Flying Monkey, Bussorah Street

I was drawn to Flying Monkey (67 Bussorah Street, tel : +65 62910695) because these guys featured contemporary Indian food and also that they were the only other place that I knew of that did gucchi pulao.

In retrospect, I thought this was a good place for Indian tapas.

We came for an early lunch in the weekend and nursed a Goa Mamma Lassi while waiting for their kitchen to fire up. The drink was made with Indian mango, passionfruit, vodka, dark rum, milk and yoghurt. For some reasons, the result of the alchemy tasted like lychee and rum. It wasn't bad but it didn't taste anything like a lassi drink which was what made me want to order it in the first place.

Only the small plates were available initially because the kitchen needed more time to fire up. We munched away at their truffle naan. Naan spread with truffle paste that was accompanied by paneer mousse and some pear chutney. The bread was delicious alone or with the paneer mousse which was sweetened and spiced. I could taste cardamom. It was more of a curdled form of milk than real mousse. The chutney was sweet, lacked citrus and did nothing to make the naan taste better.

The second small plate lined up was their lamb barra. Lamb ribs that used papaya as part of the marinade along with spices. The effect was a flavour that was smoky and a little mustard-y like what one would expect of spice marinated meat out of tandoor. This was delicious.

Following that were some kickass tulsi cod. The fish was marinated with a basil spice paste before they were charred in the tandoor. The outcome was tender, very moist and very tasty from both the flavour of the cod and the spices.

We tried their mustard gobhi which were gobi (cauliflower) marinated with mustard and then into the tandoor treatment. They were tangy and surprisingly "juicy".

This was the gucchi pulao which we came for. There was little to draw references from beside the delicious one we had from Punjab Grill. The flavour from this did not match in intensity with that one. There wasn't so much of the morel flavour that were infused into the rice and these mushrooms had a less "meaty" texture because they were also smaller. Considering that this was a single serving portion and that it cost about half of the other one, Punjab Grill suddenly didn't feel so expensive.

We were recommended their jalebi. We were apprehensive but we tried anyway. These were freshly made and served hot. Now I can with certainty tell that I don't enjoy them because they're too sweet.