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.

Josh's Grill, 313 Somerset

We've eaten at Josh's Grill once at Bugis a few years back. Food was decidedly decent. This was our first time at their 313 branch (#B2-15 to 19, 313@Somerset, 313 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6235 0594). Menu seemed a little different from the last time.

There's butter beer - tasted like root beer with melted vanilla ice cream. Non-alcoholic if anyone was seriously wondering.

Tomato soup's not bad. Texture was velvety creaminess and flavour's tangy from the tomatoes. I kinda enjoyed it.

Nice tasting oysters with garlic butter. My only gripe was that these were pretty puny. I could fit 3 of them in my mouth.

Something called cheesy melts fried chicken cutlet - basically fried chicken cutlet with melted cheese. Said cheese was brought out separately in a cast iron pan still bubbling and poured over the fried chicken when they served it. Nice.

Josh's Grill has a series of steaks in their menu under J's Steaks. 250g served on a hot plate with a lightly sizzling pool of what I initially thought was butter. Presumably, J is for Josh rather than the clown prince of crime. 🤡

That stuff bubbling on the plate didn't exactly taste like butter. Don't know what it was. Ribeye has low marbling so it's edible, not great. Meat seemed barely salted. What's not good was the creamed spinach. Those were really fibrous and chewy

Ma Maison, Anchorpoint

Some food from Ma Maison (#01-12 Anchorpoint, 370 Alexandra Road, tel : +65 6479 1670). These guys have been around for ages and have generally been pretty decent. They're also my first exposure to Japanese styled western food.

Onion gratin soup which was made with beef stock was not bad tasting. Sufficiently savoury and beefy plus pretty cheesy as well.

Their sirloin's generally not bad. I like that they get doneness correct and the crust that they give to the steak. This one has tamari sauce which was actually pretty good pairing with the meat. The only thing that they haven't quite gotten going well is the consistency of their meat. There's silverskin sometimes which can be a bummer. 

Yummy ikasumi omu rice. Creamy but not excessively because they didn't overdose with that cream sauce.

There's seafood and mushrooms about with squid ink rice in the omelette which was delicious. One can taste that squid ink flavour in it.

Love their chocolate strawberry shortcake too. These tasted better than their appearances belie. Pretty chocolate-y from the combination of the cream and sponge and the chocolate flavour's quite nice. Have mentioned liking them before.

Astons Specialities, Clarke Quay Central

Hadn't realised that there is an Astons Specialities at Clarke Quay Central (#03-85 Clarke Quay Central, 6 Eu Tong Sen Street, tel : +65 6222 3987) until now. This place is pretty nostalgic. Used to be the new kid on the block back then. I remember them for leveling up affordable steaks and introducing accessibly priced wagyu when wagyu was too rich for the blood of most of us.

And also the naturally and artificially flavoured D Nutrigraded IBC which we actually like. I don't remember if I've ever had IBC anywhere else except Astons. 

There's some limited time chocolate crumble fries for Christmas. Drizzled with chocolate hazelnut (is that Nutella?) and some crispy granola/cereal thingys. Much larger portions that I imagined and with the load of sugar, fat and carbs; unhealthy is a suitable adjective for some of us. Not forgetting delicious. 👍🏼😏 

Their entry prime ribeye tasted like how they did from back in their early days. Decent quality and affordable still but prices have understandably gone up through the years. 

Miching Omurice Co. (米青蛋包飯公司), D2 Place One, Lai Chi Kok

Lunch at Miching Omurice Co.(Shop 303, 3/F, D2 Place One, 9 Cheung Yee Street, Lai Chi Kok, Hong Kong). The menu's mostly omurice paired with various protein choices and carbs. There's also wagyu steak.

Pretty impressed with their thick cut ox tongue which was arguably tender. Tongue was beefy tasting. Curry was lightweight and savoury without being overly sweet like Japanese curries tend to be.

This was a serving of their hanging tender (a.k.a. onglet). Steak came with a small hill of fries and underneath those fries, were chopped up romaine tossed in vinegar that was piled on top of mashed potatoes. This plate was loaded.

Special mention goes to the corn soup and that yellow stuff with the ketchup which I had initially mistook for mustard. It's garlic butter and it kicked ass with the steak and the fries.

Pretty nice onglet.

Because of the garlic butter, I kinda overlooked these other condiments that came with the onglet. That paste-y stuff on the right was yuzu kosho.

Our SG60 lunch at Wolfgang's Steakhouse

This happened on National Day......SG60 is a good reason as any to celebrate with a nice lunch at Wolfgang's Steakhouse.

Got ourselves shrimp cocktail again. Big assed and meaty.

The Taste of New York set for lunch included their dry aged sirloin with creamed spinach, mashed potatoes and cheesecake. Meat's not bad. Mashed potatoes were addictive and that creamed spinach was another kind of delicious. Loads of actual spinach flavour in all that butter (or cream?). I liked that their cheesecake was frills free and unloaded with all the extras that many cafes/restaurants tend to include to make up for their inadequacy.

Highlight of the lunch was Wolfgang's beef kut teh. Made for SG60 obviously, this was a rendition of bak kut teh that was made with USDA Prime Black Angus short rib. Only for August they said. Broth was beefy, garlicky and a little herbal. Not a bad remake of the original if I might say so. That 500g short rib was tender, meaty and substantial. The kitchen even offered chilli padi as option with the dark soya sauce. 

Too bad about the coconut ice cream. Did not like it.