Lunch @ Garibaldi

Lunch with fatpig. I'm quite enamoured with Garibaldi. The restaurant has a certain charm or class which I don't quite sense elsewhere. Service was attentive and the ambience could be pleasantly peaceful for a romantic dinner or warm for a gathering of friends...depending on when you turn up. Just some thoughts on the place.

Garibaldi does a 3 course lunch plus coffee at $29++ from 12pm to 2.30pm which I think is pretty good deal when other spots in town are having theirs for ten or twenty dollars more. The lunch menu is changed every Thursday and options are available for starters and mains.

Today, mine was a Vitello Tonnato (thinly sliced and cooked veal in tuna sauce and capers), followed by a penne al salmone spinaci e crema di zafferano (penne with salmon and spinach in saffron cream) and a dessert of hazelnut chocolate and pistachio gelato.

Vitello Tonnato

"Magnum"

"Blue Steel"

penne al salmone spinaci e crema di zafferano

hazelnut chocolate and pistachio gelato

The vitello tonnato really got my saliva flowing, I meant, it's the tuna sauce. That sauce was applied in moderation that you could taste the veal. In comparison, the one which we had a Papi was totally smothered you couldn't really taste anything else apart from the tuna.

The penne came with hot saffron cream sauce which was delicious. Some of those sauce actually squirted out as I bit into the pasta

Chin Chin Eating House, 19 Purvis Street

Located near to the Beach Road end of Purvis Street (across the road from Yet Con), this old school coffee shop serves Hainanese food in the form of various stir frys, braises as well as chicken rice (both roasted chicken and boiled variety). These guys are one of the eateries known for  chicken rice amongst other things. The locale in this area between Bugis and Beach Road is also a hub of chicken rice stalls. Competition is about and Chin Chin lools to be doing better than the next door, also another Hainanese coffee shop that too sells chicken rice.

We got ourselves a serving of their chicken rice for two along with stir fried sliced fish in black bean sauce and Hainanese pork chop. Does anyone know what makes Hainanese pork chop distinctively Hainanese?

sliced fish in black bean sauce

Hainanese pork chop

Chicken rice here was pretty regular tasting. Not outstanding as far as I could tell. The rice wasn't fluffy and was little dry. Wouldn't call it bad - just unremarkable. Still it seemed to be the the thing to be getting here as evidenced by the neighbouring tables. The sliced fish in black bean sauce disappointed with their sauce. There wasn't much of that fermented black bean flavour. The portions of the fish were generous though and tasted pretty fresh.

Chin Chin's pork chops shone in comparison with the other dishes. The fried pork were not sliced overly thin and had a tasty crust. My only gripe was that it didn't taste freshly fried. The total cost of for this dinner plus two lime juices came to $22.

Queen's Tandoor, Robertson Quay

I'm not sure if I got the name of the place right. This was apparently a new Indian restaurant down in the courtyard of Robertson Walk. The menu separates between Indian and Fusion; the latter comprises of food that are described to be Chinese, Indonesian and Japanese. I didn't notice anything particularly Japanese about the menu and the rest of the fusion portion looked pretty much like Peranakan food. Opting for the Indian items was a no brainer and despite it looking quite run of the mill, it turned out pretty good. The first thing I didn't like though was that the papadums were soft. They've been hanging around for pretty long. Their mint yoghurt dip also had way much to much of coriander and you probably know already what I think about them.

What they had were very nice fish and lamb (in flavourful creamy curry sauces that rings cholesterol bells). There was also an exceptional palek paneer which was lighter than usual and was more buttery. The cheese naan were also delicious and were freshly made.

fish makhanwala

Mutton handi (claypot masala mutton)

palek paneer

cheese naan

I had my suspicions about the mutton handi being cooked in clay pots as opposed to being just served in a clay pot. It was still on the whole, enjoyable. The fish makhanwala were chunks of firm white fish (I don't know what kind) in a creamy and spicy sauce. Very satisfying. Dinner for two was a little below $60, which I think was a little pricey.

Magma, Bukit Pasoh

My initial skepticism of this place is totally dispelled from this dinner. Magma is located at 2 Bukit Pasoh.

Atypical of German places (I guess), the menu at Magma was filled with many options for meats, sausages, wine and beer. This shop-house restaurant houses a partial open concept kitchen without any glass walls so some the smoke crept into the dining area. Fortunately the restaurant didn't smell like it had any problems with proper ventilation. Being a partially open concept kitchen, we observed that not all of the food was prepared in the main kitchen and we knew because we were seated right beside it.

Sausage platter

A regular plate of mixed sausages which was on the whole pretty good. I wasn't really able to identify specifics, but they were generally juicy and some were spicy as well. Liked the coarse ones.

German pizza (Flammkuchen) with smoked pork loin, garlic sauerkraut

What I liked about the German pizzas at Magma was, instead of having a regular tomato based sauce, the bread was topped with cream cheese (woohoo!). They also come with a nice garlic flavour (woohoo again!) and bits of fragrant smoked pork loin that were lightly charred. The pizza actually looked like a sort of giant naan and the crust wasn't as thin as the Italian types. With the addition of sauerkraut, the pizza was savoury and sourish. It got thumbs up from me because there was cream cheese.

