Thursday, June 30, 2011

Luke's Oyster Bar | Chop House, Gemmill Lane

Luke's Oyster Bar & Chop House
Travis Masiero, formerly of a few places has done it again apparently. This time round, it's a cleanly furbished oyster bar and grill joint (20 Gemmill Lane, tel : + 65 6221 4468) off one end of Club Street that serves seafood that are as I read, imported from Maine. Apparently, the oysters and the lobsters are the much talked about things that one could order around here.

Luke's Oyster Bar & Chop House, green goblinGreen Goblin

Clean tasting refreshing drink that I thought served well as a palate cleanser. I think there was cucumber in it though I do not remember what else went to make the drink. Enjoyable.

Luke's Oyster Bar & Chop House, corn breadhouse made corn bread

These corn bread came with whipped butter on the side and a sprinkle of what looked to be paprika. Cutting to the kernel of it (lol!), the flavours of the corn were robust. Definitely one of the better ones if not the best in town.

Luke's Oyster Bar & Chop House, tuna tartaretuna tartare

Excellent tuna tartare was served at Luke's. The clean flavours of the chopped tuna went along nicely with a fragrant soy based dressing with a hint of citrus and chives. This was a western version of negitoro on toast if you would. It almost felt like eating sashimi here. This was definitely worth coming back for.

Luke's Oyster Bar & Chop House, fried oyster po boysfried oyster po boys

Their oyster po boys were served bite sized. The crispy battered oysters were of a smaller variety and were nicely fried. I couldn't however taste much of them as a lot of the flavours came from the delicious coleslaw dressing. I have no idea what it was made with.


Luke's Oyster Bar & Chop House, oyster pan roastMFK Fisher's oyster pan roast, sea urchin toast, smoked paprika and bottarga

Luke's oyster pan roast was in short, a smokey cream based oyster soup. Albeit one that is expertly done where the cream was rich and not excessively so while harbouring a more than subtle hint of the fat oysters swimming in there. I had a little difficulty identifying the smoked paprika and bottarga there, but what the heck. I wished there were more oysters and for as hard as I tried, I couldn't derive any of the uni-ness from the toast. In fact, the toast contained a pungent flavour I normally associate with blue cheese. In short, I enjoyed it.

Luke's Oyster Bar & Chop House, clam chowderLuke's clam chowder, sage butter and little neck clams

The other shellfish soup was a little more peppery and filled quite generously with the little neck clams. Again, easily one of the better clam chowders I've had.

Luke's Oyster Bar & Chop House, tenderloin au poivreboned in tenderloin au poivre, mustard cognac jus

A very expertly done, medium rare tenderloin with a pepper corn crust cradled in a plateful of savoury sauce that was the mustard cognac jus. Enjoyed every bit of it down to the bone.

Luke's Oyster Bar & Chop House, lobster mac and cheeselobster mac and cheese

The creamy portions of the mac and cheese reminded me of the soups we had earlier. Robust, thin in consistency and not cloying. This one also inherited more than a little hint of the natural sweetness of lobster.

Luke's Oyster Bar & Chop House, banana coconut crumblebanana and coconut crumble, avocado ice cream

Luke's banana and coconut crumble was deceptively light despite of appearances. One could possibly imagine the taste and texture formed by sweet and semi melted bananas along with bits of shredded coconut, warm flaky pastry and crumbles. Nothing very surprising here in terms of flavours, just an enjoyable pastry well done. Didn't think too much of the avocado ice cream though.

Luke's Oyster Bar & Chop House, key lime piekey lime pie

This was possibly the first time I had enjoyed meringue. The ones from the key lime pie were soft and definitely not excessively sweet. The key lime custard was robust and packed with lime zest which created a nice bitter after note. The crushed cracker base (assuming that it was that) tasted oat-y-ier rather than buttery. I thought this was quite nicely done here.

Luke's Oyster Bar & Chop House
I'm very tempted to drop by again really soon, but the prices here are pretty steep.

mystery diner "A"

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