Al Forno Trattoria, Goldhill Centre

Clad in a cosy and rustic interior and hidden out of view from the main roads, Al Forno Trattoria (203 Thomson Road, Goldhill Centre) felt like a hidden find. The restaurant whipped up some pretty good pasta in generous portions. That was on top of the other options like pizzas, salads, seafood & meat that they also serve. My only gripe was that most of their pastas had boring tomato based sauce which I usually avoid. That's just me. I hear that this place has been around for quite a long while and that they do a nice rum infused Black Forest Cake which was available in a few days of the week and something I was curious about. We were actually served a complimentary starter of a warm slice of toast before we've even made orders for the food. The toast had  toppings I couldn't fully identify beyond bits of onions, garlic, gherkins and probably olive oil. Wasn't bad too.

Pappardelle alla Veneziana ($22)

This was pretty enjoyable. Pasta was served piping hot. It was essentially pappardelle with scallops and prawns in a rich creamy saffron sauce. Pleasantly surprised that the prawns weren't tiny shrimps and that they were crunchy. Scallops came whole with their 'wings'. This was probably the most interesting pasta on the menu.

Lasagna Emiliana ($22)

I've never been big lasagna. This wasn't bad. Just me not being so much into tomato sauces. From the menu's description of two cheeses, I was hoping that it would up the cheese factor of the lasagna by a notch. It was sadly not the case and turns out to be typical.


This was be the rum infused Black Forest Cake ($9 a slice) which I had mentioned earlier. Delicious chocolate cake. Wouldn't recommend passing on it if you like chocolate. Dense & rich chocolate cream and chocolate shavings over the top. The only gripe was that I had expected more rum than just a bare hint.

Hamoru Japanese Restaurant, Food Republic @ Suntec

Food Republic seemed to be making noticeable effort in bringing up the standards of local food courts and setting a benchmark for the other chain outlets. This applieed to both the quality and the cost of having a meal. 

I've been lunching at Hamoru for the past 2 consecutive days. This shop is sending a message to other claimants to serving Japanese food in food courts that they seriously need to do a whole lot better. Prices here get can get steep for work lunch though. While it's a bar above regular food courts, one should not expect top tier quality. Was surprised that they actually serve foie gras, otoro and uni. Hmmmm.....

Lunch day 1

Shiok maki

This looked local, name aside. Didn't look elegant for a maki. But it turns out to be pretty tasty. And pricey at $15 a pop. There's unagi and avocado in rice topped with strips of salmon, blanketed with some cheesy mayo and ebiko. The roll was then torched for the char. Nice.

asari (shortneck clam) soup

I was recommended this by the waitress and it turns out to be clams in a miso soup. Wasn't bad with the cold weather. There's quite a bit of clams hidden at the bottom. The only gripe wa that the miso flavour was as rich as I expected. There's an option to have ramen/soba in them for a top up of additional $2.

chicken liver

I was a little apprehensive when I saw their chicken liver so pink and dripping blood. Was the first time ordering these from a Japanese grill and to my surprise, this is more like foie gras. Liver was soft and creamy compared to the Chinese styled cooked chicken livers. Nope, they didn't exactly melt in your mouth. $2 a stick. Actually not bad despite it's slightly gruesome appearances.

foie gras

There's also foie gras at $8 a stick. This was more expensive than Kazu. There's no question that Kazu does this better. An Israeli colleague of mine also happens to be having them for the first time in his life. I think he's found himself a new sin. The crisp on the surface of the foie gras here was lacking and the insides didn't disintegrate as smoothly as I hoped, but what the hell.

Lunch Day 2

shiro maguro

The menu describes this as white tuna. Meat appeared to be marinated and lightly flavoured with shoyu. The texture of the meat is quite firm and on the whole, not bad tasting. Does anyone have any idea what's the difference of this from the regular tuna?

grilled saba shio

This soba shio wasn't a large piece. In spite of the grill, it retained quite a lot of juice. Salad on the side was topped with a citrus and sesame dressing which is quite appetizing. On the whole, quite decent if not remarkable.

cha soba

This was disappointing. Not that I expected top quality soba to be had here but the noodles were seriously, limp. Neither the soba nor the dripping sauce were sufficiently chilled. Do not order this if you enjoy soba.

