Pineapple rice with chicken leg

There is a Delights Corner just beside the entrance to Carrefour at Suntec. At the section selling barbecued items, you can get this pineapple rice with a barbecued chicken thigh. The rice was a little bland but they do not make large portions and fresh batches of them are fried as needed. In the queue, chances of getting freshly fried rice is pretty good. Apart from being a little greasy, this was quite tasty. One can choose between black pepper and honey for the chicken. It's packed into a microwaveable paper box with a small side of achar (spicy picked vegetables) for $3.50.

Salad dinner @ home

Here're some looks at home made salad I had for dinner. Quite easily done. The main ingredients are regular, red and butterhead lettuce, tomatoes (sliced), pineapple (fresh ones, chopped), ham (sliced) and chicken (from Cold Storage, deboned and shredded). The only condiments in the mix are lemon juice and some Japanese sesame salad oil. Which is good enough for flavoring.

Lunch @ Jaan, Swissotêl The Stamford

This place probably looks a lot more prettier at night when the hours after dusk dims the details of the cheap looking walls and the not so posh looking decorations of the restaurant. It doesn't look bad in the day, it's just a lot more dull than I was led to believe from pictures I've seen. Jaan can be found at the 70th floor of Swissotêl The Stamford in the Equinox Complex. The restaurant looked like a small dining room that sits maybe about 40-50 (?). The entrance is connected to the elevator via a small passageway on the main landing of the complex and reservations I believe are necessary. The Murano "Wave" chandeliers in the restaurant are unique looking rows of glass lightings on the ceiling which are shaped remotely like....waves. In the day, it looks quite dull and cloudy but I suppose the attraction of them comes in the night when it is actually lit and when one is already and partially mesmerised by the scintillating skyhigh view of the city to notice the non-flattering details. 

Did lunch with fatpig. Equinox offers a 3 course lunch package at $35+++ (or was it $38?). Food was really good although it came in fine portions. If it were larger, I'd probably sink into lethargy and that's not good for a work day. Lol. The service was what I would describe as sculpted marble. Carefully shaped and doesn't emit warmth. If you're on a schedule or like your food to arrive fast, this isn't the place to be. I spent approximately 2 hours here.

We were served bread and water approximately 15 minutes or so after we've made our orders. I'm not sure what took so long but to venture a guess, it's probably to give time for the butter that is already placed on the table shortly after we've ordered to soften. Jaan serves a small variety of bread ranging from walnut loaves, wheat and honey ones, regular baguette and a pretty tasty and triangular sesame covered bread which was pretty fragrant and looked like a small Lembas bread. Feel free to ask for more to tide the waiting time because this place does leisurely lunch. The walnut loaf however was quite dry and tasted like reheated loaves instead of fresh ones.

Appetizer was a Pastilla of Confit Duck Leg with Sweet and Sour Raspberry Jus, followed by a petite sized main of ribeye with pink garlic crème and truffle parmesan rizoni.

Pastilla of Confit of Duck Leg

Ribeye

Pastilla as I've learnt recently is like fried poh piah. A pastry fried skin which wraps around minced meat fillings. The filling of minced confit of duck leg was delicious and juicy. The raspberry jus worked wonderfully with the dish and made it more appetizing. I wonder what that token handful of greens on the top really meant to the dish. A poorly conceived decoration or because vegetables are good for you. Because if it serves the latter purpose, we need to have more than that small handful.

Jaan did a very delicious ribeye. I have two gripes with it. Firstly, it is puny as a steak. Secondly, medium rare does not seem to be in order and I vaguely recall that the last time I had such an experience, it was in another French place. The doneness was more like medium. Despite that, it was rjuicy with a good beefy flavour. Against the recommendation of the server for Red Port jus, I picked pink garlic crème which I thought was a good choice. The truffle parmesan rizoni was nice. Me being a sucker for cheesy things. All in all, it was an enjoyable steak that should have been much bigger.

