Dessert at Menotti

Menotti, aside from being the grandson of Garibaldi is also located at the first floor of Raffles City. This place, being part of the Garibaldi Group is sister to Riciotti just down at Riverwalk. Just for those of you that do not know, there is a 50% off cakes and pastries at this place after 10 p.m.. Which makes their offerings a very sweet deal (excuse the pun) if you're within the vicinity at that time and have a sweet tooth.

That above is the Riciotti. The menu describes it as a "luscious and creamy cheese cake made from the finest" ricotta cheese." This actually tastes like a dense pound cake with little other flavour. The only resemblance to cheese cake or ricotta is probably in the texture of the cake, but it is otherwise quite unremarkable. The top of the cake has some pine nuts which have become soft. The taste of the pine nuts is barely discernable, if existent and really doesn't accomplish much but serve as an afterthought.

Glossy is the dark dome of the Cassata Siciliana. Lol. It's another ricotta cheese based cake with bits of citrus fruits embedded on the inside and coated with a shell of dark chocolate. The top is overlaid by a strip of preserved orange skin and pistachio marzipan. I don't think much at all of marzipan. Apart from being overly sweet, I don't see why anyone would like to eat that thing. This pistachio marzipan tastes the same as the regular one. That means no pistachio flavour in it.

The Cassata Siciliana was however in my opinion a better cake then the Riciotti in terms of textures and flavor. The bits of embededed fruits do add a pleasant distraction to the ricotta and there's also small chocolate chips inside.

If your astute observations haven't yet activated, that is the Tiramisu. I've been trying to avoid them in most places because it mostly disappoints and since this place is Italian, I decided to give it a go. Just subtle variations and this is one of the liquor drenched ones with a creamy mascapone spiral top blanketed with cocoa powder. Oh, and it's pretty good surprisingly. This place is one to consider.

The total bill for desserts is $10.10. So there you go for the past 10 offer. Makes you feel less disappointed when you make bad choices from being more adventurous too.

Astons Specialties, East Coast Road

This dinner was organized by fatpig of Timeless Facade. It was also a first opportunity for me to attach faces to some names that I have been making various forms of correspondences to. Included in tonights first run to Aston, are also a very lovely trio of ladies from CozyCot. If I was asked, I thought the restaurant was a mixture of hits and misses. Read on....

Astons is located along a row of shop houses at Katong - address states East Coast Road. It's \somewhere across the street from Roxy Square. We arrived approximately 5-10 minutes before the reservation which was made at 8p.m. Apparently, no one  in the restaurant registered the reservations. And that was the scene at our arrival.

We were addressed appropriately for the inadequacy of failing to record the reservations very quickly by the busy but friendly counter staff. Managed to get the next table after about 20 minutes of wait. Which I thought was a nice job instead of putting the reservation into denial and making us wait with the queue. I'm sure I would have left if they did but I guess they were serious about their business.

The interior of of the restaurant was decorated in warmish shades. The seating space looked like it could accommodate about 50-60 people. Maybe. With the entrance wide open and ventilation from just a couple of ceiling fans and 2 air conditioners - one can imagine how comfortable it can be to have to wait in line. Not exactly the best of places for making conversations unless one typically enjoys humidity and heat. Would have been great if there was better air conditioning.

The menu was placed at the counter of the entrance. That was also the place which orders are made. The counter guy was kind enough to oblige taking our orders for 8 at our table which I thought was a nice gesture. Pic the right is the menu. I wasn't really sure what to expect because there were no pictures. You would have to hope that what you ordered looked like how you imagined it. Junie mentioned something along the lines of that also taking away the option for us to rant if the food didn't arrive the way it looked. Lol. The only item I thought sounded nice was their Burgundy Roast Beef. But we agreed as a group that what we would be going for tonight was Aston's wagyu steak which we were hoping that they didn't run out of. We managed to make our five orders.

Astons serves also IBC Root Beers which we ordered in a 6 pack. Never had IBC before but then again I'm not so much into sweet fizzy beverages. I've heard people saying that it's pretty good root beer. Tasted pretty much like regular root beer to me. Still good considering the fact that we were a couple of notches away from sweltering heat. 

IBC has an interesting bottle which features emboss onto the dark glass instead of the usual print or wrapper. You can see from the right that the labels aren't really obvious. Which made me want to scrutinise what was on the bottle. More than what I would usually do for bottled drinks. Maybe that was the intent of the bottle design?

