Review: Nicholas

Thank you M. for the photos! This is a restaurant I visited awhile back, when I had the pleasure of Miss M's wonderful company and taste. She suggested this place which I had been wanting to try, it's located in Keong Saik street, a stone's throw away from Ember and in an old shophouse.

It's another place which has been opened by a chef-owner, previously the head chef at Les Saison. The place has been recommended to me but I was also told that the dinner menu here was a ridiculous price (and only prix fixe but I'm not sure about now), so I was happy to try it for lunch, where they had a good lunch set for $38.


The interior of the restaurant was regular and not that note-worthy. It had great wooden ceiling cross beams but the whole room was dark wood with cream walls and non-descript paintings. It had the air of a food-serious restaurant though.


The amuse bouche was a slice of smoked duck breast served with a warm baguette, a bit reminiscent of Gunthers. The bread was fantastic, the duck was pretty decent, though not a knock-out, especially because it was over really fast! I opted for foie gras as the first course, which was pretty well done, it had a warm, brandied juices, not really imaginative but well executed and comforting.

We wound up both having the same main dish, which is pictures at the top of the post. It was a roasted cod served with a carrot and cardamom bouillon. Generally, given that cod is a very oily fish, it's difficult to go wrong, but I felt this one was plump and I particulary liked that they had grilled a crusty almost breadcrumbed exterior onto the fish.

M told me that this was from the cod having been floured before it was seared. The carrot and cardomon sauce was unexpected and gave the dish a sweet and lasting finish. It was very good, the biggest compliment I always pay a dish is that it had me thinking about how to create its taste and that's exactly what I was thinking of when I finished the main.


For dessert, we had the apple coupe with crunchy almond tuile and the dark chocolate cake with raspberry coulis. Neither were speaking volumes to us but the apple coupe was definitely the more unique and far more enjoyable, it was a deconstructed apple pie in a cup the bottom was lined with cooked down apple chunks, then topped with a chilled vanilla custard, followed by a sprinkling of sugar cookie crumbs. The different textures and cold temperature made the dessert easy to eat and not too heavy.

The good thing about the set meal is that it includes petit fours and tea/coffee. We were pretty full, or at least, I was from the foie gras. I was happy that the food was of a high quality and each dish had been paid careful attention, even though it was the set meal, I didn't feel like there was anything production-line-ish or lacksadaical, rather it was practiced and a deft touch with the combinations of flavours. I definitely look forward to going back and for a special meal, I'd consider the dinner degustation!

Nicolas Le Restaurant
35 Keong Saik Road
Singapore 089142
Tel: +65 62242404
Lunch: Monday to Friday: 12pm to 2pm
Dinner: Monday to Saturday: 6.30pm to 10pm

Recipe: Pumpkin Cookies

Ooh...I can't turn this picture around! I don't know what's up with that, so maybe you can just lean your head over and check out my pumpkin cookies:)

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 handful of pine nuts
If desired, you can add sultanas, pistachios or cranberries to the mixture.

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, and salt. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, cream together the 1/2 cup of butter and white sugar. Add pumpkin, egg, and 1 teaspoon vanilla to butter mixture, and beat until creamy.
4. Mix in dry ingredients. Mix in chocolate chips and pine nuts and any other flavour additions.
5. Drop on cookie sheet by tablespoonfuls; flatten slightly. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool cookies.

This recipe makes a large batch of chewy, spicy pumpkin cookies with lots of natural ingredients. They are very good and not that sinful!

Review: TinHill

I'm back! I could say that I was tied up in travelling and cooking but the reality is I was just disillusioned and uninspired by food that I have been eating recently, especially in Singapore. It was like not eating.

I don't know if you go through those phases?


Finally though, I've visited some restaurants worth blogging about and I'm really excited to share these next few with you. Tinhill I found, just down the road from where I stay.


