Recipe: Tomato Soup

I remember tuning in religiously to Nigella Lawson's Forever Summer programme every morning. I was really enamoured of the way she used seasonal fruit and produce to evoke such visceral delights that not only looked and tasted of sumer, but made you glad that you were alive.

Tomatoes were often a key ingredient, especially fresh ripe tomatoes bursting with vibrant juiciness and succulent with flavour. While such tomatoes are rarely to be found here, I've always enjoyed the idea of using them in a dish nonetheless. They seem to lend themselves most naturally to soup, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Recipe taken off Epicurious.

Ingredients (Serves 8)

1.8 kg tomatoes, halved lengthwise
6 garlic cloves, unpeeled
3 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano, crumbled
2 teaspoons sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 cups chicken stock or low-sodium broth
Garnish: fresh oregano sprigs or basil leaves



Notes on ingredients: If I made this again I would have included some chopped basil leaves, because as Jamie Oliver so coincidentally reminded me today in an episode where he made a different tomato soup, tomatoes and basil are best mates.

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat to 180°C.



Arrange tomatoes, cut sides up, in 1 layer in a large shallow baking pan and add garlic to pan. Drizzle tomatoes with oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. "Halved lengthwise" means cutting across the tomato, not through it. The first two halves you see on the left have been halved crosswise. That's wrong.



Roast tomatoes and garlic 1 hour, then cool in pan on a rack. After they've been roasted, the tomatoes swell and become sweet. The garlic too, softens and becomes buttery.



Cook onion, oregano, and sugar in butter in a 6- to 8-quart heavy pot over moderately low heat, stirring frequently, until onion is softened, about 5 minutes.



Add tomatoes, and basil, if you're using it, to the pot. Squeeze the garlic cloves, getting out all the softened sweet garlic, discarding the peels, and add it in.



Add stock and simmer, covered, 20 minutes.



By then your stock should have boiled down a bit, and the contents of your pot should evoke wonderful feelings of a carefree summer's day.



Purée soup in batches in a blender (use caution when blending hot liquids), then force through a sieve into a cleaned pot, discarding solids. This ensures that you have a texturally cleaner soup, and as the seeds and skin are a bit acidic, it improves the taste too. Salt and pepper to taste and simmer 2 minutes.



Divide soup among 8 bowls and garnish with oregano or basil leaves.

Apparently this can be made a day ahead and stored, but I'm not really keen on that idea, as I feel tomatoes should be consumed at the height of their freshness.

Technorati Tags: Recipes, Tomato Soup

Review: Choupinette

We had originally decided to try Bather's, but unfortunately I had not anticipated that the restuarant would be closed for lunch on Saturdays.

Eventually we decided to have lunch at Choupinette, a little place along Bukit Timah road, just down from The Cellar Door, which sells nominally French food and breads.



The place is tiny, probably accomodating 20 people or less. It was packed when we got there, but we managed to grab two seats by the window. Half of the tables were occupied by Francophones, so this is a good place to go to improve you French. Unfortunately, I couldn't really understand what the adults were saying. Even more unfortunately, I couldn't really understand what the kids were saying either.



May decided to get into the act by donning my shades. Very BCBG. Très French. The prices on the menu were surprisingly expensive, comparable to a place like Sebastien's. We decided to go for the set meal, since it seemed to make the most sense. Salad or Moussaka or Lasagne, Dessert and Drink for $20+.



The iced chocolate or mocha drinks here would cost you about $5 normally, and are truly dreadful. The iced chocolate hardly tasted of chocolate; instead it was bland and put me in mind of really diluted chocolate milk. As for the mocha, well, May didn't even finish hers.



We both had a lasagne ($16), which was passably decent. Very cheesy, though I couldn't recognise the cheese used. Soft and gooey, but not stretchy like mozzarella. Definitely not the best lasagne around.



