Latteria Mozzarella Bar, Duxton Hill

Quietly and unbeknownst by many, The Jackson Plan fell apart and was replaced by Latteria Mozzarella Bar (40 Duxton Hill, tel : +65 6866 1988). Run by Beppe de Vito of Forlino and Il Lido. This new restaurant which was barely 2 weeks old had kept intact, the decor and even the land line from the previous establishment.

We were served some hard and crusy bread at the start. It would have been tough for my poor teeth and rather bland if not for the accompanying olive oil and vinegar.

We hit up a pan of their garlic prawns, chick peas and pesto. The prawns were fresh and crunchy and the flavors were surprisingly quite moderated. The garlic didn't dominate the palate like how most garlic prawns tend to taste and one could even taste the natural flavors of the chick peas.

This came from the specialty section of the menu which contains mostly mozzarella based cheeses in various forms. This was known as a stracciatella, which consisted of "rags" of mozzarella with burrata cream. Heaped on top of roasted zucchini and topped with bottarga. I liked the idea of serving the cheese in this manner, but the actual dish fell a little short as there was vinegar in the zucchini and the flavors of the creamy cheese was outstanding. This really just relegated the "moderated" portions of bottarga to second or third place. I could hardly taste them.

We ordered the Latteria mac and cheese pretty much for the novelty of having mac and cheese baked and served in a squash. The fact that it has four cheese in them helped, but the flavours of the cheeses were very subdued to the point that it tasted just milky. I could only positively identify the mozzarella on top. Lol.

Portions were extremely generous. I do mean extremely. What really shone for this particular bake, was actually the pumpkin which was nice and naturally sweet.

As usual, we were bought in by their smoked mozzarella risotto with black truffle puree. No prizes for guessing what made us order this. The risotto turned out to be the better of the mains which we ordered. I guess it was because this was simply a nice savoury blend of flavors that were buffed by the truffle puree and smokey accents of the mozzarella. Said flavours were saved from being overly monotonous by the rockets.

At this point, were already quite stuffed. We couldn't even finish the mac and cheese. It was quite a testimony to their lemon panna cotta that we still managed to finish most of the dessert in spite of the huge portions. The texture of the panna cotta wasn't so wobbly, but rather heavy and creamy. The flavours were milky and light and very much aided by those balsamic vinegar strawberries.

Wouldn't mind coming back to try more of their cheeses.

This happened on 20th November

Yeap, I just got married. Thank you all that turned up. I'll be busy for a while with more activities so......

CoCo Ichibanya, 313 Somerset

Tenderloin and oyster set from Saboten

It seems that this wasn't the first time that Saboten had these seasonal oyster promotions where one could order sets of their tonkatsu paired with oysters. And pretty large oysters they served here, expertly breaded and deep fried to the point where it wasn't excessively greasy and the crust maintained crisp throughout. These large oysters that are on their seasonal menu now were large, fat, creamy and juicy. These must be Hiroshima oysters right?

Itacho, itacho, itacho.......

I've to admit that Itacho Sushi makes a very good quick fix for Japanese food. It wouldn't be the type of place where one gets top notch items, but we do get what we pay for. That being said, one also does get some of the fun stuff that might not be altogether a traditional item from Japanese foodlore, but is probably very much contemporary menu items tempered from a loose basis of the rich history of Japanese cuisine.

My ususal/boring selection of ankimo again. I love this stuff.

Smoked duck croquettes which wasn't too spectacular for me. Lacked much of the smoked duck flavors.

This is one of the fun stuff that I was mentioning above. Deep fried oysters with udon. I was initially quite apprehensive since it was fried oysters and I haven't had much that was really worthy of mentions. These ones were surprisingly decent. The oysters were coated in a light batter, fat and not dried out. Not tempura styled. But still tasty. The second surprise came from the udon which looked to me like a bore. I mean, tomato sauce?

The tomato sauce, which wasn't of any pre-made variety was actually pretty damned good. It was honestly, a very surprising enjoyable blend of tart, garlic, sweetness from the onions and a healthy dash of accompanying heat. I liked it even though the noodles weren't as QQ. I think what mattered was that the sauce tasted fresh.

The tempura ebi sushi with curry powder was served literally. But I was glad that they tempura-ed the shrimp much better than I was expecting out of a crowded main street joint like this.

Engawa. Cheap, greasy and not too bad.

I'm not sure what kind of wagyu Itacho uses, but it was definitely a passably decent aburied sushi. One notices the nice fatty marbling.

Inari pouchs are a guilty pleasure for me. This spicy sakura ebi variety that Itacho did didn't really taste spicy at all. In fact, the dominant flavors came from the sweetness of the beancurd skin. The unexpected burst of flavor, came from the dried or toasted sakura ebi. That was nice.

Their aburi foe gras sushi wasn't what I had in mind. The slice of foie gras was a little too thin. Any possibility of a creamy innard was lost. To be fair, the torched crust was nicely done.

Another of those fun stuff were their stuffed tamago. These ones were stuffed with curry mayo lobster. It wasn't a particularly spicy curry actually. It tasted more creamy and the textures from the bites did unveil little chunks of lobster. Maybe it was crayfish. I couldn't tell.

Another fun sushi of mayo lobster on a sake roll.


Next fun stuff, tobiko and cream cheese. This was quite nice.

Another guilty pleasure. Figuratively. Though there really isn't any of that guilt element in there.

Morton's this year

mystery diner "A"