Although to be fair, I can't say I really found it. I had known for the longest time that it was being constructed, as the owner-chef is a friend, Jaime. I'd watched with interest the demolition of the corner unit at the junction of Sixth Avenue and Bukit Timah Road, which used to be Pulau Ubin Seafood.


The restaurant is the result of a decade-long dream that Jaime has had since college days and her time at New York’s Institute of Culinary Education. I should also mention that the restaurant itself, is an absolute joy to be in, especially during the day.


I persuaded my cousin C. (oh, she's going to kill me when she discovers her picture here) to come here for brunch. Jaime said that she envisioned a lantern, a corner beacon, as it were but she also wanted something that would be, from the wood panelling, to the wallpaper and the displays, simple.


The place is simple and beautiful, thankfully, it's standout maturity of design strips away at the sickening and trite imitation and overdone hokeyness that characterises all these new chain 'lifestyle' eating and furniture places opened by every 20-something millionairess-turned-entreprenuer. *Yes, yuppie, don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about..smile*


The design was done by WOHA architects and it is, in its use of metallic post and peforated sheet structures, wording (the wording of TinHill), the use of lines, typically WOHA. Stepping back and all around, it is a very clever tribute to the double-barreled height and structure of the site, as well as the split-level nature, noise and light of the busy Bukit Timah road. The name itself is taken from the literal translation of 'Bukit Timah'.


The architecture, though gratifying, should also be a complement to the food and here, its honesty is reflected in Jaime's bistro food. Her food concept is clean tastes, modern Asian-Western lightness and convenience and a focus on quality ingredients and healthy choices. I liked it very much.


We racked up quite a lot of food, starting with some bread with the house dip, which tastes like a mixture of olives, tomato, anchovies and herbs. It was very good for a lunch but I feel like at dinnertime, I'd prefer a toasted bread.


Then we had the mushroom watercress salad pictured above, which was excellent, it had slices of radish, crispy taupok, sauteed shitake and seaweed, drizzled with a sesame sauce that cut through the slight bitterness of the watercress. It was balanced and well executed.


For our main, we ordered the boullaibaise with red snapper and vegetables, topped with puff pastry. I'm a sucker for puff pastry so maybe it was preaching to the converted, but the pastry itself was quite masterful (yes, I've sampled an embarassing lot of puff pastry). The crispy, risen layer was high and thick and the lower layers were crusty and ready to be soaked in the sauce.


I felt the sauce itself could have been a bit thicker (richer) and spicier, given the airiness of the pastry but the ingredients tasted great together and as a whole it was dead comforting.


We'd decided on the sticky toffee date pudding for dessert and Jaime brought over a fresh nutella cupcake which we had to take home, we were so full.


The sticky date pudding could have been more aerated and lighter but I'm picking bones here. The meal was very good, the mains aren't expensive ($18-25 and less for the daytime sandwiches), the appetizers and the desserts are the same price at $10.90 which to my mind, does make the appetizers much more worthwhile.


The service (of which there seems to be an oversupply of wait staff) is a little anxious but very sweet and friendly. This probably extends from Jaime's own warm nature and amongst the restaurants I visited in the last few weeks, they stood out as the more accomodating and definitely the most smiley. There will be a full mezzanine level to come, complete with a tasteful lounge and library area.

Let's hope this is all Corderoy and Finch was not. Make a reservation and take your family or a loved one. I'm only bemused that apparently this is winebar, located in a place that you really have to drive to but knowing Jaime, the wines will be well-chosen and rare. I'm glad this bistro is in my Tinhill neighbourhood!

Tin Hill Wine Bar & Bistro
797 Bukit Timah Road
Tel: 6463-3811

Review: Akashi

This past week, I went to Akashi with my parents for a simple dinner. Akashi at Orchard (Tanglin Shopping Center) used to be one of my favourite casual places to eat and I used to go really often, in part because it was near B's house and he liked the place a lot. But by early 2007, I started to find that their prices were on the rise and the food quality hadn't sustained.


