Hey la, hey la.....Hokkaido Fair's back!

Here's one of the bento box which I picked up from the fair at Isetan Scotts in the afternoon. It comes accompanied with a kawaii chick in singlet and short pink skirt that feeds you with attentive care. Nah...just kidding about the part on the kawaii chick. So it's back and the fair started on Staturday 19/1/08. I was told it ends at the end of the month, so go go go!! Stay tuned for the picturesque tales of my loot after I jostle the endless tides of insane aunties. Lol!

Brown Sugar, Stardus Clubhouse

The food here (Stardus Clubhouse #01-04, 277 River Valley Road S238318, tel:3336612) turned out to be pretty good in spite of the apprehension when I first arrived. Their clean and modern looking decor gave me the impression that there was more polish than substance but clearly, this restaurant was a lot better than what my preemptive judgment had determine. That being said, the gripe that I had were that some of the portions of the food were a little too small and the disorganized looking service crew reeked with an air of arrogance. I wonder if I'm the only person that felt that way about some of those wait staff.


The food could probably be described as European. What I found agreeable were the layered salad of deconstructed apple, walnuts, brie cheese drizzled with an apple balsamic dressing which had very clean and refreshing taste. I had the impression that these "deconstructed" dishes tend to be gimmick-y but this one was delicious gimmicky. The choice of ingredients here struck a good balance. 

The foie gras was not bad. Liver was done with a nice char. Also came in more generous portions than something else that I had recently which was rather expensive and what I felt to be a waste of money. The oils that settled at the bottom of the plate, I mopped up with bread. 

Was tempted by the wagyu burger but I ended up going with the tenderloin with cheese spinach ravioli, roasted baby carrots and blueberry infused jus. Turned out to be a good choice. The steak while small was done a very good medium rare and juicy. The only other flavour apart from the almost subtle tasting blueberry infused jus were just salt and pepper. Which was the way I like steak. The accompanying vegetables were lightly roasted and I actually liked those crunchy carrot. The other dish deserving mention was the pan roasted cod with squid ink pasta tossed with baby clams, asparagus and tomato beurre blanc. The fish came in pretty generous portions, was half cooked, firm and filled with it's own flavour. The sauce tasted like a creamy tomato with a subdued tang which I found likeable. The squid ink pasta below was just that - what didn't the picture didn't show was that the noodles were on small bed of little clams.


Desserts weren't bad. The ubiquitous chocolate fondant cake was rich while the butter bread pudding in butterscotch was pretty good with a nice crispy top. If only it were served hot rather than lukewarm.

I wouldn't mind returning given the opportunity.

Modesto's, another take

I have mentioned previously that I have mixed feelings about Modesto's (1 Tanglin Road #01-09/10 Orchard Parade Hotel S247905, tel:62357808)? For one, the diverse crowd's pretty strong and has been that way for a long time. The service is something that I consider to be a notch up from the run of the mill restaurants in town. If one doesn't get too picky, the food here is actually pretty decent. They've brought wood fired pizza to the general public for the longest time before the rise of the other Italian places that are popping up like mushrooms these days. Still there's this element of them trying a bit to hard to stay relevant in the cuisine they do. Like claiming to serve pasta only al dente which I think is really out of point. If it's really Italian, there is no other way of doing it except by mistake. Also, the strange thing is the speed at which food is served. I had barely started on my first piece of bread before the starter of the Parma ham and melon arrived. Granted that I hadn't reached out for the ham as soon as the plate sat on the table, I was midway through my first piece and the pastas arrived. If you're still missing the point here, it feels pre-prepared.

gnocchi al gorgonzola e radicchio rosso

I've had this thought in my head for a while now regarding gnocchi. I've heard people on some basis to use the overly whored "melt in your mouth" expression to describe it. I've had ones that I thought were good and ones that were pretty bad. None of them actually qualified as something that actually come close to melting in the mouth. Am I missing something here? By the way, I thoroughly detest that phrase simply because of the countless times been abused by those that don't know any better or are trying in some odd sense to show off that they're actually eating something that really good.

Speaking of which, Modesto's actually has pretty decent gnocchi in Gorgonzola sauce. They're served hot, soft and slightly chewy which is the way I think they ought to taste in terms of texture for these dumplings. The portions are also rather generous. These definitely do not melt in your mouth.

tagliatelle nere con cappesante e gamberi in salsa di crostacei

The squid ink tagliatelle wasn't really anything impressive. The taste struck me as pretty flat and ordinary in spite of a "shrimp bisque" sauce. Like the gnocchi which just tasted mostly of the light creamy Gorgonzola zauce (at least they were satisfying to some extent), the tagliatelle tasted mostly of the bisque, came with very unremarkable shrimps and pan fried scallops that doesn't look nor taste pan fried to me. I had imagined this to be much better.

Roasted meats from Tampines Round Market food centre

3 days of chicken rice in a row. I can feel the DNA of the chickens melding into mine and I think wattles are growing. This one from Tampines Round Market food centre (Rong Sheng Roasted Chicken Rice Noodles, #01-43) was not bad. The rice had a nice flavour going on and the meat wasn't tough or dry. I requested for an addition roast pork which turned out pretty tasty too. Notice the clean cuts of the firm meat on the pork belly strips. The portions here are pretty good as well. This plate with an egg cost $4.00. Which makes it much better value for money in comparison with the previous chicken rice I had at Nan Xiang.

Nan Xiang, Square 2

I came by this chicken rice place at Novena (#01-156/159, Square 2, 10 Sinaran Drive S307506) by way of recommendation from a friend and it did look like there wasn't a need to queue or a wait since we were looking to grab a quick dinner. Usually when an eatery is mostly empty, it raises alarms, but I've been having some cravings for chicken rice of late and the food did look decent if unspectacular. From the menu, the chicken rice were sold in combo sets but it is actually possible to order them like how it is done in hawker stores with just the chicken and rice minus the extras. One of the rice option comes in the form of balls. I'm not sure how these are done, but each of these chicken rice ball came in wrappers when served and I don't know how they stack against the original ones from Malacca or even the Goodyear store at Toa Payoh. The rice balls fell apart when I put a fork into them. Taste of the rice itself was quite the norm.

Chicken options are the usual steamed or roasted (fried if you will) variety. Meat was rather ordinary if a little on the dry side. Came drizzled with some unidentifiable and forgettable brown gravy instead of the usual soy sauce and sesame oil sauce combination which did little to help with the dryness of the meat. Doesn't quite stand out.

Mud Ooze

Yep, that's the Mud Ooze from Miss Clarity (Talib Court, 5 Purvis Street, #01-04, S188584, tel : 6339 4803). Thought it was a good recommendation from the restaurant because it tasted pretty good and it wasn't expensive. There's no novelty or gimmick about it as it was basically a molten lava chocolate cake. Everyone's doing them. What made this a good recommendation was how much it cost ($4.50) and that it tasted almost as good as any others I've had. No Grand Marnier flourishes of course. No flames. And no vanilla bean in the ice cream too....hey! This was likely microwaved and hasn't much discernible differences. I believe that the molten chocolate here was more robust than another place which cost more.