Gaston, Keong Saik Road

Chance had some trivia come by me. Apparently, the Burgundians (people from Burgundy) were an East Germanic tribe thought to have originated from Scandinavia. The region which they now live in is called Bourgogne (French), Burgundy (English) or Burgund (German).

Gaston (25 Keong Saik Road, tel : +65 6909 8120) the French bistro is self proclaimed to be Burgundy styled. I can't claim much familiarity with food from that region beyond boeuf bourguignon, the eponymous stew which isn't that uncommon here.

Bread was a nice sourdough. While it reminded me of that one from Belon, it's not in the same league. Liked the soft chewy insides though. So nice with salted butter.

We had Oeufs à l’Epoisses. I wanted to try it because it was something different from Oeufs en Meurette. This was poached eggs in Epoisses cheese sauce instead of red wine sauce. 

Some gratuitous yolk porn. The Epoisses sauce was slightly stinky like that cheese. What I didn't expect was that after the liquid yolk was mixed in, the slightly stinky flavour became muted. Still delicious with the sourdough.

The other Burgundian specialty they had was jambon persillé - a terrine of ham hock simmered in white wine and lots of parsley. Jellied. I enjoyed the savoury porcine quality in the meat they used but there was far too little parsley.

Pleasantly surprised by how nicely done was their chilled capellini St Jacques. There was an eggy quality to the noodles which were scented with mellow lemon. That lemon was in the flavour as well. Appropriately salted. Noodles that had texture like freshly made ones. Scallops were sweet. I would eat this again.

Gaston's steak tartare was not bad. Hand chopped and chunky with a generous shower of sour from the gherkins and caper and maybe mustard. Didn't detect any heat from this one so maybe no Tabasco. The egg wasn't raw but cooked at 60 degrees Celcius as emphasised by their server. So it's not so runny and doesn't spread very well. Fries on the side were quite salty but addictive. They had a nice crisp on the outside.

Finished with a buttery and eggy lemon tart and raspberry sorbet.