En Japanese Dining Bar, UE Square

This Japanese bar/restaurant was one of those places I've passed by on numerous occasions but have never spared another look. On the other hand, En (#01-57, UE Square) was a name that I've heard of for some time before and had been curious about. Little did I realize that they were the same. Kinda liked this place because there's drinks and the food was pretty decent without being exorbitantly priced. There's one for one for Asahi from 5pm to 8pm. Quite a bit of the food here were made to go well if you're drinking.

kawaebi

I think kawaebi means small prawns in Japanese and these were really little river shrimps according to the menu. The shrimps were fried with seemingly no seasoning and are served with lemon and salt on the side. Like I said, good with drinks and very chewy.

sukugarasu

The sukurarasu was a serving of chilled tofu with little fishes on the top. I have no idea what those fishes were but they were very salty and definitely needed tofu to balance out that saltiness.

maguro tataki salad

This tuna salad here was pretty good. The slices of meat were seared along the edges. Dressing was some citrus sauce mixed with Dijon mustard I think. I found this very enjoyable.

yellowtail

For some reason, I like yellowtail sashimi. The fish that they served were of decent quality. Definitely above those from conveyor belt sushi shops. But after a couple of beers, much subtleties of the flavours are lost anyway.

enoki bacon

Crunchy, chewy enoki mushrooms wrapped in bacon. Most of the reasons are already there. The standards of the grills here of course cannot be compared to Kazu.

unagi fried rice

The fried rice was just passable, but dinner needed some carbs and it sounded more interesting than the standard garlic rice. I remember seeing mentaiko pasta on the menu so if I ever come back, I'll shoot for that.

Benny, Maxwell Hawker Center

This was a local western food stall by the name of Benny (01-16 Maxwell Food Centre, Maxwell Road) run by a very amicable proprietor of the same name. I read about them from Wine & Dine Asia and decided to check them. Got a cheesy pork which I thought looked the most interesting from the menu. Had mixed feeling about that. It looked a tad greasy and had too little cheese. I thought it had a little too much mayonnaise. 

The plus was that I did get a solid piece of fried pork (looks like layered meat) which wasn't cooked to death. Metaphorically of course. The food came with regular cutlery with the exception of the knife which was plastic and looked almost too frail to cut into the thick piece of meat. Fortunately, it held.


On the side was mashed potato which had bits of stuff which I couldn't identify. I was thinking shredded carrots or sweet potato but the proprietor mentioned pumpkin and other vegetables when I asked about what went into the mash.

Fusion or confusion, it's all perspective isn't it?

Perspectives from Anderson Ho of Le Papillon, courtesy of Wine & Dine Asia. I personally think perspective could be everything. It has to be managed. No Jedi mind tricks are required here.

'To me, it doesn't matter if it is fusion so long as the taste is there,' says Ho. One of the dishes he served at Le Papillon was a laksa cappuccino served with crabmeat salad, but he took it off the menu after some comments from diners about 'why should I pay top dollar for something I can get at a hawker centre'.

He adds that while some do appreciate the flavours, most don't. However, when he did a cooking promotion overseas and served the laksa cappuccino, it was a great hit.

He reckons that Singaporeans are generally biased towards chefs cooking Western food with local flavours. 'If fusion is done by a Western chef, people go 'wow'. But when a Chinese guy does it, they don't like it. I'm sorry, but that's a fact.'

For example, he referred to Saint Pierre's Emmanuel Stroobant who created an entire molecular gastronomy menu in April for the World Gourmet Summit based on local hawker food. His deconstructed versions of kaya toast, nasi lemak and chicken rice won raves. 'But if I do that at my restaurant, do you think people would come?' asks Ho.

Ooo....now we're pointing fingers.

Muthu's Curry, Race Course Road

An Indian curry fish head place at Race Course Road recommended by a colleague who couldn't recall the name. Turned out to be Muthu's Curry. This flagship branch of the restaurant was spacious compared to the other one at Suntec which I've eaten at on more than a couple of occasion. Even with the additional floor estate, they had a full house of customers. Since curry fish head what we were thinking of, it was a good opportunity for me to do comparison between both branches.

banana lassi

briyani

curry fish head

curry mutton

palek paneer

black squid

Besides the black squid which was suppose to be an outlet specialty, the other menu items were pretty much the same as the one at Suntec. I felt that the food here wasn't as satisfying as Suntec. Fish head had too little meat for a large portion and the briyani lacked fragrance which I was expecting. It was almost like eating plain basmati rice which might have been a better in this case.

There wasn't much to the black squid. Didn't taste too bad though. Their palak paneer didn't have any fragrance from the fried cheese which I was looking forward to. I'll probably stick to the outlet at Suntec next time round. This felt to me like compromises in cooking standards or just plain negligence.