Lunch at Au Jardin

I'm gonna keep this short. In truth, I thought that the brunch was better bang for the buck even if it costed more. But what I liked about the lunch at Au Jardin were their seafood options for the starters and mains. The mud crab and the scallops namely, which were excellent and very nicely flavored with truffle mayo or reduction. I know that truffle has gotten old of recent years and the market is filled with the alchemied cheap stuff, but these aren't that.

The foie gras and striploin was really just passable. Those, I had expected better.

pan fried foie gras, petite salad, caramelized apple, verjus sauce

mud crab with Ratte potato salad, Avruga caviar, black radish and truffle mayonnaise

roasted black Angus striploin (200 days grain fed), caramelized root vegetables, sweet corn puree and shallot sauce 

Hokkaido scallops a la plancha with “sunny-side up” egg, seasonal mushrooms and truffle reduction

this was so good

“Matcha” with citrus mousse and ice cream 

  

“Chocolate Fondant” 

un café

Brunch at Au Jardin

We've been wanting to come to Au Jardin (EJH Corner House, Singapore Botanic Garden Visitors Centre, Cluny Rd, tel : +65 6466 8812) for a while. A really long while. This was a first visit and also a brunch which they serve only on Sundays. Everything before the soup was pretty much a la carte buffet styled which was prepared in curated batches for freshness.

duck rillette

We liked the duck rillette here. Enough duck fat to grease the shredded meat, sufficient salt to enhance the mildly gamey flavour and little else to distract. We had seconds with extra orders of bread.

Tempura of fish and prawn beignet

The tempura and beignet were fried very shortly before service. Both were served hot and fresh tasting with a crisp skin and tender meat. Each of the latter was also wrapped in a shiso leaf. We had thirds since each portion was really small. 

vine cherry tomato with mozzarella 

This was one of my favourites from the brunch.  Chilled and luscious sweet tomatoes (all skinned, no less) with EVOO, a pinch of course salt scattered and drizzled with aged balsamic vinegar. And little sliced balls of mozzarella. This was good in a refreshing manner. We had thirds. Uhm.....I had thirds.

foie gras terrine, rock melon with Serrano ham, smoked salmon

No complains on the foie gras, ham & melon and the salmon. The food was not super fancy, but it was all very decently done with quality ingredients. Strangely, we didn't have seconds for this.

mesclun salad with honey mustard dressing

Unfortunately for the boring old salad, everything else that came with was better. This was pretty much left untouched except for a leave or two.

cream of mushroom soup with truffles 

A finely blended rendition of a luxuriant mushroom soup with accents of truffle. Again nothing very fancy, just nicely done.

scrambled egg, smoked salmon, truffle reduction

I would love to have this scrambled eggs for breakfast often. 

roasted rabbit saddle, seasonal mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, truffle reduction 

One of my favourites of the brunch as well. The rabbit was well flavoured and highlighted with an excellent black truffle reduction. The Brussels sprouts tasted fresh and the assorted mushrooms were exceptional. One could see the care in the preparation of each component.

lobster pasta with sweet basil 

The pasta was unfortunately not impressive. Noodles could have done better with a shorter blanch and the meat wasn't as sweet nor firm as I was hoping for. This was probably just the only dark spot here.

apple tart with vanilla sauce and ice cream 

This was not bad at all. I couldn't figure out what the ice cream was. Refreshingly tart it was.

Manjari 64% chocolate Ganache tart with chocolate “soil”, milk pudding, crème de cacao jelly and burnt butter ice cream 

Hmmm...not big on this but it was really an okay ganache.

I think one's salted caramel saffron and the other is some berry......? I'm just guessing

The case with Eggs Blumenthal

oven grilled cheddar on sourdough toast  

pan fried cheddar on sourdough toast

 yum yum...something wicked this way comes

leftover sausages from Le Bistrot du Sommelier 

what I just labelled as 'eggs Blumenthal'

It's just breakfast porn over the weekend again. With a misleading and intriguing title to it. We tried the "perfect" scrambled eggs, as taught by Heston Blumenthal over YouTube. The double boiled stirring method if you would. It didn't quite turn out the way his did, but it was still buttery good. I liked too, how the residual whites are still present.

Steamed bread with butter and kaya from Ya Kun

This picture doesn't really show very much but I thought this new item from Ya Kun was quite nice. It's basically quartered bread with spread steamed in a bamboo basket. The result was piping hot airy bread with a slightly chewy texture. In between, melted butter soaked in the thick fluffy slices and a smudge of kaya. Local comfort food.

