Archipelago Brewery, Circular Road

I have seen this place mentioned a number of times in magazines and have wondered about their brew. Recently, chance had us stumbled upon them. Hadn't realized that it was along Circular road near the Shah Alam prata place just behind Boat Quay. An opportune time to get acquainted with their oft mentioned (from the magazines) custom brews which are the Traveller's Wheat, Trader's Brown Ale and the Straits Pale.

Archipelago Brewery gives a small sampler free of charge to first time customers and does take away orders for food from a Thai eatery just across the road when their own kitchen (with a tiny finger food menu) closes at 10pm.

Probably a preference thing but I didn't find anything appealing about their beer. The Traveller's Wheat which according to their description contains taramind, ginger and Chinese orange peel didn't taste of anything else except the ginger. Trader's Brown Ale was about as exciting as a Kilkenny. The Strait's Pale tasted like a regular beer. I suppose it was so regular that I'm at a loss on how to describe it. There wasn't anything distinguishing about the taste. Also, without even chilled glasses, the drinks aren't going to stay thirst quenching for very long in our humidity.

Morton's of Chicago, The Oriental

A very last minute impromptu dinner decision ended us up at Morton's. At Morton's, everything looked bigger and is bigger. This was actually our first visit to the famed steakhouse and the experience was decidedly pretty good.

Morton's of Chicago is located at the 4th storey of The Oriental hotel. The exterior of the hotel looked somewhat old, fading away through time. That was however a facade that belied the rather stoic and dark but simplistically stylish interior. Which was much like how Morton's facade from the entrance contrasted with the interior of the restaurant. The front of the restaurant looked serious and cold. The heart of it was however bustling with the clinks of knives, glassware and overflowing conversations of people; from hushed toned barely whispers of couples to semi-boisterous merry makers and even bawling kids. The air in the restaurant appear to be filled with the energy.

Being a newbie to Morton's meant we got a run through introduction of their steaks and the various cuts they come in. Our server for tonight was a lovely and amicable Tina which the lousy photo did not do any justice to. We were presented with a tray of steaks along with the bulk of the menu recited off the head by Tina like a litany. Was quite impressed because the menu was anything but small. The highlights of the introduction was of course, the steaks. You can guess from the photo on the right that they were anything but small with the 48oz double porterhouse cut being the king of the hill in the platter. We went with a porterhouse and a double cut filet mignon to share with a bunch of other items on the side.

The dinner started shortly with the much heard about onion loaf. The loaf was pretty huge, and warm. Really, look at how tiny the steak fork looks compared to the bread. The onion flavour in the loaf was light, just enough to be detected. I was actually expecting something that was blooming with fragrance once you pop it into your mouth. But that's not how it turned out. Not overpowering. What we liked about the loaf was that it arrived crisp and it's warm. So it went very well with butter. A small caveat lector for you readers. Don't finish it. The steaks are big, especially if you're doing a one on one.

Tailing the onion loaf was our order of a bottle of Pellegrino Liter (it's just sparkling water) and shortly after that, the sides we picked to accompany the steaks. Orders of steak just gets you steak on your plate. There are no accompanying sides. So if you want something else along with the meat, you have to order them separately.

The sides which we had were the sautéed wild mushrooms, hash brown potatoes and steamed broccoli with Hollandaise.

sautéed wild mushrooms

Hash,brown potatoes topped with bacon bits and sour cream 

Steamed broccoli

I'm just going through briefly with the sides. The sautéed wild mushrooms were quite good. It wasn't too mushroomy for me. The bed of mushrooms were actually piled over a toasted thick slice of garlic bread which isn't visible the photo above. The hash brown potatoes were like a thick rosti. The sides of were crispy with the inner parts greasy. It was actually better than what I had expected for hash browns. Broccoli was big and very fresh.

And the highlights of dinner, the steaks....

a very good double cut filet mignon

 not so good porterhouse steak

The juicy filet mignon bites the dust.

Porterhouse takes 2d4 damage

Halfway through my first helping

"...is the second without end..."

"The third arrives..."

