The Universal, Duxton Hill

I didn't find this place (36 Duxton Hill, S089614, tel:63250188) agreeable. Half an afternoon of repeated phone calls failed to get through to the restaurant which resulted in my attempt to do a reservation via their website. The web reservation had no acknowledgement and by the time I managed to get through to someone sometime in the evening, it became apparent that the web reservation didn't register. An email which I had sent inquiring the menu didn't get any replies. By the time I was seated in the restaurant, I found that most of the items on their website is no longer being served. Can you spell bummer?

amuse bouche

The current menu from the very recent change (why is everyone using the same excuses?) didn't quite seem as interesting. At this point, there wasn't much other options and I wasn't about to adjourn to another location. I didn't feel that these guys were worth the money and ended up with pastas for mains.

cappucino of mushroom

The impression I had was that they were trying and not quite getting there. Service was very polite if somewhat sculpted. Their  amuse bouche of a pan fried scallop and parma ham on a cheese cracker did look promising but the promising pretty much stopped at that point. A cappucino of mushroom, thyme infused milk and white truffle oil tasted just like a plain, albeit decent mushroom soup with none of the other mentioned ingredients detected. This paled very much in comparison with a cappucino of cauliflower veloute which I've had some time back. 

The very modestly sized pan fried foie gras with duck breast, caramelized banana with rum and port reduction at $36 turned out to be too mushy. The first thought that came to mind when I put the first piece into my mouth was "I've definitely had better". Better and less expensive ones too. And in larger portions. It had almost none of the crispy exterior to speak of to contrast. Duck breast's so ordinary, I can hardly find words to describe them. Help me out here.

risotto

I found the spinach gnocchi with home made tomato sauce and smoked scarmoza cheese unimpressive. Sauce didn't taste good. It was tangy, but not in a refreshing way. I have a suspicious feelings that it was probably mixed from something that came in a can/jar. Did not detect any scarmoza. Parmesan, yes. Scarmoza, definitely not in there. Visually, it looked a mess with bits of unidentifiable vegetable bits in the sauce topped with what tasted like fried tapioca chips. From the way the melted cheese looked, it looked like it had been heated in the microwave. Their wild mushroom risotto with octopus perfumed with truffle oil featured the same tapioca chips. It was served with mussels instead of octopus because they were out of octopus. The reason they gave was that there was no delivery for the weekend. On a Friday night. After I had made the order. This restaurant has serious communication issues.

Or maybe, they just don't like me.