My first encounter with the product of a certain Loh Lik Peng, restaurateur and hotelier, was a number of years back. At Restaurant Ember in Hotel 1929. And subsequently, Cocotte and Esquina. In retrospect, I have to admit that this man knows what people want, understands the concepts that work in the ever thriving F&B realm and sells those crystallized themes to the rest of us.
Market Grill (208 Telok Ayer Street, tel : +65 6221 3323) is one such conceptualization made material. I'm not too sure what people label them, but I personally think it's a rather clean concept with straightforward food with little frills, probably focused preparation from skilled kitchen staff and attention to quality. Of course, such things comes with a price tag to match.
Their cod croquetas are balls of mashed potatoes and minced cod. Crispy on the outside, hot and soft on the inside. I'm sure those aren't very difficult to imagine. On top of that, seasoned with enough paprika to pack a little bit of heat. Not bad, but I guess these are one of those things that I'll never order again after having had them once.
We were looking forward to the lobster sliders. Live tank lobsters slain upon order so that we could have them stuffed brioche rolls at our pleasure. This was as fresh as freshness gets. This was good. Good meant large chunky springy pieces of lobster mean tossed in a mayo, looking as if it were about to burst out of the rolls. Even the fries tasted good. Expensive it ws too.
They had run out of ox tongue which was what I had originally wanted, so I settled for a hanging tender. Steak was a nice medium rare and no less. As the name implies, the meat is tender and has a very defined grainy texture. It was juicy, beefy and a lot more chewy than the regular prime cuts of meat. I thought that the exterior sear was well done to seal up the meat with that you know, umami meat crust that meat eaters generally like? Yes, that was pretty much what it was.
I did also like the accompanying black pepper sauce they did, but I had to hold them in reserve for their 'salardais styled' duck fat potatoes rather than mess up the flavour of a nice piece of seared beef.
Lamb rack was also pretty good. The meat was laced with quite a lot of flavourful fat. The trick was to eat them fast before the fat becomes brains. From this order, we discovered that the mashed potatoes that they do here were excellent. Milky and buttery in flavour, smooth and creamy in texture. Superb accompaniment with the lamb jus on the side.
Banana rum pockets for dessert. I tasted no rum in those bananas. Fortunately, the rum and raisin ice cream was nice.
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