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.

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.

Re-revisiting Merci Marcel @ Eng Hoon Street

Been some years since we were last at Merci Marcel at Tiong Bahru.

Got the sweet potatoes & lentils hummus thinking it might be sweet. They weren't. 😬 Tasted like regular hummus packed with cumin flavour and a different texture. There's supposed to be coconut milk in the hummus which I never detected.

Love the roasted feta with the pears, both poached and fresh.

Pleasantly surprised by their beef burger. Meat's nicely caramelised, still moist on the inside and not destroyed by marinates/herbs. Good saltiness coming from the Parmesan cheese and crispy Bayonne ham. Those toasted sesame on top of the buns were nice!

Cauliflower trilogy - had these at Club Street previously. Still so delicious.

Not bad orange confit & cardamom cake.

M&T, Guoco Tower

I've been curious about M&T(#01-12 Guoco Tower, 5 Wallich Street, tel : +65 8948 9242). I've mixed feelings about the food. What we had felt like it came from a kitchen that's been given instructions/recipes to cook rather than being one that has experience with French food.

Goat cheese salad was not bad. Properly tossed, sweet cherry tomatoes and all. My gripe was that the goat cheese tasted weak.

There's a croque au bleu which is a croque monsieur made with Comté and Fourme d'Ambert. The lack of punch (from the lack of quantity) from the latter was kinda disappointing.

Grassfed beef burger with Fourme d'Ambert was also disappointing. Patty's kinda dense, lean and was not particularly beefy tasting. Fries were mostly hollow...like they're shells of actual fries. 

Not much of the Fourme d'Ambert in it as well. We've had better French blue cheese burgers.

Pithiviers and Wellingtons @ Gaston

Recent weekend lunch at Gaston.

Those above were Croquettes Bourguignonnes. The insides were smoked ham and Epoisse cheese. So what we had was a crunchy breading on the exterior and piping hot creaminess with stinky cheesiness inside. Nice!

Guinea fowl pithivier with foie gras, shaven black truffle & morels in vin jaune sauce. Nice, creamy and no kidding about the rich part. There were strips of bacon in the sauce as well and the puff pastry was buttery.

The venison wellington was an on board special. Like the pithivier, there was foie gras, shaven black truffle and also bacon with the sauce. Not forgetting buttery pastry as well. Sauce was a velvety richness...likely a reduction of sorts but fruity.

Bonjour Ma Cuisine, Craig Road

Bonjour Ma Cuisine is the brunch operation of the one Micheline starred Ma Cuisine (38 Craig Road, tel : +65 9627 1058). The former is available for breakfast and lunch for weekdays only and the latter only has dinner service. At least for now that's how it's working for them.

Iced coffee's okay. 

Chocolat veinnois had a rich milkiness paired with a creamy viscosity and an infusion of cinnamon in the chocolate. Not bad. 

One of their recommended dishes was their Croque Madame Truffe - their refined rendition of the traditional sandwich with truffle. Doesn't look like the standard variety sandwich of its kind. Ham and cheese was inside the disc of crunchy bread with a pretty sunny side up. Not bad tasting. Now that I've tried it, I won't get it again. That's how it was.

We were more impressed by their quenelle de brochet sauce nantua.

Quenelle had a creamy/custardy texture flavoured by presumably the pike that went into it and that crustacean-y sweet, savoury and spicy sauce nantua. 👍🏼

Salade de foies de volaille - warm chicken liver salad with rockets. Nice. Sauce was vinegary and with onions which cut through the richness of those livers.

Their pasta with Parmesan is apparently a thing. Menu calls it linguine but isn't this pappardelle? Anyways, the application of the cheese is balanced by what the restaurant thinks ideal. It didn't taste bad. It just didn't pack the punch from the cheese like I imagined. But otherwise, it's okay.

They have a pretty refined hand chopped tartare de boeuf. Meat's in small chunky cubes which provided a good texture full of bite - if that's your thing that is. It was mine. We enjoyed this.

We were recommended their pain perdu kaya. I was initially wondering where the kaya was. It's the yellow sauce. Bread's nicely brûlée-ed with a light crisp and caramel bitter sweetness. It was also airy on the insides which helped absorb the custard-y sauce. This was nicer than I imagined.

Frog legs, veal sweetbread and lamb at Gaston

Been a while since we were last at Gaston.

This was our first time doing lunch here.

Sautéed frog legs with watercress coulis and garlic. That watercress coulis was buttery, earthy and delicious. We mopped the plate clean with bread. Frog legs here were pretty small comparatively with those from Le Bistrot du Sommelier or Atout but that watercress coulis.......

Pan seared veal sweetbread wrapped in veal farce and filo pastry with Cancoillotte mash & mushroom sauce. Crispy buttery filo pastry wrapped around meaty veal farce enveloping delicious chunks of sweetbread. Pretty obvious we loved it. That mushroom sauce was also moreish. Tasted like it had wine in it. Mopped the plate clean of the sauce.

Pretty good grilled lamb leg with spring vegetables and lamb jus. Meat was relatively tender with a good bite and a little bit of fat for that lamb-y flavour. That harissa on the side was spicy and bitter. Also made sure none of the sauce was wasted by getting extra bread.

The sourdough mop.

Finished with a Paris Brest and a bitter black coffee. A satisfying lunch.