On good days though, it was still the place to be for home-style sushi and sashimi but at dinner prices sometimes north of $160 for two people, without any sake, it just seemed not really worth the long queue. This particular day, the sushi was very fresh and good but there are a few 'off' items to be found on the menu, like the first picture, which was supposed to be steamed pumpkin. It literally came as two pieces of dry, grainy, half-cooked pumpkin. Atrocious.


The thing about Akashi is that the sets are really quite good value. Ranging from $18-28, their sets encompass chirashi, sushi sets, sukiyaki sets and ricebowls with the usual eel, stewed chicken (oyakudon) and beef accompaniments.


This is the sashimi set I had. I was quite upset that they have taken away their true-blue chirashi and instead replaced it with this awful rice with cubed sashimi offering. I think it's a bit of a cop-out because cubed sashimi doesn't need to be of the highest quality and you (as the chef-owner) can maximise your food usage. Personally, I think it's one of those things you can make for a good meal at home but it's a bit of a cheat to have it while branding yourself as an upper-class japanese restaurant.


The atmosphere is still very good and it really seems like this new location, at Orchard Parade hotel, is working out for them just as much as the old one at Tanglin Shopping Center. This location has always been the best and the best performing, of the others, in Paragon and Vivo City. Congenial, welcoming chef-owner Mervyn Goh is still at the helm here and the service waitstaff is prompt enough, though still nothing near friendly.

Akashi Japanese Restaurant
1 Tanglin Road, #01-01A
Orchard Parade Hotel
Singapore 247905
Tel 67324438

Review: Rakuichi

For my birthday treat, my "big siblings" took me to a Japanese lunch. I was surprised to get the message that lunch was at Rakuichi at Dempsey Road, next to Prime Society. Although I remembered vaguely that there was a Japanese restaurant there but I had never stepped in.


Still, they have unfailingly good taste in food, so I was happy to be invited. I discovered that this place is large and also quite sophisticated, if a little dark looking.


For some reason, they had chosen to outfit the interior of a colonial style black and white barrack-turned-shophouse with a black wood interior and had installed knock-offs of the black fibreglass and epoxy mesh 2005 Bertjian Pot Random Light from Moooi (damn it, does nothing stay sacred from Balestier shops anymore?).


We were shown to a window-side table but the light was still pretty awful, hence the sharp lighting yet blurry imaging in the photos.


We started with a regular sesame salad but they had fried tofu skin and served the bubbly crackly skin with the salad. It was a good touch.


The sets at Rakuichi are extremely good value. I've heard people say that the portions are small but to me, they are not. In addition, there are quite a lot of portions, there's the usual rice, salad and soup, but there's also chawamushi, a decent sized plate of sashimi and another hot dish, like oyakudon or gindara. Rather than serving watermelon, the set also includes sesame ice cream, which was very good.


At $21 for most sets and with a 10% UOB credit card discount, I thought this was a pretty good deal. Some of the sets are more expensive at $28 and at $44 or $84, they have an ultra-set, more in the form of a full 8 course, Kaiseki-type lunch.


I was quite full during lunch, so I felt like a comfort meal of a warm bowl of noodles and agadashi tofu. Their udon is a healthy size and the tofu skin in the udon, well perhaps I haven't had any Japanese tofu skin for awhile but this was the best I'd had in ages, soft, yet spongiferous and oozing soup through the tofu mesh. It was very satisfying.


We also ordered some appetizer dishes and the chicken wings stuffed with aspagarus was very well-fried. I think the one thing that pleasantly surprised me about this place is the refinement of the taste of their food and their cooking, especially in the fried items, their stuffed chicken was very tastefully executed, yet it wasn't oily and their agadashi tofu was not the anaemic kind that you get at Akashi.

www.rakuichi.com.sg
Rakuichi
#01-22 Dempsey Hill
10 Dempsey Rd