A mixed platter of supposedly pork specialties (Gemischte Schlachtplatte) , but I detected chicken and beef

This is pretty much a meat lover's dream. Big platter filled with thick slices meats, various sausages, a small pork knuckle and dumplings (German dumplings which look like meatloaves, not the wantons things). One of the sausages from this mixed platter was the boiled variety - it having a softer and squishier texture. The heap of meat sat on potato salad, sauerkraut, mashed green peas (which were not bad actually) and cabbages braised in red wine. This serving was meant for 3.

Hands with forks and knives get busy in the process...

There was a selection of interesting desserts. We did manage a toasted cheese dessert in cranberry sauce, chocolate mousse and a Gebackene Apfelscheiben mit Zimthonig (a tongue twister for baked apple slices in puff pastry with honey and powdered cinnamon).

Gebackene Apfelscheiben mit Zimthonig

a quaint cheese dessert with gooseberries and doesn't really taste of cheese at all

An interesting and not so regular chocolate mousse

The chocolate mousse was different because the white portion was made with jalapeno giving it a prickly spiciness. It was akin to eating wasabi ice cream. I'm not generally a mousse person so I haven't really paid too much attention to the dessert. It did come with a rather nice almond-y marzipan sauce. It was nice because I liked it and I generally dislike marzipan.

From first impressions, Magma seemed to be pretty good. The food portions were pretty generous but leaned towards being salty. On the top of that, we had very polite and prompt service from the staff that actually knew about what they're serving you. I think I'll come back another time.

Garibaldi, Purvis Street

Last time I was here, I mentioned desserts was a good start. So now I'm finally here for dinner. I think I was almost expecting to be wow-ed (as in totally blown away) by the food here after things that everyone had been saying about the place to me. But caught myself at the end asking how good could it get? Well, on hindsight I thought it was pretty good. This place is definitely worth a visit both for the food and for dates you want to take out to a nice place.

Garibaldi Italian Restaurant and Bar is located at 36 Purvis St. Purvis Street runs perpendicular along North Bridge Road just across from the current National Library near City Hall. The entrance of the restaurant is fronted by wooden framed glass sliding doors and an innocuous looking gentleman at the front who is the parking valet. The doorway leads directly into a little bar which also serves as a waiting area for people that are yet to be seated. Reservations are probably a must. Bar opens up on the left to the main dining area, and to the front, a private dining room.

This dinner  was not exactly the regular options for the most people. Meaning, the items weren't chosen off the menu. So it all started with this really nice toasted cheese foccacia with olive oil and followed by the best egg I've ever had. Seriously. And the most expensive too. I kid you not.


I do not know what was the name of this starter. Soft boiled eggs with white truffle shavings. I think there might have been some cheese inside too. "Best" is a term I usually reserve for something without the shadow of a doubt and that takes a lot of conviction to use. Lol. The could have been the best bloody egg I've ever had. Seriously, it must have been fungi magic involved here. And I'm at a loss as to how to describe the taste. You'll have to eat this to know how it tasted like and I was told by Roberto that after eating this, I will remember the flavour until the truffle season next year to come back for them again.

If I didn't recall wrongly, the general sequence for a traditional Italian dinner starts with pasta before the meats. Tonight they arrived together. A spaghetti pomodoro and a pan fried quail with mushrooms and foie gras.


The spaghetti was nicely done. That meant something as I don't usually like them in tomato based sauces. The quail on the other hand was a bit of a disappointment. Disappointment here meant it tasted like chicken chop. Lol. I'm positive that it's better prepared than a regular chicken chop and having foie gras with balsamic vinegar ups the ante. Still it reminds me of a well done chicken chop. The foie gras was a tad over cooked, but I'm not complaining since the other things on the plate were just chicken and button mushrooms.

I love that egg.

More....salad dinner @ home

This is slightly different from the previous. The only greens are the butterhead and zucchini. There is an addition of grated mozarella cheese the ring like things are some salmon fish cakes. There's no more ham or pineapple in this too.

Pineapple rice with chicken leg

There is a Delights Corner just beside the entrance to Carrefour at Suntec. At the section selling barbecued items, you can get this pineapple rice with a barbecued chicken thigh. The rice was a little bland but they do not make large portions and fresh batches of them are fried as needed. In the queue, chances of getting freshly fried rice is pretty good. Apart from being a little greasy, this was quite tasty. One can choose between black pepper and honey for the chicken. It's packed into a microwaveable paper box with a small side of achar (spicy picked vegetables) for $3.50.

Salad dinner @ home

Here're some looks at home made salad I had for dinner. Quite easily done. The main ingredients are regular, red and butterhead lettuce, tomatoes (sliced), pineapple (fresh ones, chopped), ham (sliced) and chicken (from Cold Storage, deboned and shredded). The only condiments in the mix are lemon juice and some Japanese sesame salad oil. Which is good enough for flavoring.