Bontá.....omakase

Leaving things up to the hands of the chef is spruced by the appeal/appal of mystery. One does not know what one might get. For many, the anticipation of the delivery works magic. It's not something that I do very often and if I did, it's usually for Japanese food and it's more of the fact that it allows me to sample what's good for the day/week rather than getting a surprise. Maybe I lack adventurous spirit. I don't really like surprises (still saying this even though I'm generally willing to try weird stuff) and I want to know what I'm going to eat. No disparagement to Luca and his selection, but I guess this was just one of those meals which I didn't choose and turned out to be not too exciting.

Pumpkin flower fritters stuffed with cheese would be something that would catch my eye if it turned up on menu. I'm not sure how eating these were suppose to go but the flavour was mostly cheese and some bits of vegetable texture which didn't quite identify itself as anything. I noticed that the rockets looked a little tired. Lol.

Nice refreshingly tasty tomato hearts, a light and a creamy mozzarella. Parma ham tasted a little washed out. Definitely not a perky nutty aroma which I was hoping for.

This was affectionately termed the kuey teow a la Papermoon. It was a mimic of a certain pasta dish which a friend had over at Paper Moon at Milan. The pasta was al dente, tomato based sauce wasn't overly tart and there were chunks of scallops and some shrimps. I'm guessing that this didn't taste as good as the original since it was an attempt to duplicate. Sure didn't blow my mind there.

This is the first time for me with goose confit. I'm not expert with them, but I thought the meat was a little too dry and lacked identifying flavour.

Desserts....

New Everest Kitchen, Chander Road

I realized that it had been quite a while since I was down in this part of Little India. A recent craving for Indian food along with a fragment of lodged memory of this place brought me back. This restaurant (55 Chander Road, #01-01, tel : +65 6299 0745) apparently, is run by the owner of Gorkha Grill, a place which I had found out about too late and had never had the opportunity to visit when it was still around in Chinatown.

We started with a serving of a basket of crispy papadum with a spicy mint chutney.

We ordered a serving of pan fried spicy chicken gizzards. The gizzards were a little tough, chewy and definitely more than a little spicy with a hint of garlic. They were tougher than those that one could find in chicken rice stalls. What I didn't like were the occasional bit of ginger which snuck up with the gizzards into my mouth.

The jheenge papita was a described as prawns marinated in wine and mountain herbs. The gravy actually tasted very much like butter chicken - or rather butter prawns in this context. I could only discern a modicum of difference with this and the murgh makhni. Interestingly that warm gravy was actually quite good eaten together with the chilled papaya. The prawns were well cooked and instead of being crunchy, had a "meatier" texture.

This murgh makhni was essentially what we usually know as butter chicken. It was one of the better ones we've had. Rich, creamy and not overly tart nor spicy. They didn't use chicken tikka so this lacked the smoky depth compared with the ones from Jaggi's. The meat was quite tender though.

New Everest Kitchen's jheera rice was different from the ones at Chellas or Annalakshmi. This rendition had a more subdued aroma. It wasn't bad, just wasn't spectacular.

Of course, I fell into my favourites trap and got myself an order of kashmiri naan. The ones here tasted remarkably similar to the ones at Jaggi's. Just one difference. The latter had cheese while I could taste some bits of nuts and garlic in this one.

Lunching at Mayim

This was certainly one of those satisfying lunches. I've realised that I haven't really talked about the food here in Mayim in my previous mention of the place. Certainly, it wasn't because of the food being forgettable. There's definitely stuff here which I liked and some which didn't impress me much.

The roast meat noodle selection here were some of the items which I thought were worth returning for. It's probably more of the roast meat for me than the noodles which were unfortunately not springy and firm enough to further raise my eyelid. Especially not after having had some pretty awesome ones out of the country and a surprising good rendition at Canton-i. Today, we landed our selves some tasty roasted duck and a fattier than expected roast pork belly. The fat from the pork didn't quite disintegrate as I am normally hoping for, but it was still agreeably soft, coupled with a nicely crispy crackling.

This would be a stir fried spinach with pork belly, lup cheong and bits of bacon. Pretty meaty for a vegetable dish if you asked me and that's always a reason why I like ordering this. The greens make me feel less guilty of the grease which also incidentally, flavors the vegetables very nicely.

Very nicely done steaming har gow with chunky pieces of shrimp in them. Definitely a benchmark item for dim sum places. This was in leagues better than the ones at Red Star and part of the reasons for ordering them was so that I could exorcise the residual phantoms of the ones left in my memory.

Slightly misshapened they might be, but these are one of the better siew mais to be had around. Their crude shape holds together chunky pieces of shrimp, bits of pork and cubes of mushroom, all of which are individually identifiable in their own flavors. Nice stuff.

These creamily textured radish cake with a nicely browned crisp on the outside are always a weakness of mine. Excellent carbo fix if you're looking for something tastier than regular rice.

The dim sum variety at Mayim is admittedly quite limited, but they've scored a few hits with me to ensure re-visits.

Small Potatoes Make The Steak Look Bigger : Year Four

Geez....it's been so long huh?

Quite a lot has changed since the time when I was procrastinating with the creation of my account with Blogger. That certainly didn't feel so far back. In several blinks of the eye, this milestone marker post is telling me that I've been doing this for 4 years and counting. My camera/old mobile phone counter tells me that it's been a fun ride of several thousands of photos. So much has happened in between the spaces of these past few years which have made me almost stop. So many changes have occurred. I've never really talked about them, but I guess it doesn't really matter since this site is still up.

How many people are still reading this?

Red Star Restaurant, Chin Swee Road

I've been asked by some friends to give this place (Blk 54 Chin Swee Road #07-23, tel : +65 6532 5266) a try on numerous occasions and I've never gotten the chance to come down until today after shopping for glass jars. 

It was more than just a little disappointing considering that they're treated as an iconic institution that are supposed to be the place to go for old school dim sum. It didn't help at the end of the meal when I realised that it actually costs less to eat a Crystal Jade Golden Palace where the food was much more refined and tasted a lot better. This aged stained place might have been a sight for nostalgia with their decor of a bygone era and trolleys of dim sum in steamed bamboo baskets which are carted around that one had to rush for. I'm definitely not convinced of returning. Not when the best food we had I could pick was just a plate of stir fried vegetables, a bowl century egg porridge and egg tarts.

These har gao deserved mention because it tasted very little of prawns and the fillings were a floury lump that left a chalky feel on the tongue. As a main stay of dim sum, it was very disappointing.

Honorary mentions also had to be made for the ubiquitous char siew bao which had dark and dry-ish minced pork fillings. Like they were unique to this restaurant. Didn't think they were tasty. Even the generic factory made ones in coffee shops tasted better.

I'm normally one for pan fried radish cakes but these were far from the creamy ones I was imagining.

I was hoping to find some salvation in the department of desserts. Their black sesame paste was so starchy that even when it was relatively warm, it had already formed a skin at the surface. The black sesame flavour was weak and it was a little too sweet for me.

Marché, 313 @ Somerset

These pictures were taken over a few visits at Marché. I was a little surprised that the variety of their offerings have increased and the standards of the food was noticeably better than what I remember them. Blue cheese and strawberry crepe with enough of that mouldy pungent milk curd to put a smile on my face....who would've thought?