Meatless at Artichoke

lotus root - honey roasted, marmite, pistachio dukka, siracha yoghurt

babaganoush - smoked eggplant, sesame, yoghurt, pomegranate molasses teriyaki

fried brussels sprouts - almonds, pomegranate, cabbage, mint, labneh ranch

falafel lettuce cups - big mac sauce, butterhead cups, tomato ezme, jalapenos, grated haloumi

The food at Artichoke has always been complex. Boldly going where none has gone before at least in the local context. Adventurous yet grounded without pretension. It's face has varied textures - of crunch, crisp, chewiness, gelatinous, gooey, creamy and possibly more married with heat, spice, sweetness, savoriness, smokiness, sour and probably others that I cannot recall. Each different dish a qualification of different combination of the mentioned adjectives. Very often, more than a handful of those at each at time. This was a dinner with no meat items. I'll just save the individual descriptions and let the pictures talk.

By the way, that watermelon beer didn't taste like it had watermelon.

Braised duck noodles at Yishun 645

Came across this place (Blk 645 Yishun St. 61) by chance a week ago and have returned once since. I guess I was pleasantly surprised since I'm usually not much into braised duck noodles - especially ones with the regular yellow noodles. These noodles didn't have the lingering taste of alkali. Coupled with some braised fallopian tubes and egg, it made a satisfying breakfast.

Maguro Donya Miura Misakikou Sushi & Dining, Suntec City

The name of this restaurant (#03-314, Suntec City North Wing, 3 Temasek Boulevard, tel : +65 66845054) was certainly more than a mouthful. Sixteen syllables is no laughing matter. I've read that they're apparently a collaboration in part done between Maguro Donya and ANA; the latter forms the part of the partnership that supports the flying in of fresh whole hon maguro - or blue fin tuna. So yes, they are a tuna specialist restaurant and that was pretty much what piqued my interest. 

That's their Hon Maguro Megumi Trio, a teishoku set which featured akami, chutoro and kama yakimono. The latter of which was described as cheek, but is actually the collar of the fish. Their maguro was of good quality. The grilled collar had all the moisture and oils sealed in by the crisp browned surface. The grey meat was my favourite part. I'd come back just for this alone.

And since we were already here, we ordered their hon maguro otoro don. Which was sublime like how fatty otoro can be, bolstered with lightly vinegared rice. 

While it was really quite affordable for blue fin tuna at lunch prices, I couldn't say that it was cheap or anywhere close to cheap. In fact, one could lunch at a nice Japanese restaurant for the amount you would be paying. Albeit with no bluefin tuna involved.

Vegetarian couscous and falafel from Ikea's cafeteria

We hadn't seen this on the menu before and decided to see if they were any good. Actually, I kinda liked the couscous. While those falafel (it's more like a spiced potato vegetable ball than one that's made of chickpea) weren't exactly the type that I liked, I'm pretty sure I might eat this again the next time I need to get food here considering that there really isn't so much to choose from at Ikea.

Pizza Fabbrica without pizza

As much as the name may lead one to think otherwise, there is much more to Pizza Fabbrica than just their pizza. I would even venture as far as to say that they're competent with their pastas to the point that they would give many a number of other similar restaurants a good run for the money as well. But I shouldn't get ahead of myself.

This was a Parma ham and mango salad. It would have been perfect for me if it was only just the ham, the mango and some shaven Parmigiano Reggiano. Those were all that were good. But there were also rockets and olives and bitter bits of radicchio. Unnecessary distractions.

The mangos were so fragrant that if one attempted to wrap the ham around to eat a slice, most of the taste of the ham would be lost. Such was the quality of the fruit, ironically unbalancing the seemingly mild flavours of the prosciutto.

Rather impressed with their garganelli with a chocolate lamb ragout and smoked ricotta. The sauce was rather well balanced. Nothing quite overpowered the other and though I wished for a little more punch from the lamb. I liked it. The smoked ricotta on top was just icing for the pasta. I'd gladly eat this again

We don't often do pasta with frutti di mare very often because it's very often tomato based which I'm not a big fan of in general. This fregola with seafood, shaven zucchini and bottarga wasn't one of those. The tasty seafood broth was well absorbed into the pasta, shrimp was de-veined and succulent, squids hiding at the bottom was tender yet with bite and there was even a solitary scallop waiting to find a home. And yes, that's a scampi there. With sweet tender white meat that I scraped out with my fork.

If I had to gripe, it'd be how little bottarga there was.

This was off the current specials. Which described a bacon wrapped beef filet stuffed with Marzolino cheese topped with shaven truffle. The plating could have impressed a Master Chef finalist. And it tasted pretty much like how it looked. Quite good I would say.

Dessert was a saffron panna cotta with a sauce call Sambuca Red Berries. I assumed that it was Sambuca in a berry sauce/compote. The aniseed flavour was ever so mild and complimentary that we didn't mind. Pudding was wobbly and creamy. Enjoyed it.

Will definitely be back.

The grilled aubergine and hummus sandwich from Sarnies

There...... trying out a meatless sandwich from Sarnies for the first time. I was thinking that those aubergines might have been freshly grilled but it turned out to be chilled instead, making the sandwich oddly refreshing? Especially when everything else including the roasted capsicum were chilled as well. The only gripe I suppose was while I could see the hummus that was spread onto the bread, I couldn't quite taste it in the midst of all the flavours. Still I thought this was pretty enjoyable. Would have been even better if there was more of that feta cheese to go around though.

Update on 18/10/2015

So we sat near the kitchen today so everything looked a lot more blue. The sandwich today had extra feta cheese which was requested for. There was indeed more feta than the last time, but they were lumped together in the centre that the flavours concentrated in the middle while the edges of the sandwich didn't have any. Speaking of more, there was a lot more hummus as well. Each bite was oozing hummus around the edges of the bread. The greens were totally different from the last round.

The verdict was, it's been inconsistently made. There appears to be more people at the sandwich counter these days, but they gave me the impression weren't too serious about what they were doing. I hope this doesn't signify a downfall in their standards.