Dessert was a marinated pineapple in vanilla with dry figs, blood orange granité and tomato foam. I swear the foam tastes nothing like tomato. Doesn't even look remotely tomato-y to me. The combination of the figs, granité, foam and pineapples did make interesting textures in a mix of smooth and granular sensations padded with a foamy citrus feel. Not bad.

So lunch at Jaan is pretty good. A little hefty in prices for lunch, but enjoyable.

Dessert @ Garibaldi

This Italian eatery located along Purvis St. has been a landmark of sorts for Italian cuisine. I have unfortunately not had the opportunity to eat here, but doing desserts is I guess a good start. Lol.

Panna cotta

Tiramisu

I'm not generally big on panna cotta and have only had it in a couple of occasions in recent times, so I can't really talk much about it. I don't even know how an authentic one is suppose to taste like. Garibaldi's rendition of the dessert comes in a firm jelly like texture and a slight hint of what I thought to be citrus. The tiramisu here like tiramisu elsewhere stands on its own standards. The difference here is that it comes with a dark chocolate shell filled with more...dark chocolate. In liquid form. I had originally thought that the cream colored sauce to be just plain vanilla, but it tastes exactly like the panna cotta. The hollowed chocolate ball is again, dark chocolate, but is filled with Baileys. Which is a small but pleasant surprise.

Yet Con, Purvis Street

I've always thought that this restaurant down at the Beach Road end of Purvis Street only sold chicken rice since it was the only thing that's visible from the shop front whenever I happen by. Apparently they're also known for their steamboat. Not so common for a chicken rice/steamboat place. Judging from the crowd the place seemed to be pretty popular. From what I've gathered, this establishment has been around for a really long time. The setup of Yet Con was an old styled coffeeshop (marble top tables still) with air conditioning. On several of the tables are the gas piped steamboat cookers along with chicken rice condiments like the chilli, ginger and soy sauces.

What theh had were pretty average tasting steamboat items which were affordable. The chicken rice was quite decent, though the meat was dry. Original Hainanese style? The chilli sauce here was flat tasting and only mildly spicy. I do mean mildly. No complains otherwise though. The steamboat had a broth that tasted like chicken soup. Wasn't too impressed with the offerings of the steamboat but didn't actually explore if they had better options to top up. It came with a small portion of assorted meat like cockles, squid, chicken and beef with a couple of eggs and some vegetables which have seen better days. I was told that the steamboat is popular here?

The verdict was that this was nothing exceptional. It's average tasting food at affordable prices. Maybe it's good for nostalgia.  Dinner for 3 which constituted chicken for 4 persons, 2 bowls of rice each and a serving of steamboat and drinks was about $38.

Waraku, Starhub Centre

The last time I visited Waraku was last September. Today's visit also marked my first at the restaurant that isn't in Marina Square. And they have new items on the menu which I haven't seen before like spinach cream udons.

I ended up with something which is rather mundane because it looked pleasing on the menu. I know I shouldn't be trusting those Photoshopped images. Here's the Sakura set, mentako yaki and some fried vegetable & squid thingy which I have forgotten what it's called .

sakura set

mentaiko yaki

The Sakura comes with a bowl of creamy soup udon and scallops, a bowl of rice with shredded egg and salmon roe and a side of pickles. This is one of those occasions where I didn't finish up because there was too much to be had. The carb alarm must have gone off and somehow, I missed it. Rice, udon and that creamy soup..... . Between the rice and the udon, I actually think that the former was tastier with the salmon roe injecting flavor into the rice and eggs. As for the bowl of udon, the main draw for me was actually just the scallops. I found the udon much to chewy and thick. Which probably is a preferential thing as they're not poorly done. I just don't think I'm an udon person.

The menu describes the mentaiko yaki as burnt cod roe which seems to be pretty accurate of how the roe was served. The skin of the roe was dry with some char marks. In the department of taste, I've run out of interesting descriptions. It's salted cod roe that's been slighly charred. I'm sure one can imagine how that would be like. Unlike the one at Aoki which was not fully cooked, the roe here held it's shape firmly when pressure was applied. The texture of the eggs were however more grainy. The fried vegetable & squid cake tastes exactly like how it looked.