I decided to have the chocolate mousse for dessert, which is a bit of a risk even at the best of times, since mousse contains uncooked eggs. The mousse I was given ($7) was actually quite large, and didn't look very promising. Sure enough, my spoon encountered resistance the moment I dipped it in; the mousse was much too dense. Valiantly, I tried a spoonful, and can safely say it was quite inedible. There was a rather unpleasant aftertaste to the chocolate, a soury bitterness that I did not feel came from the cocoa content.



The creme brulee ($6.50) was better, but as you can see, doesn't really inspire confidence. In fact, it looks very much like a burnt egg tart.



Choupinette also retails bread, but given the disappointing standard of their food, I wasn't particularly keen to try out their baked goods.

So now that we've established that the food was rather abysmal, what about ambience and service? Ambience was okay, laid-back and casual, if a bit chintzy from the gauzy blue curtains and shells. In true French fashion though, service was pretty awful. We stood around after enterring the place for some time before it dawned on someone that we might require a table. Subsequently, we were not attended to until one of our neighbouring diners ordered a coffee and rather pointedly suggested to the waitress that we might like to order. After our meal, I had to specifically request for our dessert despite having made eye contact with the waitress for about five seconds. To all waitstaff who may be reading this, if a customer stares at you right in the eyes, it's possible that he's absolutely enthralled by your beauty, but chances are you've forgotten something and he's getting impatient.

I can only imagine that French kids like eating here, because I can think of no other reason to come here.

Choupinette (French, casual)
607 Bukit Timah Road
#01-01
Tel: 6466 0613
Location: 4/5
Ambience: 3/5
Service: 1.5/5
Food: 2/5
Overall: Évitez d'y aller. Avoid like the plague.

Technorati Tags: Reviews, French, Casual, Choupinette

Review: Buko Nero



Buko Nero is a tiny (and I do mean tiny) Italian-fusion restaurant nestled away in the Tanjong Pagar area. The name itself is a play on the Italian "buco nero" or "black hole", though I'm not entirely sure why it's spelt with a K.



The restaurant can only accommodate 20 people, and reservations are a must as the place is almost always fully packed. In the time we were there, every single table was occupied, and they even had customers coming in at 9pm. In fact, I hear most times reservations have to be made a month or more in advance.

So what explains the restaurant's popularity? Not its location, certainly. Not its ambience, either, for while the place is charming and cosy but with enough stylish sleekness with its modern eclectics, I don't see people going there to admire the design. The only explanation then, has to be the food.



What was pretty amazing is that all the food is prepared in this small kitchen, manned by only the chef-owner, Oscar. Just goes to show that it's not difficult to cook for 20 with the right equipment and preparation. The entire restaurant is staffed by only three people; Oscar, his wife Tracy, and a lady I assume is Oscar's mother. This makes service very personable, as you are constantly attended to by one of the ladies, who are more efficient than most poorly-trained waitstaff. The great thing about Buko Nero is the set dinner, which is affordably priced at $35 for five items, but unfortunately nothing I saw on the set menu made me interested enough to order it.



Our meal began with a complimentary amuse-bouche, basically an updated version of the traditionally Prosciutto e Melon, dressed with spring onions and a brush of sweet balsamico. Nice.



My sister ordered a portion of the bresaolo and mozzarella salad. I quite liked this combination, the slight saltiness of the cured meat and buffalo cheese giving flavour to the otherwise uncharacteristic vegetables.



Next we had some tomato and mozzarella crostinis, topped with prosciutto and kaiware (daikon sprouts). These little suckers pack quite a punch, owing to the fact that they're laced with truffle oil. Great as one-bite morsels, these shouldn't be too difficult to replicate as canapes at home with the right ingredients.



My real starter was a porcini mushroom soup ($9.50), laced with a generous dash of truffle oil. I would think that a soup made from porcini mushrooms would be prohibitively expensive, but either the chef knows a way to extract a maximum of flavour from his mushrooms, or the porcinis have been mixed with regular funghi. Either way, the soup wasn't more expensive than others you'll find, but it was much more intensely aromatic, with notes of porcini and mushroom melding well to give a really thick and heady soup.