The wagyu steaks were the highlights of the dinner. Think they weighed approximately 200g. There were some inconsistencies in the doneness. Some were more charred and others looked pink and juicy. The orders for our table also came at different times. The last two portions were served only when everyone else had almost finished their dinner. No one was elated about being put through the lengthy waits.

So the steaks themselves - each order came with a selection of two sides. Steak also came with a salty mushroom sauce on the side. The meat was fatty and well flavoured with each juicy bite. I liked it. Though it was a little small for me. Will give it credit for the flavour if not the portions. While it's not the best of grade Wagyu, I don't think anyone else actually offers something similar for this price point. $38.90. I just wished that it was bigger. Would have made it more satisfying.

That's the SuperShiok burger. It looked fat and juicy, laced with barbecue sauce and cheese along with sliced tomato and lettuce. At $12.50, one wouldn't expect less. I only managed to get a morsel which tasted okay to me. Patty's a little too dry. I don't think I'll come all the way here just for this.

Mr Bean, Selegie Road

It's been about 12 years since I last ate here and I recall having a good memory of their Seafood Marinara. Well, 12 years is some time and recollections can be fuzzy. I could have been misled. In fact, I could've been totally wrong

What is being passed off as Seafood Marinara looks like something that can be whipped up in an oily wok at a hawker centre. Spaghetti stir fried in some spicy tomato broth with a couple of mussels, some prawns and shrimp and a few small pieces of squid. The prawns weren't even deshelled properly and I had to spit fragments out of almost every piece. For $14.90, it costs to much. Now armed with the hindsight , I don't think it would be worth half that amount. Really, if you want decent pasta, head down to Basil Alcove in the vicinity which serves something at less than half the price and more than twice the quality.

Serving the Turkish Beef Wrap on a square plate doesn't detract it from the fact that it looks and tastes like the Chicken Foldover from McDonalds. The supposed paprika beef strips came in small chunks. I could barely differentiate the yoghurt from some regular salad sauce. Nothing about it really taste Turkish. Mr Bean here has succeeded admirably in making their offerings taste like mass produced fast food items.

I'm not normally too picky over service at places like this, but I have really got to mention a couple of things this place. Service at this restaurant is at a bare minimum. They are apparently more interested in doing whatever it is that they were doing instead of looking out if anyone actually required some attention. The request for ice water took long minutes of waiting when there was only one other customer and what was eventually served, was wasn't even chilled water. Really, these guys aren't interested. And I intend never to return.

Botak Jones, visita Numero Dos

That was the the queue at 6.18p.m. today at the Kopitiam located at Block 325 of Clementi Ave 5. To beat the dinner crowd, one would obviously have to be earlier than that to avoid their peak hour waiting time. Judging from the crowd it would seem too that Botak Jones is most of the business of the coffee shop in the evening employing as many staff to manage their queue and tables. Just like the outlet at Ang Mo Kio. After months of buzz, complaints and attention from the media, this place attracts swarms of people. There has got to be something about their food that buys over the hearts (or stomaches) of so many people. Novelty?

I mentioned previously that I would be returning to try something from them again. So here's us at the Clementi outlet getting that Cajun Chicken that I only managed to get a mouthful of the last time round. For a moment, I was worried that it would be a letdown from expectations but I was glad that wasn't. I had too mentioned before that Botak Jones beats the crap out of e.BlackBoard in terms of taste. While taste is personal, I still maintain my stand that this place wins hands down. In any situation. For a start there's no cheap herbed flavour which I thought didn't suit the chicken and really made whomever cooking look like they was trying too hard to make the dish appear to taste exotic.

The Cajun Chicken here was probably the best grilled chicken there is around for the price. For $6.90, I haven't had or seen anything else that beats this. Fries were a bit disappointing. Dried and over fried. As I bit onto them, the thoughts of MSG recurred in my mind. Apart from this, the chicken was as good as I remembered. Someone mentioned that the chicken was probably made of more than a piece of compressed breast meat since chicken breast doesn't usually come such thickness and the middle section really split apart with ease. It was also quite tender for chicken breast.

I managed to get a shot of the juice oozing out of the hole left by placeholder stick on the Botak burgers. Look it.

And that below, is the Fish Burger with Chez. Whatever Chez is.

A rogue!!!

