From the Hokkaido & Michinoku Fair

Here're a bunch of stuff I picked up from the Hokkaido & Mochinoku fair. Expectedly like the norm of such events, the crowd thickens from the early afternoon and doesn't really subside till the end of the day. This time round there was also a counter that was vending camembert cheese which I did not notice before in the previous fairs. I hear that there is more to come later in the week.

ramen

cheese cake sticks

a sac of mentaiko

chocolate cheese cake

creamy cheese cake in a box

fuji apple juice

rice condiments

assorted preserved seafood

not forgetting the candied scallops

A huge sushi roll...

This was not a perspective shot. That roll was as big as you think it is. I was watching the chef at the fair make rolls of them when the stacked sushis were rolled into that one huge roll that you see. I took out the camera to take a shot, the chef took the huge roll out from behind his glass enclosure to pose for this. If I did not remember wrongly, there's uni, shake, tamago, ikura, hotate, those slim Japanese cucumbers, more unidentified bars of fish roe in there. Certainly made me wonder how much it cost and how is one suppose to eat them.

Pit stop at the Hokkaido & Michinoku Fair

Elbow jousting in the rough seas of middle aged ladies (sometimes using kids as their shields) can be a tiring affair, so inevitably, one has to stop to refuel on some energy sources to keep on going. Here're some sushis (salmon with assorted roes and otoro) that we managed to grab at Isetan in the duration there (lunch/snack break) and I'm not sure if it's because of the ongoing fair, the offerings seemed a tad better than the usual. For one, there's otoro to be had. I would recommend to get them early in the day when they're closer to freshly made. The otoro sushis here are surprisingly pretty good and relatively inexpensive for fatty tuna belly. The strawberry and cream sandwich doesn't come from the fair, but I thought it was pretty good so you get to see them too. They're actually available almost all of the time I pass by at Sun Moulin and curiosity finally got to me. It's essentially a simple strawberry halves with cream between two slices of bread which I found quite tasty.

Stay tuned for my loots from the fair.

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.