Extra Virgin Pizza, United Square

mushroom bianco

spotted pig

grilled skirt steak salad

cauliflower romesco

United Square is starting too look like a place where I can find myself heading for food. Ramen Bari Uma and Tamoya Udon have opened up lately. The old yakiniku place at the corner has been taken over by Extra Virgin Pizza (#01-14, United Square Shopping Mall, 101 Thomson Road tel : +65 6247 5757).

The food wasn't shabby. I don't think I would mind coming back for the pizza again. Their crust was a little thin, chewy and generally doesn't hold the weight of the toppings very well. And the spotted pig was generally a tad salty, even for me. Still, the things we had ordered were quite tasty. Special mentions to the cauliflower that had a nutty almond capsicum sauce. Don't expect precision from the doneness of meat here. They generally just do pizzas.

Monster Curry, ION Orchard

The curry from Monster Curry did remind me of Go!Go!Curry! which was the previous tenant of this unit. Both shops made thick and rich Japanese curry that was more nutty and sweet and packed relatively little heat. Now I'm not insinuating that this place is possibly the same one that's been repackaged with a new look and menu, the wifi scanning from my phone still picked up the GoGo Curry network somewhere while I was seated at this stall (#B4-54, ION Orchard, 2 Orchard Turn tel : +65 6509 4555).

This was the Mountain Monster curry rice (with added "onsen" egg and cheese) which was good for two. Or more. Depending. The fried meats that they did were much better than I had expected while the shabu pork slices were much more mediocre than I was hoping for.  The egg was unexpectedly chilled.  In retrospect, the spiciness was really what kept the curry going for me. For without, became monotonous after a bit. While I won't be in a hurry to come back, I'm not against the idea of returning. Spiciness level 3 at this shop is okay, I can crank it up a notch the next time.

A feast for a martyr

Here's a dinner to conveniently commemorate a once man that was clubbed, stoned and decapitated after he was tortured. I'm sure he never meant to die such a death.

But what of bee keepers, epilepsy and plague?

Burger vs. Wings + Bar, Orchard Central

I had only heard about his place (#11-03/04, Orchard Central, 181 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6634 0423) a couple of months back so I decided to check them out. To my surprised this place (run by the Kitchen Language group by the way) had taken over the unit that was previously occupied by Ochre (also by the same group).

It was a little sad to see Ochre go. I had the opportunity to eat over there four or five times and even held a very important event over at their premise. Sadly I never got the chance to talk about their food. This was back in the times when it was run by the Japanese chef Kentaro Torii who did a pretty good job keeping the food straight forward and well done. Even the weekend pizza and pasta buffet was no slouch when it came to simple homespun styled Italian food. Service was attentive and unintrusive.

That was then. I've never got the chance to re-visit after the departure of chef Kentaro. Prices went up noticeably and I guess they had just fallen along into the wayside of inviablity in this cold and unforgiving city that doesn't not hand out award for efforts.

But I digress. 

Burger vs. Wings + Bar sounds just weird for a name and while the menu looked interesting............the people in the kitchen didn't quite look like accomplished cooks. They look like they were just paid to work there.

Here's their Tyson Peanut Butter Burger which was apparently a signature of theirs. Pretty decent except for the beef patty which ruined it. These guys who ran the restaurant knew nothing about burgers. The fat to meat ratio was not thought out for flavour and the beef was marinated to death. I mean, it tasted like a beef kebab. Not a proper beef burger patty. Who gives a flying fuck if it's Angus beef? Nothing that Angus beef is known for was present in that patty which was suppose to be medium done and ended up more like medium well. I could go on.

The peanut butter spread was nice. Liked that it was filled with bits of crunchy peanut. However, there was much too much going on as well. Let's see....there's lettuce, tomato, a fried egg, some sauce, cheese and even bacon. The fuck would I know if that was a sun dried tomato brioche they had used if I hadn't read it on menu. You see what I meant about these guys knowing nothing about building actual burgers? They do know a little about building sandwich monstrosities. 

I'd take Mean Packing District over this any time, but unfortunately they're closed for good.

This was a pork cheek burger of sorts. The pork cheeks were a little tough, but it was okay if unremarkable.

There was also wings with strawberry habanero sauce. The sauce was pretty damned good actually. It had the prerequisite strawberry flavours that actually worked with the tangy heat. Great with fries too. But I didn't like the wings. The battered wings are really boring. As much as I liked their strawberry habanero, that barely saved the wings. These things should do away with batter.

I'll stop short of lambasting how cheap those things that were passed off as cheese fries looked.

I got through this with a 30% discount from Hungrygowhere which applies till the end of the month. Even with that discount, I didn't think it was worth the money.

A Double Double from Triple O's

This wasn't on their menu but it is apparently something that can be ordered. I had only discovered this when I was asking about the possibility of them doing an equivalent of a double cheese burger and behold, they do have something that they call Double Double. No sauce for me the next time!