Vis-à-Vis, 12 Chun Tin Road

Vis-à-Vis is a cosy French restaurant located along Bukit Timah Road near Beauty World. It's situated on Chun Tin Road, a little street which happens perpendicularly just before the Al Ameen. This French restaurant is run by some locals who evidently seem to have some idea of what they're doing. They also practice changing of the menu every 3 months in response to the fact that their customers like changes.

This dinner was arranged by Lynn so there was really little I needed to do except sit down and wait to be served. The service here is polite, with warmth from the very obliging lady boss. That was in comparison to the rest of the staff whom are more curt and less chatty.

We began with the presented menu and a basket of fresh warm baguette. The bread here is freshly baked in small batches. It was so nice that we asked for another two servings while I used them to wipe the sauce off my plate and then stuff them into my mouth. Apart from baguette, they also had a walnut and raisin loaf which were just short of awesome. Soft, dense and very warm.

Following the bread, came the appetizers. We went with half a dozen escargots baked with parsley and garlic butter sauce and the homemade duck liver pate stuffed with goose liver and roasted pine nuts complemented with some tangy tasting Cumberland sauce.

escargots

Duck Liver Pate stuffed with Goose Liver.

The escargots were served scalding hot. Didn't come with the shell containers which I was kinda expecting. And then, there was the "delicate" portions of the pate and liver. To the credit of whomever made it, it was delicious. The smooth texture of the goose liver contrasted with the course texture of the pate. This stuff would be fantastic with bread. I have no idea what is Cumberland sauce, but it is tangy as described.

Between the bread and the appetizers, it actually took a little time before we were served our mains. Usually it was short work, but I guess it was a little different tonight. We got ourselves the roasted confit of duck glazed with plum sauce crusted with mixed peppercorn & spices complemented by an Orange Marnier sauce paired with pan fried foie gras on a well....seared peach. And an Australian beef meltique steak.

roasted confit of duck.

meltique steak?

The duck confit came with fragrant roasted skin and fat that melted in your mouth. Meat was tasty but a little dry. The plum sauce wasn't special. The fragrance of plum didn't quite come through although it did have that citrus flavour. On the overall, it was pretty enjoyable

The steak was apparently pre-ordered on request. This place did a good job out of medium doneness if you can make out of it in the photo. I was initially dismayed by the small portions. But it was a succulent cut of meat. The restaurant also provided a freshly made mushroom cream sauce on request which was filled generously with wild mushrooms. It looked like a pretty normal looking mushroom cream sauce, but the taste was robust and mushroom-y. This sauce was also one of the reasons why we made our way into the third basket of their fresh bread.

Dessert followed suit. The what described as a decadent chocolate and vanilla ice cream terrine lightly drizzled with chocolate ganache sprinkled with roasted nuts turned out to be just a rather ordinary looking chocolate and vanilla ice cream. No particular fragrance from the roasted nuts neither. The other dessert which was baked Alaska fared much better. I wonder how many places does Baked Alaska since the only other one I've had was from Shashlik.

Chocolate & Vanilla Ice Cream Terrine

Alaskan flames

This baked Alaska was a little different from the one served at Shashlik. There was strawberry ice cream at the middle. I also noticed a sprig of mint wilting under the flames. The surrounding meringue remained light and fluffy tinged with a slight burnt taste from the flaming Grand Marnier.

On the overall, the eating at Vis-à-Vis was pleasant. Not to mention also the fact that this dinner was considerately arranged by my most beautiful companion. The damage for this 3 course for 2 is about $145. Which was all things considered, very fair price to pay. The bill came with their home made truffles and roasted coconut coated white chocolate which I thought was pretty good. They're also for sale at the restaurant at 80 cents a piece.

Mayim, West Mall

Mayim is a Chinese restaurant serving northern and southern Chinese cuisine located at the 2nd floor of West Mall. There's dim sum in the afternoons between 12 to 2 pm if IIRC. According to their website, the name of this restaurant is also the thirteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet which means water. Heard it's opened by a chef from Hong Kong. Can't say I can join the dots there. The following was lunch for 2 for today.

Jellyfish with spice flavoured peanut sauce

Steam jumbo prawn dumpling or "har kow"

fried Buna Shimeji mushroom with shredded pork and garlic

crispy beancurd skin roll with prawn

pan fried turnip cake with chinese sausage (lup cheong)

Steamed vermincelli roll with barbeque pork