Hog's Breath, CHIJMES

This Australian restaurant known for their prime rib serves pretty decent beef at a price that wouldn't make you tear or gasp when you get the bill. It did however seem to have raised it's prices of the prime rib by a couple of dollars in recent months. But it is Australian beef they're serving here so those of you who swear by U.S. beef, you can stop reading and go watch tv now.

This was my fourth visit to Hog's Breath this year and I've yet to order anything else apart from their prime rib. Which is served in various configurations.

As I was told, the prime rib here are slow cooked for 18 hours and then finished with a char grill. This I suppose might account for the meat being slightly less juicy. They were however very tender and flavourful. Get medium rare. I wouldn't recommend anything beyond that doneness.

prime rib with vegetables and Hog's tail fries

pink and fatty succulence

Their prime ribs come at 300g for a little above $30. There is the option for the mega cut which is 33% heavier at a heftier 400g for $8 extra. Each order comes with sides of vegetables (salad or boiled vegetables) and potatoes (Hog's tail fries, mashed potatoes or baked potato). You get to choose between the mushroom, black pepper or traditional brown sauce. I recommend the brown.

A shard of Chubby wisdom...

"The only people who can really get away with going to restaurant's anonymously are everyday people (which is why blogs have become great resources of reviews). But every person's tastes are different. And what you think stinks may be another person's best meal."

First (and second and third) impressions

Sunday, May 28, 2006

I was Googling Il Lido and Chubby Hubby's web inadvertently appeared out of the results. Being curious of what he had to say, I popped in and amidst the replies to the commentry, I found the above.

It's not a very deep insight, that above. No disparagement to Aun Koh intended here. Objectively, we're talking about the statement, not the person uttering the words so forget for a moment whom mouthed them.

Rings a whole lot of truth doesn't it? I don't know how many of us have ever given this any thought. But it's probably one of the most resonant statement in the niche of food blogs ever made. That I've read. And it follows with another liner which highlights subjectivity. One that many fails to remember. So what Aun has identified is that celebrity bloggers are disadvantaged (whether they think that or not) by their own statuses in the spirit of candid reviews whilst the everyday littlebodies like me still manage to get around without special treatment. What of individual taste? Does it skew opinions for you? What do you read in what you've read?

A roti by any other name...

Would it still be roti? Probably so. This was about a slightly different roti john I came across 105 Chong Pang Food Centre at Alsafaz Makan Stall. The highlight of this particular roti john was that they didn't use ground mutton but mutton chunks - kinda like those in Indian mutton chop.

The mutton chunks were drenched in a sweet brown sauce filled with onions. Also unlike the regular joe johns, the egg weren't not soaked into the bread and fried. The bread tasted like it was barely toasted, probably just heated for a very little while.

I'm thinking that it would have been nicer if the bread was actually French toasted. Having it pressed into beaten eggs and butter to soak before a pan fry would have resulted in a much flatter and tastier bread. The roti would then have scored better in my opinion instead of having to mow my way through thick dry and tasteless flour.

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.