How to make heads turn...

...truly, not for the faint of heart.

"Never trust a skinny cook"...

...as quipped in good humoured jest by the enterprising and loquacious Clement Ronald Ng, chef and owner of Eden Cafe (54 Club Street, S069431, tel : 6536 1181). It's been quite some time since I've last had his desserts which was back at Helio. Having made aware that he had made a batch of creme brulee with ostrich eggs, I decided to drop by for dinner.





Food at Eden is unsophisticated. Most of the dishes here are of simple design and leans towards being light in flavor. Like the mushroom black pasta. In most cases, black pasta brings forth imageries of squid ink black. Down at this place, the pasta (fettucine) is made in house with toasted black sesame which results in an interestingly textured grey-ish noodle speckled with black bits. Despite the use of toasted black sesame, I found the taste to be quite bland. The pasta is tossed with some fresh sliced button mushrooms and flavored with merely some bits of olives, capers and some sparing sprinkle of powdered parmesan cheese. I honestly think that this dish would be bettered by the use of shaven parmesan. Being a beef kind of guy, I tend to be more discerning when it comes to the associated meat. The brown sauce beef which is of a ribeye cut was a decently medium rare done piece of beef, but definitely wasn't what I would look for in a steak. A marinated beef stew was likewise subdued in flavor, but it being piping hot turned out to be quite the trick for a rainy evening. There was an earl grey milk coffee which was subtly accented by the fragrance of the tea. I personally found the coffee a tad mellow. It's usually thick and milky, or just strong black for me. But let's get to the desserts instead. It's really what I came here for.



Clement has managed to obtain an ostrich egg and has used it to make a small batch of creme brulee. Almost ethereally light and still creamily smooth, this crème brulee doesn't have as eggy a custard as the regular ones. And yes, the flavor of the custard comes from vanilla beans. The sweetness of the custard as explained is from corn extract. Oh, there is usually never added sugar for the desserts. It's all either natural sugars from the ingredients, or already available in them. So I guess in some strange irony, this would be the one naturally sweetened dessert with added sugar for the crispy glazed top.



The other attraction arrived in the form of the hibiscus cheese filo which Clement exclaims has put him up on his minutes of fame on a couple of occasion on television. Back in Helio, I devoured the predecessor which was a strawberry cheese filo. The dessert has apparently transcended from fruit to flower based and it's so good it puts a smile on your face. The fillings of the buttery tasting layered filo pastry are basically a mix of beaten mascarpone cheese and hibiscus. This is something that one has to eat to understand.



The molten chocolate cake here doesn't come hot. In fact it was barely lukewarm, but the cake comes in the form akin to the other molten chocolate cakes. It's soft and lava like. The chocolate wasn't excessively sweet as some which was a good thing for me. However the flavor could have been more robust. As with the previous rendition which was actually a white cake instead of a brown one, these are topped with rum marinated apricots.



These are yoghurt parfaits. I hope I got the name right and I don't remember seeing them on the menu. They tasted like the ice cream yoghurt filled with bits of blueberry and raisins and topped with a dollop of strawberry jam. 

A beef kebab sandwich from Sultan Kebab

Just a quick one on the beef kebab sandwich ($7.50) from Sultan Kebab (1 Sophia Road, #01-15 Peace Centre, tel : 6338 8750). They're are often sold out pretty quickly and by a late lunchtime, most of that huge skewer in the vertical spit is gone. Managed to snag one today. Encased in a freshly toasted roll, this was beefy flavoured comfort food. The prices seemed to have risen by a little. I only wished that the portions were larger since I still felt like eating after that.

Jade of India, Race Course Road

Brought to us all by the same management that did the vegetarian restaurant Raj down at Syed Alwi (which I happened to have dinner at just the day before by the purest coincidence), Jade of India (172 Race Course Road, #01-01/05 Soho@Farrer, tel : 6341 7656) was the one of several "chindian" restaurants that have been making appearances in the recent years.

boondhi raita

murg gajab ka tikka

gobi manchurian

mutton naan

kashmiri naan

butter marsala paneer

prawn malai curry

saffron & pistachio kulfi

TBC

Samar, Bali Lane

I had tried looking up this place sometime late last year when I visited Alaturka and saw that the older premise at Kandahar Street had closed. Stuck upon the doors, was a crude paper sign which read that they have moved to somewhere in the east side. So I was actually taking a stroll down to Cafe Le Caire and was surprised to come across the current location for Samar (17 Bali Lane, tel : 6398 0530). We decided to give these guys a try instead and pend Cafe Le Caire for another time.


I don't know how long has the establishment been located at the current premise in Bali Lane, but the feeling I got was that they hadn't been here for too long. They seemed to be out of several of the items on the menu and the place was quiet. Which made it a sanctum to escape the bustle of being at the outskirts of the city. In fact, in the second storey of the restaurant was a rug strewn area with low coffee tables that one had to enter without footwear. With a couple of shishar smoking customers around and the covered up windows, it looked like some sort of a Middle Eastern opium den. The place had such a getaway feel that we lingered around for more than a couple of hours, rooted to the peacefully atmospheric......albeit slightly musty smelling sanctuary.


The food in this place revolved around the usual styled grilled meats, Arabic flat breads, dips and various caffeine and milk based beverages. They were out of saffron and couscous for today which was a bummer. So we ended up getting a serving of the hummus and a grilled meat platter which I had originally thought to be a large serving meant for two. It turned out that it was probably just good for one hungry person. The hummus had more lemon juice than most but was otherwise quite the norm. It came with freshly made bread which were pretty good. What we liked was the lamb from the meat platter which was tender that when we tried to pick a rib up, the meat promptly slid off the bone. There was also a small potato which seemed to be infused with spices before it got baked resulting in a dull shade of orange-y brown rather than the usual yellow. I'll could come back for the lamb someday.

I was quite taken in with their honey milk drinks. Since they were out of saffron, we grabbed the almond and rose flavoured ones. The former was honey and milk blended with almond. It was a sweet milk which was lightly accented with almond flavour and many sediments at the bottom of the drink. I don't know how these guys did their rose milk, but it didn't look or taste much like bandung. The milk was actually snow white and the rose flavour was much more aromatic.

Service was slow but very polite. These people apparently take their time to prepare the food, but it did feel worthwhile assuming you were in not hurry to eat and leave.

Char shio, shio ba, arh heng peng

I came across Tuck Kee Roasted Meat (#08-17, Golden Mile Food Centre, 4679 Beach Road) stall by chance when I was in the vicinity. This combination of meats is a particular favourite. So there's the roast duck, char siew and roast pork. I'll go with it's not bad. I'd come back again. What I thought distinguished them was the plum flavoured sauce which was more appetizing compared regular brown ones. The char siew was tender and a bit sweeter than I'm used to. No excessive fat under the skin of the roasted duck breast for this one.