The filet mignon I felt was the better of the two steaks. Succulent, juicy, aromatic. The exterior of the steak's surface was flavourful from the grill while the insides of the meat were a pink medium rare. The porterhouse steak wasn't impressive. At least it wasn't in my opinion. The toploin portion had a hard exterior and certain parts of the meats were more rare than medium, visibly with sinews. 

Off to the desserts, we had the signature chocolate cake from Morton's and the Upside Down apple pie.

Chocolate cake. Came with a slightly crusty exterior that encapsulated warmer soft insides and molten chocolate which erupts from the centre when you cut it. Enjoyed this rich hot chocolate treat. For some, it might be even described as orgasmic. Heh! Try it for yourself. Words cannot describe everything about taste. For those who aren't big on chocolate or sweets, refrain from ordering one because this large but single portion sets you back at $23.50.

This quaint looking lump was the upside down apple pie and it's probably one of the best apple pies I've had. The apple pieces were tart which offset the sweetness of the dessert. There was also crunch in the cooked apples. The generous amount of raisins in the pie was apparent in each bite with "succulent" dried grapes that burst in between your teeth. Morton's doesn't have a large variety of desserts but it seemed from what we've had so far, they're pretty good.

Spice India Culinary, Kopitiam @ Bt Batok Central

The above is a rice, naan and tandoori chicken set from Spice India Culinary. Chance would have it that it actually started business for the first day today. I certainly didn't expect that when I was ordering from the store.

This set at $5 came with rice, naan, two vegetables and tandoori chicken. 5 clams for Indian food of the portions above is what I would consider quite reasonable. However it tasted little disappointing.

For a start, the naan is tough. I broke sweat breaking the naan into bite size pieces. It tasted more like a chewy prata than naan. Didn't taste like it was anywhere close to a mile from being fresh. I wasn't given the choice for vegetables which is not the way it usually works. The cauliflowers were decent, but I hated the chick peas. I just didn't like hard crunchy peas on the side. Wouldn't have picked them.

The tandoori chicken, while palatable was not real tandoori chicken. Tasted like fried chicken that's marinated tandoori sauce. The meat was dry with little just a little flavour from the exterior. I can almost swear it's just red fried chicken.

On a more positive note, the ghee rice was quite nice. There's a bowl of white stuff which tasted milky and sweet. No it's not yoghurt if you're guessing from the picture. And it's filled with what I made out to be bee hoon. Hmmm.....if anyone knows what it is, please drop me a note.

Dinner @ Home @ 9 p.m.

Yum, more of the squido rice. I know it's probably ringing unhealthy cholesterol sirens in some of you , but the Hokkaido Fair doesn't really happen often so while it's still there.... why not? After all, I'm probably not going to be able to get this until the next one comes along and whom knows...I might have decided to go the vegan path then.

And then we have tonkatsu sandwich from Romankan Yokohama.

Notice the vibrant greens and reds of the vegetables in the sandwich. And excuse the phone that was used to take the photo. No fast food can ever look this good packed home.

The slice of fried pork actually looks abit thinner than the dish in real life, but it still taste good the same. For $3+, it beats many other similarly priced sandwiches in terms of quality and taste.

Always good to have them fresh fruits, especially home cut in your diet. Remember this kids. And I'm not the first one to tell you that.

OOO : The Importance of being Elite

The importance of being elite? The fruit that blossoms often falls not far from the tree. What's about being elite? Maybe it's about being too good to keep a leash onto your little blooded beast. In the 21st Century, the walls have ears and mouths. Be careful what you utter lest yourself be owned. Especially pretentious trend seekers who understand not what they do. Fools that do not realise that sound reverbrates. An apt self labelled vivid nothingness in the head indeed, that fails even at sanctimony. Ridiculed.

Dinner @ home

Home grilled mackerel and squido rice (take away from the Hokkaido Fair) for tonight. The rice stuffed squid tasted like I remembered it from last year. Which is much better than the tiny ones that were sold in the Umaimono Fair. This one has soft sticky grains while the former has rice that taste like they were undercooked. The squid is a little harder than usual, with a bite, however not rubbery. There is a slightly smoked flavour to the meat.

The mackerels are actually bought frozen and grilled at home. I find that the whole ones taste better than pre-cut slices actually, but this is pretty decent as well.