upside, they're fairly generous with the snails, providing eight instead of the usual six.

For the main course, I was originally going to order the boeuf bourguignon, until I espied an entry on the menu that read Riz de Veaux... I thought it was rice with veal, but it turned out to be sweetbreads, which I am sure are Ris de Veau, but pardon my French. I'd been searching for a place that served sweetbreads for ever, but apparently they were unavailable. Dammit.



Oh well, the boeuf bourguignon ($28) was a chunky beef stew that came with mashed potatoes. I've been meaning to make this myself, so I wanted to see what it was supposed to look like before attempting it. It's basically a beef stew with lots of red wine. Sebastien's version was authentically French, right down to the lardons in the stew. The beef came apart easily, and the portion was just about right. My only gripe was that the tomato paste was a little too overwhelming, masking the taste of the wine. The mashed potatoes were delightfully creamy, and the entire dish was very satisfying (4/5). I did think, though, that if Sebastien priced dishes like this a little lower, he'd soon have more customers than his restaurant could accomodate.

When it came to dessert, I had no doubt whatsoever what I was going to order. I absolutely had to have the Ile Flottante ($7). It was almost mocking me. I was determined to see what a proper floating island should look like and if it was worth the trouble I took to make it. I even asked the waitress if the meringue was baked, like a true French Floating Island, or poached, a la an English Floating Island. All she could tell me was that it was fluffy, like a marshmallow.



I needn't have worried. The floating island came out just as I thought it should, a pristine mound of snow-white floating elegantly in a pool of creme anglaise, decorated artfully with caramel streaks, strawberries and blueberries.

One bite and I decided this was one of the most brilliant desserts ever devised and executed (5/5). The meringue was indeed baked (of course), and it was fluffy and sweet, just like a giant marshmallow. It had absolutely no hint of egginess about it, and its ephemeral sweetness contrasted superbly with the gentle custard sauce. Even my sister was converted, after her initial suspicion that it "looked weird". I have to make this again. Mr. Reuiller, if you read this, be so kind as to give me the recipe! At $7, it's a steal.

In terms of ambience, Sebastien's exudes all the quaintness of an authentic French bistro, right down to the piped music and convivial atmosphere (although some of the red curtains and light-shades did make it look a bit like a bordello). At its fullest, the restaurant had about thirty people eating and chattering, though thankfully with very few small children to mar the experience.

The location in Greenwood Avenue is certainly convenient, only a few minutes off the main Bukit Timah thoroughfare. I like the way all these eateries are starting to spring up in otherwise quiet housing estates. It's somehow very pastoral.

Clearly, as the place is owner-run, service is pretty decent. Sebastien himself is very on the ball, personally seeing to every table, but the waiters could do with a little more training.

See also the account of a birthday dinner held at Sebastien's.

Sebastien's (French)
12 Greenwood Avenue
Tel: 6465 1980
Website
Email
Location: 4/5
Service: 3.5/5
Ambience: 4/5
Food: 4/5
Overall: J'ai passé un bon dîner!

Technorati Tags: Restaurant Reviews, Sebastien's, French Food, Singapore

Recipe: Pan-Roasted Steak

Everyone who's anyone has a steak recipe. In fact, probably not just one, but a few to suit the occasion, so I feel like I'm missing out or something. Besides, I'm running kind of low on recipes to fill up the 'Main Dishes' section.

Now, a steak is something quite remarkable. It's not just a slab of meat - that's what a steak starts out as. It needs to be treated with love and care before it turns into something magical. There is something tremendously visceral about biting into a chunk of beef, knowing that millenia ago, someone very much like you, though with more hair and less intelligence, was doing exactly the same thing.

Now steak can be done in many different ways; it can be grilled, pan-fried, braised, etc. I'm partial to pan-roasting, which is searing it on the stove just to give it a nice crust, and then chucking it into the oven to let it finish cooking there. I find this tends to make for a juicier steak, as very little moisture escapes during cooking. It also allows you to cook many steaks at the same time, rather than having to serve them one at a time for want of cooking space. The drawback, though, is that not much flavour is developed, so you have to make up for it with herbs and spices.

Pardon the disorganisation, but I was in a bit of a rush, as my friends were due and there was much left to do.

Basically I marinated the steaks with red wine, worcestershire sauce, garlic, thyme and cummin seeds overnight. If you ever use cummin, remember that it is an extremely strong spice, so use sparingly. And remember to turn your steaks some point during the marinating process (marination?)



There is no mise en place because, firstly, I didn't have time, and secondly, the marinade can be anything you want. Well, almost anything, obviously arsenic doesn't count.



Of course you don't throw away your marinade - you pour it into a sauce pan to reduce, reuse and recycle it as part of the accompanying steak sauce! Don't reduce it by too much, as long as it's reduced by half or a quarter, that's more than sufficient.



