Les Ducs, Ann Siang Hill

A few bouillon styled eateries have popped lately. Les Ducs (8 Ann Siang Hill) along with Bouillon Gavroche were a couple of them.

Sourdough was smoky. Nice with butter.

Foie gras terrine's...okay. A bit pricey methinks. The foie flavour seemed muted, not like what I remember of them from Brasserie Gavroche.

Pretty meaty steamed prawns. Love their cocktail sauce that we even saved them for fries.

Not a fan of their roast chicken leg with mushroom sauce. Skin's a bit chewy and the meat's pedestrian. Sauce felt a little thin didn't taste particularly mushroomy; definitely wasn't the creamy variety that I had in mind. Also not something that I'd associate with French and sauces. I'd rather the roast chicken leg from Cold Storage. Seriously.

Not bad tartare de boeuf.

Tartar was tangy, a little herby and creamy. Didn't seem to have capers though.

Their ham and Comte cheese coquillettes was basically a French mac & cheese. Nicely done.

Pretty nice chocolate mousse. Had the expected smooth creaminess with dark chocolate notes and importantly, not overly sweet.

I like their crème Mont Blanc. White pudding-y bottom reminded me of yoghurt. Top's chestnut cream and meringue.

Plain Vanilla, Yong Siak Street

I was just saying not long ago that we never come into Plain Vanilla (1D Yong Siak Street) because of the crowd. This somehow happened.

Niçoise salad. Tasted like Niçoise salad with fishiness from anchovies and tuna.

Got the portobello mushroom & Stilton flatbread because Stilton. In the end, it was mostly mushrooms and rosemary I tasted with occasional nuttiness from the pine nuts. Not so much the blue cheese. 😔 Felt like they were trying to do something and half assed it because they were afraid.

This was nice. Bacon, scrambled egg and halloumi sandwich with chipotle mayo. Buns were soft and the in betweens were deliciously hearty. Every element in here was bold and discernible; unlike the wannabe flatbread that tried to involve Stilton and failed right at it.

Menu called this tomato veloute soup with grille cheese soldiers. The non-fancy name could be cream of tomato with grilled cheese. Passable but I'm pretty sure I preferred the one from Josh's Grill.

Unremarkable ice mocha. Would have been enjoyable if they made this a lot more gao in consideration of all the ice in there. But that's me.

Bouillon Gavroche, Mandarin Gallery

Brasserie Gavroche has opened a less pricey Bouillon Gavroche (#01-16/17 Mandarin Gallery, 333A Orchard Road, tel : +65 8522 0998) in town. While the restaurant is definitely easier on the wallet, one also needs to understand that the price tag commensurates with the quality of the food.

Decent warm goat cheese salad but that goat cheese...let's just say we've had better flavoured ones. These were crumby and tangy but not so much....goaty? Which I thought was the point.

There's crevettes sauce thermidor - or prawn thermidor. Not bad crustacean-y bechamel and those prawns were nice and smoky. Liked the mushrooms in it too.

Ordered their butcher's cut steak with peppercorn sauce. The cut of the day was sirloin. Meat's dry-ish...almost like dry aged meat on the interior surface but minus the funk and flavour. Quite disappointing. Going on record here that Ma Maison has better sirloin steak.

Shiok Burger (新奇汉堡), Tiong Bahru Plaza

Shiok Burger opened up Tiong Bahru Plaza not long back (#01-159 Tiong Bahru Plaza, 302 Tiong Bahru Road).

Came over to try the XXL Mala Inferno Burger. Given the name, its appearance was a little underwhelming.

Meat's a little thin. Decent mala sauce like what we've had previously but I'm not feeling the 'inferno'. McSpicy has more burn. For an "XXL" sandwich, it sure didn't feel that way after eating.

Mr. Bucket Chocolaterie, Dempsey Road

They're (#01-03/04, 13 Dempsey Road) apparently a chocolatier that has started incorporating chocolate into their food so we were here to try them.