The chef kindly provided all four of us with a citrus sorbet palate-cleanser even though it was an item on the set menu. I'm not a great fan of palate-cleansers, and this didn't really work for me. I assume the citrus fruit used was grapefruit or blood orange, and I'm not very fond of the bitter aftertaste of these fruits.



My obligatory meat course: pan-fried beef tenderloin with potatoes and asparagus ($28). This was pretty good, even with the mundane vegetables. I was quite intrigued by the sauce, which contained some ingredients I found hard to place. The fist taste was sweet, almost syrupy so, which then faded to tartness that played on the tip of your tongue.



My sister ordered a Green Tea Panna Cotta, topped with azuki beans, which I decided to try, and found to be fairly interesting; the green tea flavouring was mild and subtle, though the panna cotta's consistency was a bit thick.

While Buko Nero has much to recommend it, I find there are a number of factors that would make me reconsider a return visit. First, its location. Tanjong Pagar is one of the most dreadful places to come for dinner, especially if you drive, because parking is always a problem. Even if you don't drive, I have no idea where the restaurant is in relation to the MRT. In addition, the nightlife of the area leaves plenty to be desired, as it is packed full of nightclubs and KTV joints. Second, having to make a reservation a month in advance is very off-putting, because even though the food was good, I don't think it can claim to be El Bulli or The Fat Duck calibre. Lastly, a la carte dishes are not particularly cheap, further reducing incentive to make advance bookings.

Buko Nero (Italian fusion)
126 Tanjong Pagar Road
Tel: 6324 6225
Closed on Sundays
Location: 1.5/5
Ambience: 3/5 (questionable environs)
Service: 4/5
Food: 4/5
Overall: Probably one of the better fusion restaurants around, if you can stand the wait.

Technorati Tags: Reviews, Italian, Fusion, Buko Nero

Review: Max Brenner

In the beginning, the Lord created chocolate, and he saw that it was good. Then he separated the light from the dark, and it was better.

I think the only truly acceptable discrimination based on colour is in distinguishing between light and dark chocolate. No true chocolate-lover could ever admit a fondness for milk chocolate without risking immediate and vociferous condemnation and exclusion.

Max Brenner's chocolate bar, thankfully, is a good place for chocolate lovers. I'd always heard of it, but never quite knew where it was. I knew it was somewhere in the Esplanade, but as I'm hardly in the area, and never really ventured beyond the Concert Hall, it's not a place I'm terribly familiar with.

Nuts just take up the space where the chocolate ought to be.

Still, I'd a chocolate appointment to keep with Dawn, and we decided that Max Brenner would be the best place to get our chocolate fix. Supposedly started by some bald Israeli guy named Max, there are now outlets in Australia, Singapore and the United States.



Now, there is a bar in Max Brenner, although I'm not entirely sure you can order alcoholic beverages from it. It just seems to be a counter for preparing snacks and drinks.



I really like the layout of Max Brenner. Everywhere you look evokes chocolate. From the dark wooden furniture, the muted, mellow lighting, and of course the row upon rows of chocolate products.

It's not that chocolate is a substitute for love. Love is a substitute for chocolate. - Miranda Ingram

Max Brenner offers a whole range of chocolate eatables and beverages. I vaguely remember there being non-chocolate stuff, but honestly, who pays any attention to that?



Dawn had the very interestingly named Suckao ($6), which involves melting your own chocolate over a tealight candle and mixing it with some milk to make a lusciously rich chocolate drink. The drink gets its name from the fact that you have to suck it up through a thin metal straw. This is possibly the one thing you must order here, because it's really really good.