I've been told that you should always dry your meat after marinating it, otherwise, you'd merely be steaming it rather than searing it. And there's nothing more insulting to meat than being steamed. It needs to be treated with love and care, remember?



After which, commence sizzling! Make sure the pan is nice and hot, and the steak nice and dry, then proceed to sear the life out of it on one side. Typically this takes my stove about 30 - 45 seconds or so. Different stoves and different pans may heat up faster or slower, so experiment.



Once one side is done, flip the steaks over. Ideally they should be very slightly charred, but since my stove isn't all that hot, I'd rather it not be charred than risk overcooking the steaks. Love and care!

The second side should take roughly the same amount of time, or perhaps even a little less as the pan is a lot hotter now.



After you've finished searing the steak on all sides (even the edges, if you can manage it), chuck it in a preheated oven to cook to medium or medium-rare. Anything else is a travesty that should not be allowed. My steaks take about 6 minutes in a 180ºC oven to reach medium-rare. The problem with cooking by time is that it's very imprecise - the timing could change depending on whether you marinate the steaks, how large your steaks are, whether you took a shower the day before, all kinds of things. If you have a handy-dandy meat thermometer, that'll tell you what temperature the meat should be, and if you don't, tough luck.

While the meat is roasting, deglaze the pan you used to sear the steaks with your reduced marinade, stirring up all the good bits. Steak goes well with carrots and potatoes, so I pre-cooked a few and chopped them up into bite-sized chunks, cooking them together with the sauce to warm them up.



Once your steaks are cooked, take them out of the oven and place them on plates, dividing up the carrots and potatoes and spooning the sauce over. It is exceedingly important to let your steaks rest for a minute or two on the plates, as this helps redistribute the internal juices to make them tender and succulent.

Technorati Tags: Recipes, Steak

Recipe: Tiramisu

My sister and I were tasked to provide dessert for a family dinner on Sunday, and since she hadn't done it for a while, my sister decided to make tiramisu. This recipe makes a lot of tiramisu, and though I don't usually like it, this produces a very delightful version that is rich without being suffocating.

If you don't count the calories then you won't scare yourself.

This is not my recipe, so don't blame me if it doesn't work. But since I personally tasted the result, I'd say it does. Tiramisu requires refrigeration time, so don't expect to make this in the afternoon for dinner.

Tiramisu (Serves 10 - 12)

4 packets (60) ladies' fingers (not the vegetables)
1 cup coffee powder
2 cups hot water
1/2 cup kahlua or coffee liquer
7 eggs
500g mascarpone cheese
1½ cup sugar
1½ tsp vanilla
200ml whipping cream
Cocoa powder



It's a lot of ingredients, but tiramisu is one of those things that are hard to make in small amounts. You might as well go the whole hog and whip up a batch to take with you to a party.



Dissolve the coffee powder in the hot water, and pour in the kahlua. Mix well and try not to breathe in the fumes - you won't be able to sleep for a week. Obviously for more of a caffeine fix you can always up the dosage, but this is quite enough for me.



Soak the ladies' fingers in the coffee mixture for just a few seconds, enough to get them completely drenched, and lay them out in a layer on the base of a large glass dish.



Beat 7 egg whites with 1/4 cup sugar at high speed...



Until they become foamy. This shouldn't take long, since the added sugar will make the egg whites rise extremely quickly.



Then reduce speed to moderate and continue beating until the egg whites are really stiff and can be inverted over your head. This very conveniently avoids the problem of having to decide whether you've reached "soft peaks" or "stiff peaks". Of course, if you haven't quite reached the right amount of stiffness, you'll just get egg whites all over you. Still, I think that's a risk worth taking.



Beat the egg yolks with the mascarpone cheese until they're well-mixed, then add the remaining sugar and beat till the sugar has dissolved.



Add in the vanilla and mix it in. Your yolks and cheese mix should have a consistency approximating churned butter.



Beat the cream till it's fairly stiff. You could do this with a whisk, I suppose, if you had arms of steel. Otherwise just use an electric beater. Once that's done, mix the cream and the egg yolk mixture together, making sure they're well incorporated.



Fold in the egg whites. Usually you would do this with a spatula, but my sister claims using a whisk makes no difference. Such unorthodoxy appeals to me.



Anyway, once your egg whites have been nicely folded into your cream mixture, you should have a big bowl of something that looks remarkably like porridge.



Spoon a layer of this over your ladies' fingers, smoothening it with a spatula or the back of your spoon.



Place another layer of coffee-soaked fingers over the cream, and then spoon more cream over that layer, rather as you would build a brick wall. Presumably, if you had a deep enough dish and enough ladies' fingers, you could have a tiramisu with as many layers as your dish was deep, but I think two will do nicely.



Once you've finished applying the final layer of cream, cover the dish with clingwrap and place the entire edifice in the refrigerator and chill overnight. This sets the tiramisu, otherwise you'd get a big gloppy mess as soon as you tried to cut it.