That's the Chocolate BLT. What intrigued me was the 45% milk chocolate mascarpone which turned out to be really good. Sadly, the beef bacon was no good at all - it was tough, chewy and sinewy. Some parts weren't edible. Pretty sure it would have been much better with regular bacon but the food's Muslim friendly so that's never happening.

There's steak frites with 72% dark chocolate peppercorn sauce. Kitchen has obviously little experience with plating. Sauce appeared to be watery because of the juices from the meat. Meat's edible, not great quality and also had some chewy unswallowable parts. Adequately salted though. The fries were the best tasting things on the plate.

Was nice of them to oblige when we asked for more sauce because there was barely enough to taste. It's creamy, not bad tasting but also neither memorable nor dark chocolate-y. Felt more like milk chocolate without much discernible pepper.

Pan seared duck breast with chilli cocoa powder was mediocre. I'm not sure what's their definitely of sear because I wasn't tasting any of it on the duck.

Meat was lean and had a powdery feel to them. There's little to no fat under the skin and that skin was very chewy. There were bits of silver skin in them. Apricot gastrique on the side didn't taste bad. Reminded me more than a little of tamarind but I didn't think it worked with the chilli cocoa powder.

Quite a bit of stuff we couldn't chew and/or swallow.

Chocolate's not bad though. We were offered samples and ended buying some.

Back to brunch at Wooloomooloo Steakhouse

I mentioned coming back here for their burger. 

The butter with the onion focaccia is like the icing on the cake.

Their crustacean bisque is always a good choice.

One of the first course option in the brunch was an open faced beef gyoza with avocado. Beef's really tender but the flavour was almost totally muted by the yuzu mayo.

There's a Australian wagyu carpaccio which was pretty good tasting. Not so much because it's wagyu but more of the combination flavours with the tuna sauce and sweet pickled onions. That and the textures from the diced onions and not too salty crispy capers.

So here's that double cheeseburger. Special sauce on the side.

Nice, hot and meaty between buttery buns.

Picanha from Pure Black cattle. Meat's beefy and metallic, tender and chewy at the same time. Much like skirt/flank. The sweet glazed carrots that came with it was awesome. 

Sticky coffee pudding with vanilla mascarpone to end. Pretty good.

Pistach & Morty in sesame bagel from Two Men Bagel House

Rick & Morty vibes much from the name of this one? 😏 Anyways, Pistach & Morty from TMBH ( 一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五, 十六, 十七, 十八, 十九, 二十, 二十一, 二十二, 二十三, 二十四, 二十五, 二十六, 二十七, 二十八, 二十九, 三十, 三十一). According to them - hazelnut, salted walnut, kataifi, Mortadella, whipped Brie, balsamic glaze and cranberry compote.

現実 <- The only nut I picked up was pistachio and I'm not sure if it came from the Mortadella. That green stuff tasted nutty so I'm guessing it's pistachio butter. Nice crunch from the kataifi and a deliciously rich cheesy creaminess from the Brie with the fruitiness of the cranberry compote cutting through it all.

Perhaps one last Relish......

Word was that Relish has to relinquish their unit at Cluny Court at the end of the month which will also mark their closure after almost two decades. Sounds a little sus if you asked me. They've been in the business for so long and expiry of the lease should have been on the crosshairs ages ago. Couple that with the fact that one cannot even find their menu on their website. Their socials feel kinda dead. One might imagine that interest in the business was already waning.

But that's just me and overthinking.

Came here for their Wild Rocket Burger. Iconic somewhat for the restaurant because they're one of the pioneers of better burgers back in the day. I remember being quite impressed back in the day.

It's obviously not the same burger as then. This one was much more seared and much less juicy. That sun dried tomato relish sure looked like it withered across the past 19 years. 😓

The order menu has options for doneness now. I picked medium. No prizes for guessing how disappointed I was. Meat was not great. And where the hell was that Sarawak pepper cream?

On the bright side, the fries were nice. Tasted like real potatoes, not overly crispy and adequately salted. They deserve a pat on the back for that.

Some breakfast plate. Serviceable with buttery sourdough.