A return to Cafe de Amigo

This return to Cafe de Amigo was triggered by the availability of Argentinian beef tenderloin. Heads up from Recentrunes. I've never had Argentinian beef before so curiosity got me. The previous visit gave me mixed feelings about the place. While the food was on the whole quite decent, with hits and misses, the prices were a little high. Service felt like it came from automatons.

lobster bisque ($9.50)

I'm generally wary of lobster bisque. At this price point that is. Apart from an impressive rendition from Coachman Inn which I've had about half my life ago the only other one I liked enough to remember was the one from Morton's. Cafe de Amigo seems to have whipped up a pretty delicious rendition of the bisque. Albeit not as robust in flavor as the two places that I've just mentioned. Still, this was a pleasant surprise. It was rich and buttery and there were generous portions of lobster meat.

escargot ragout ($16.50)

The escargot ragout turn out to be very savory starter. It's basically escargots housed in mini choux puffs with garlic cream sauce, topped with chopped almond. There was quite abit of the sauce sauce which while was pretty good, became overwhelming after a while. Drowning out most of what could be tasted of the snails. I'm not complaining. I enjoyed this. And the remaining sauces was good on bread as well.

Argentinian beef tenderloin 200g ($36)

This char roasted filet was the highlight of lunch for me. I wasn't really sure what to expect out of Argentinian beef, but it turns out that it wasn't very different from other beef which I've had. Not quite what I was expecting after reading about it. What I enjoyed about the steak was the juicy tenderness. The succulence was remarkable. The steak was accompanied by sides of fries, boiled vegetables and a cream peppercorn sauce.

filet of leng fish

sliced duck breast ($25.50)

I'm don't know what leng fish is, but it tasted quite ordinary. The duck breast was a little more interesting. Done medium with a prune sauce of sorts and accompanied by some potato croquette and poached spinach. The meat was however a little dry and flat tasting.  That prune sauce did help out there.


Their apple pie seems to have shrunk a little from the last visit, but it was still good. In fact, this time round, I think it got a little better. Freshly made, sliced apples on top of a light buttery crust which was good with the vanilla ice cream.

This trip was worth it for the beef I imagine. It's too bad it won't be available for much longer. One more week I hear. I felt better about Cafe de Amigo this time round, but still can't shake the feeling that they're still pricey.

The Heart of Everything

Woohoo! It's been a long time since I've bought CDs. HMV tempted this morning by playing it and I succumbed. Long live Sharon Den Adel!!!

Counterstrike at Kazu

The title of this post meant that I struck Kazu again. Reservations were made at approximately 2.30pm and we were told that there were only seats at the counter left on a Thursday night. Being seated at the counter also meant that I get to gawk at the sizzling grill, see what comes off the grill and get to ask about what I cannot identify.


It was inevitable for me, having eaten at both Kazu and Kushigin to make comparisons on their food since their focus were both on charcoal grills. After tonight, Kazu remains the undisputed king because, it edged Kushigin out in terms of quality and beats them hands down in variety. I lamented over the loss of the short neck clams and anglerfish liver from their menu which I had originally intended to make home in my stomach tonight. The crab and pumpkin croquette had also been replaced by the crab and corn.

pumpkin with chicken miso

This was a minced chicken in miso sauce over cooked pumpkin. Nothing fancy but if you like pumpkin, it's kind nice.

oyster rice (seasonal)

This was basically rice infused with oyster flavour and some bits of vegetables. The portions were quite small, so it didn't fill up very much. Tasted a lot like yam rice. My only gripe with this was that there were very little real oysters. I counted only one. Would have been good to have a couple more in there. This wasn't featured on the menu as it's seasonal.

beef tongue

mushroom in pork belly

tuna with miso

squid tentacles

chicken hearts

minced chicken in japanese pepper

forgotten fish with miso

stuffed lotus root

apple and pork

bacon with prawn and scallop

Amazing stuff. The scallops and prawns were deceptively juicy as with all the other grills in this place.

foie gras of course

shishamo

Did I say deceptively juicy before? Here's another one.

lamb chop

Kazu serves a mean lamb chop. This topped the one I had at Kushigin which I had thought was pretty damned good already. Sizzling hot meat, fat wrapped with char marks and pink juicy meat near the bone, one would be surprised at how many other places that serve lamb don't do lamb chops this good.

japanese sweet potato

These grilled sweet potatoes were delicious. Even more so with the butter which you could rub over and let melt into the potato which was already nicely flavoured. I ended up eating the whole thing, skin and all.

bbq tiramisu

This seems to be a signature tiramisu of Kazu. The reason as explained by the server why it was called bbq tiramisu was because the top of the mascarpone was scorched to create a bit of char before the cocoa powder is sprinkled on the surface. The result was a smoky fragrance that paired with the bitter (and choke inducing) cocoa and the sweet mascapone cream.

the score cup

More musings from Menotti

duomo

"Duomo is a generic Italian term for a cathedral church. The formal word for a church that is presently a cathedral is cattedrale; a Duomo may be either a present or a former cathedral (the latter always in a town that no longer has a bishop nor therefore a cathedral, as for example. Such churches are usually referred to simply as "Il Duomo" or "The Duomo", without regard to the full proper name of the church."
Wikipedia