Tom yum pork noodles from MK Restaurant at Westgate

This looked like a bowl of street cart noodles from somewhere in Bangkok but it wasn't. It was one of those lunch options from MK Restaurant (#B1-12, Westgate, 3 Gateway Drive) which I was against visiting since I've tried the one in BKK and it was so much more expensive to eat here. I was pretty much resigned to getting a lacklustre bowl of regular tom yum noodles when the first spoonful came in and it hit me that this wasn't bad at all. The broth was tangy, a little sweet and didn't rack up much on the heat. But it was light and delicious together with the thinly sliced pork, generous portions of minced pork in the broth and crushed peanuts.

By the way, this came with the little bamboo basket on the side which contains a steamed taro with ginko nut bao. While the yam component wasn't very fragrant, the bun was still piping hot after the noodles with creamy fillings. I can't say that I disliked it.

Island Cafe has updated their menu

And in the process, they seemed to have taken off the prawn noodles and my favourite drink as well. I'm not sure if this was for the better or worse, but it seems like the management felt that a refresh was in order and some of the newer items look a lot more up to date, especially in the western section of the menu where I spied cod & chips and even Reuben sandwiches.

The Hokkien mee was something carried over from the old menu, I've never had it so it was a first time. And last. There wasn't a robust enough flavour in the stock that was used to stir fry the noodles and the grilled prawn was dry and puny. The only thing that saved it was the squeezes of lime and their chilli. What's new was the wagyu beef with black bean sauce hor fun which was actually, not bad at all. The sauce was flavourful with mild tones of heat.

However the wagyu label has a way of diluting the experience by virtue of its name. If they had just called this beef hor fun, I would probably have thought that this is pretty damned good since they didn't use any tenderiser that I could detect. So in effect, one got what tasted to be naturally tender pieces of meat that tasted like beef rather than an unidentifiable protein matter with barely any meat texture.

Lei cha fan from Tracy Juice Culture

We saw the lei cha fan being served numerous times previously when we here (#01-34, Fortune Centre, 190 Middle Road, tel : +65 6336 0754) getting some of their juices and they looked pretty good. Quite a number of people were having them. We decided to come back since we were in the vicinity and give their thunder tea rice (擂茶饭) a go.

This was as we already knew, a slightly different thing from the previous time I had 擂茶饭 at Toa Payoh Central. I'm not sure if there are any fixed bunch of vegetables that has to be included or if it's one of those things that are subjected to the whims recipes by each maker. The liquorice flavour in the creamy green broth was almost non existent and the vegetables that they used here were slightly different. Was it good? I thought so. I liked how it tasted light and clean. Being healthier than many other eats is a bonus.

Miscellaneous eats to round up

We were on our way to breakfast one morning at Prince Edward and we passed by this sandwich shop (G/F 783 Nathan Road) which had melted cheese toasties that were made to order with the choice of bread, type of cheese and meat fillings.

Here's one with their "liver sausage" and cheddar cheese option. The liver sausage was actually pâte. The simple sandwich was built on the fly and toasted with a nice light crisp that had appealed to the salt and fat craving for the morning.

This was a shop we passed by with food steaming in baskets at the stall front down the end of Fa Yuen Street in Mongkok.

We got ourselves a bowl of sausage and glutinous rice to go. It was a little too greasy as a snack, but the lup cheong was pretty tasty.

A trip back to the shop that sold our favourite beef brisket rice.

And a breakfast re-visit to Wai Kee after discovering that Yue Hing was closed. Apparently, the owner of the latter had broken his arm.

Yet another re-visit in Mongkok for some delicious bean curd with evaporated milk.

Osmanthus jelly with wolf berries and on the left, with white fungus. The coconut jelly with corn in the middle sucks. 

During this trip, we were graced with an opportunity to do a hot pot dinner down on a off coast at Yuen Long on a floating platform (kelong!) with a private kitchen. We were requested not to provide any names. This visit was pulled off by a friend of a friend who knew the chef who was chilling the winter away. Because he didn't feel like cooking, it was hotpot.

The setup was simple and pretty good. Lots of good quality seafood that featured abalones, gigantic oysters, lobsters, prawns....well, the works. After some time, it got a little too chilly at the waterfront.

One of the stars of the kelong dinner was a locally bred beef. We were informed that it was a good hunk of meat that money couldn't quite procure and the chef had depended on his connections to land himself some. It's not available in the market unless you knew people. Does anyone know anything about Hong Kong bred cows? This stuff was pretty amazing man.

Some evil vegetable crackers.

And off 7-11, the winter edition of the strawberry flavoured Vitasoy and some ginger milk. The former tasted like how one can imagine them. Nothing really special. Ginger milk on the other hand was good!