When you're ready to present your masterpiece to the world, remove it from the refrigerator and cover the top with a light dusting of cocoa powder. Try not to be too heavy-handed, I hear cocoa dust can cause pulmonary problems.

With so many yolks and a large amount of cream and cheese, tiramisu doesn't keep very well, so try to finish it within a day or two, perhaps three at the most.

Technorati Tags: Recipes, Tiramisu

IMBB #16: Eggs Redux

Well, since I did promise a proper IMBB entry, I guess I'll have to deliver. This entry very nearly didn't materialise, due to the absence of the key ingredient, the eggs.

I decided that instead of working with boring ol' bird eggs, which are not only quotidian and unpretentious, but also rather finicky ingredients, I'd try something a little more exotic. And since in cuisine, "exotic" seems to mean "Oriental", I decided I'd go East with this particular IMBB.

Now, normally I'm not a fan of Japanese food, because I have a problem with eating my food raw. However, I really like this little morsel involving salmon roe, or ikura. Fishy though it may be (and I'm not a great fan of fish either), I absolutely love the sensual, almost carnal explosion of that most primal of colours: red.

Unfortunately, unless you happen to own a fish farm stocked with breeding salmon, ikura isn't something you can grab off the shelf. Still, it's not a prohibitively unavailable ingredient, and once you've obtained it then the rest of this recipe is rather simple, which is always a plus. Surprisingly, it comes from Emmanuel Stroobant, whose cookbook hasn't been good for much else.

Marinated Salmon Roe with Watermelon Ice Cubes is an excellent amuse-bouche to be served before the meal proper, and also does well as an intermezzo to cleanse the palate. It's very refreshing, and the tart roe is offset by the sweet and chilled watermelon, wonderfully cooling in the recent heatwave we've been experiencing.

Ingredients (Serves 4)

400g Watermelon, rind removed, flesh cut into 1-cm cubes
2 Tbsp Coriander leaves, chopped
1 Tbsp Mirin
1/2 Tbsp Teriyaki sauce
Juice from 1/2 a lemon
200g Salmon roe (Ikura)
Freshly cracked black pepper
Chives



Mirin and Teriyaki sauce can be bought at most supermarkets, while salmon roe can usually only be found at specialised Japanese supermarkets, such as Isetan. I didn't manage to get any coriander, but any strong herb will do, such as parsley or basil.

Place the diced watermelon in a shot glass, tealight holder, martini glass or whatever stylish container you can find, and freeze for an hour or two. Do not freeze it for too long, as they can cause discomfort to the teeth if they are too cold.



Marinate the salmon roe with the coriander leaves, mirin, teriyaki sauce and lemon juice and keep refrigerated.

When ready to serve, taste the dressing and correct accordingly. There should be some tartness from the roe and the teriyaki sauce, but enough sweetness from the mirin as well.



Remove your watermelon cubes from the freezer, top with salmon roe and pour the dressing over. Sprinkle with freshly cracked black pepper and garnish with a few strands of chives.

Technorati Tags: IMBB, Eggs, Recipes, Salmon Roe

Recipe: Creme Anglaise

(Originally part of IMBB 16: Eggs)

I've decided to tidy up the recipe and change it to an entry devoted solely to Creme Anglaise, the rich custard sauce that goes so wel with so many desserts.

Ingredients (Serves 2, or 1 Cup)

4 egg yolks
100ml milk, or half-and-half
50g sugar
1 Tbsp vanilla essence
30g butter



If you'll notice, this is almost exactly the same as the Creme Brulee recipe, except with less cream. In fact, the procedure for making it is exactly the same as well.



Heat your milk and half the sugar till it's almost boiling (if it's got cream in it then make sure it doesn't boil) and the sugar has dissolved completely. Add the vanilla extract and let it flavour the milk.



Add the remaining sugar to your egg yolks. An interesting reaction occurs in which your yolks get "burnt" by the sugar if you leave them too long, so start whisking immediately.



Keep whisking till the yolks have thickened and turned pale yellow. If you lift your whisk and let the yolk fall back into the bowl, it should leave a trail on the surface, called "forming the ribbon". You could keep whisking till the yolks are almost white, but that is very tiring.



Temper your yolks by whisking some of the hot milk into them.



Then whisk the yolks back into the remainder of your milk.



Over low heat, whisk your custard until it thickens, taking care not to scramble your eggs. Whisk in the butter to give it that creamy liaison. Heat it till it coats the back of a spoon, in other words, until you can draw a line as shown in the photo.



Strain your creme anglaise into a separate container. This custard sauce is particularly versatile, and it may be served hot or cold, and is a good accompaniment to all sorts of desserts, including souffles, floating islands, molten chocolate cakes and other sweet treats.

Technorati Tags: IMBB, Eggs, Creme Anglaise, Recipes