But the Duomo from Menotti is a dome shaped dessert of mascarpone and spiced cream with olive oil and sugar dough. This is probably one of the really underrated desserts because of it's ordinary looks and is also probably my favorite. Underneath the transparent film of jelly like surface is a carapace of sweet rich ivory mascarpone cream houses a spherical dark chocolate shell filled with liquid dark chocolate. For me, it's actually the mascarpone dome that does the trick. Despite it's not too enticing description from the menu, this is really good stuff. Get your Duomo today.

crocchette

Morton's certainly makes the best crab cakes in town, but Menotti's crocchette aren't too much of a slouch neither at less than half the price. Breaded and fried to a crispy golden brown surface, these savory cakes are made of shredded crab meat instead of whole chunks of crab. Apart from the big M, I'm definitely hard pressed to find better version these anywhere else. I'll be glad to be proven wrong though.

triple scoop gelato topped with a "mini Rum baba puff"

A mini Rum baba puff is an intrigueing name for a topping for gelato so there you have it at the top if you're still wondering. It's actually the little donut soaked in rum. From what I was told by a friend, rum babas are indeed cakes soaked in rum and are desserts that used to be available locally. Another non sentient friend mentions that the cake is of Slavic origins and the modern renditions today have gone through French influences. The triple scoop were olive oil, rum & raisin and hazelnut chocolate.

Out of the Pan, Raffles City

black pepper beef with sundried tomato crepe

Out of the Pan has been around for years as far as I can remember and this was the first time I'm eating here. What they do are mostly crepe which comes in either plain, whole wheat or sun dried tomato flavour. Besides that, there is a small selection of salads and crepe and waffles. 

In spite the small selection of fillings, the place is almost constantly crowded during meal hours. I wondered why. I'm not saying that the food was bad. The crepe was actually decent but I guess the popularity led me to believe that it was better. The Seafood Jungle came with real seafood. A generous amount of prawns, scallops and real shredded crab meat. Glad that this place didn't use crab sticks in their seafood whatever. It came with an unidentified sauce which was pretty okay if unspectacular. The black pepper option lacked the kick I was looking for in the pepper (it's just the regular sweet black pepper sauce). Overall the place wasn't bad but I'm not exactly inclined to re-visit.

 

the seafood jungle

Kushigin, Cuppage Plaza

Kushigin (5 Koek Road, #01-01, Cuppage Plaza) is an izakaya styled eatery similar to Kazu that specializes in charcoal grilled stuff. The decor looked like a small traditional Japanese restaurant but the music that they were playing ranged from retro pop to stuff from the 70s. Audio and visuals not so aligned. Kinda puts me off synch with the ambience. Where this place paled in comparison with Kazu, was the lack of variety. This was especially apparent for the charcoal grilled items. That being said, it wasn't implied that their quality was likewise lacking. In fact, I thought the grills from Kushigin were as good. Judging from the crowd, this seemed to be another one of the good eating places in Cuppage Plaza.

The menu has a selection of the "standard" fare of Japanese restaurants like tempuras, sashimis, bentos - along with a selection of grilled meats and vegetables which was that I was more interested in. There's nothing exotic here but the food quality was unquestionable.

garlic pork with leek

This tasted much better than it looked. The hot grilled pork was literally dripping with juices and oils while dressed in nothing more than salt and pepper.

oyster wrapped in bacon

An old favourite - nothing much needs to be further said about bacon blanketed oysters.

garlic rice

Their garlic rice was more subtle with the garlic flavour but it came with fried garlic chips which were really fragrant.

tanaka rice

This tasted like salted vegetable fried rice. Quite similar to the garlic rice. With preserved vegetables.

chicken with stuffed with plum and mint leaves

grilled chicken heart (bottom)/mushroom stuffed with minced chicken

beef in black bean sauce

This beef skewers were the least tasty of the lot. Reason was the black bean sauce which I found to be excessively salty and had a very strong ginger flavour. The result was overwhelming and made the meat unidentifiable. Am pretty sure that I would have enjoyed this much more without the sauce.

shishamo

The shishamo looked dry on the surface but were actually quite juicy. I am guessing that now was not the season for them since they weren't as pregnant with eggs as I would have liked. But still is good. Juicy good.

shishito pepper

These Japanese peppers looked like green chilli. The skill of grill managed to preserve some of the moisture in them while keeping the exterior dry. The flavour was new to me. I thought they were pretty good.

lady's finger

Bacon wrapped tomato and cheese with mint

I had no idea why the addition of mint leaves would enhance the flavour of this skewer. I personally felt that it would have tasted better without them. More cheese would have been welcomed.

lamb chops

These chops were good. The meat was served scorching hot, dripping with oil from the fat and it was one of the best lambs I've had so well done. Not something we could eat a lot of at a go because of excessive fat - which would be quietly killing us behind greasy smile as we gnawed the meat off the bone.

Kushigin was good, undeniably so in the department of grills. Because of variety, my vote would go to Kazu in terms of preference. But the quest for grills is not yet done. More awaits.