I had a Venezuelan dark chocolate drink ($5), served in a "hug mug", because apparently you're supposed to cup it with both your hands, almost as if you're hugging it. Cute, if a little gimmicky. This was pretty good too, one of the more decent hot chocolates I've had in a while, though I didn't like the bits of chocolate at the dregs of the drink.

There's nothing better than a good friend, except a good friend with chocolate. - Linda Grayson, The Pickwick Papers

And naturally I'm the latter option, as you can clearly see from Dawn's, ah, transcendental expression...



My one complaint though, is that service could do with some improvement. I stood at the entrance for a good minute and a half, in full view of the waitstaff, before someone approached me to ask me if they could help me. Apparently I'm not the only one who has complaints about service; see here, here and my comments. So be prepared for bad service if you're thinking of going, and I would recommend only ordering the smaller items like the Suckao and chocolate drinks, rather than the other items like the souffle or fondue, which have been the source of much unhappiness.

Max Brenner (Chill Out)
8 Raffles Avenue
#01-06/08
Esplanade Mall
Tel: 6235 9556
Sun - Thurs: 12pm - 11pm
Fri - Sat: 12pm - 12am
Location: 3/5 (variable depending on your mode of transport)
Ambience: 4/5
Service: 1/5 (points deducted due to the plethora of complaints about bad service)
Food: 4.5/5 (how can chocolate be any less?)
Overall: Worth checking out if you have a chocolate tooth, but beware the bad service!.

Technorati Tags: Reviews, Chill Out, Chocolate, Max Brenner

Review: Spizza

Pizza parlours are catching on in Singapore. It seems like everywhere you go, you'll find one. Before there was Valentino though, or Pizza da Donato, there was Spizza.



Properly known as Spizza For Friends (that's pizzas, with the S in front), Spizza has outlets in Holland Village and Balmoral Plaza along Bukit Timah Road. I had lunch with Daniel at the Holland Village outlet the other day, the first time I'd been there despite living so near by.



As the tagline boasts, Spizza is a pretty good place for friends to come, as it's a small and cozy establishment that probably won't cost you an arm and a leg to enjoy. As you can see from all the pizza boxes, Spizza clearly also does takeaway. Not sure about delivery though.



We had an order of bruschetta ($8) while waiting for out pizzas to arrive. It's usually quite difficult to find decent bruschetta, so I was surprised that these were actually rather nice. The tomato concasse was succulent, and the bread was toasted just right - soft enough to have bite, but firm enough that it wasn't soggy.



Now on to the main event. All pizzas come at a standard price - $16 for medium and $19 for large. The first pizza we had was a porcini mushroom and ham affair, which I really enjoyed. Porcinis really are the king of mushrooms; just the small amount we had infused the entire pizza and the mozarella with their beautiful aroma, and the pizza was just a delight to eat. The crust too, was surprisingly thin and crispy, without the additional floury texture you sometimes get when chefs dust their dough with flour.



Our second pizza came with parma ham and rucola leaves, but wasn't as good. The parma ham was placed cross-wise instead of lengthwise, giving the illusion that you're getting more than you really are. It was also pretty tough and stringy, and the rucola was somewhat limp. As Daniel noticed, the pizzas tended to be a bit inconsistent, with noticeable variations in pizza quality within the span of an hour or so.

Being located in Holland Village is most convenient, and Spizza is often the venue of choice for the young and trendy crowd that Holland Village attracts, and it's always nice to think young and feel young.

Service is generally acceptable, though the pizzas could have arrived a bit more promptly. Ambience was fine too, though there was an odd smell at one point in time, like there was a gas leak or something. This is understandably disconcerting as they have a live-fire pizza oven.

Spizza (Holland Village) (Casual)
26/26B Lorong Mambong
Tel: 6468 1982
Website

Location: 5/5
Ambience: 4/5
Service: 3.5/5
Food: 3.5/5
Overall: Pretty decent pizza in a relaxed, friendly setting.

Technorati Tags: Reviews, Casual, Spizza