A Lawry's cut with bone in

So here's a Lawry's Cut of their bone in prime rib. Also a first time trying their buttered peas. Wow, they're sweet.

Cure, Keong Saik Road

After spending three and a half years at Esquina heading the kitchen, Andrew Walsh has ventured out with his new restaurant Cure (21 Keong Saik Road, tel  : +65 6221 2189). If one were to observe things objectively, the progression seemed to have been from small plates to even smaller plates.

I thought the food from Andrew Walsh had evolved become more complicated. There were traditional pairings in the design of the menu, but those had been elevated into another form. To a point whereby each dish sometimes becomes more of an abstracted experience and we were guessing at what we were eating since the description from the menu doesn't tell very much. I wouldn't advise anyone to come here if they were famished, but if you had the time, it's an exploration if you're a fan of the chef. 

Mix Seed Sourdough / Bacon Butter / Fermented Cabbage

The bacon butter was very good. I'm not sure if it was supposed to be had with the fermented cabbage, but the latter tasted like kiam chye (salted/preserved mustard greens) from Teochew porridge stalls.

 chicken liver mousse/crispy chicken skin/crispy kale/sweet corn croquette

This wasn't listed on the menu as part of the dinner. While there wasn't so much of differing texture going on apart from the bits of chicken skin and fried kale, I really liked the mousse. Their corn croquette - which was essentially a fried skin covering molten flavourful cream of corn was very well done.

Cured Salmon / Cucumber / Almond Soup / Vanilla Snow

This pairing was very nicely done in the chilled almond soup too. There was more going on, much more than what the menu described, but the salmon did work with the almond. I would love for this to be available separately and in larger portions than teacup sized, but unfortunately, nothing can be ordered in Cure. 

Foie Gras & Duck Bun / Plum Jam / Pickled Endive

The menu calls it duck bun. The server called those duck buns donuts. It tasted like fried bread. Without sugar. I supposed it worked as a vehicle for the pan fried foie gras and the other thing on the plate which the menu also didn't mention which the server did. Duck and duck liver terrine with foie gras powder. I think the powder might have been unnecessary. It contributed nothing to texture or flavour if you had it with the terrine. This looked like being fancy for the sake of it.

Iberico Pork Loin / Smoked Mussel / Cauliflower / Juniper Caramel

The pickled cauliflowers were good. The fried/dried crispy stuff was also cauliflower. Those brown blobs were also introduced as cauliflower puree, but we know there's a whole bunch of other flavours going on which were good, but didn't taste like cauliflower. I think the pairing of flavours worked well with the pork loin, especially those grapes.

John Stones Irish Sirloin & Beef Tartare / Burnt Onion / Oyster Mayonnaise

This reminded me of the beef and oyster dish from Esquina. Strangely, there was a lot of oyster flavour on those leaves. The steak tartare which was made with the oyster mayo didn't taste as much of oysters than the blobs of oyster mayo which didn't taste as much of oysters as those leaves.

Yoghurt / Curry Granola / Mint Granita

Those granola had a similar flavour to papadums/papads/muruku. Which was actually quite natural with the passionfruit yoghurt and the mint granita. I thought this represented Indian spiced breads with mint chutney quite nicely with a different range of textures.

Irish Moss / Chocolate / Pistachio / Connemara Whisky Jelly

The dark parts are chocolate tuile. The lighter brown parts are chocolate something else which I don't remember. The pistachio came from the gelato which for some reasons tasted like it had truffle in it. Those Irish Moss were slightly gelatinous and tasted of basil. Flavour worked together if you mixed everything up to eat, but not so interesting as individual ingredients.

Ginza Tendon Itsuki, Tanjong Pagar Road

I suppose it's no longer news that Tendon Ginza Itsuki (101 Tanjong Pagar Road, tel : +65 6221 6678) is the relatively new tendon (tempura donburi, not the connective tissue) specialist shop that is a collaboration between the Keisuke Takeda and Itsuki Sushi in Ginza, Tokyo. A vaunted and pricey sushi-ya from Japan and a ramen/gyoza entrepreneur a tendon specialist maketh? Beats me too.

But I was curious and we came to try. It's not bad. Even though the tempura was fried on order, the light batter had lost some of the crisp by the time it was ready to eat. I'm not sure if that constituted good tempura batter but the fried food was worth the visit at least. The prawns were fresh, the chicken was tender and the vegetables had a nice crunch. What probably sealed the deal for many would be the tempura tamago with molten yolk and no less.

I wouldn't mind coming back at all if they improved on the ventilation. Be prepared to walk away smelling of the grease. And one should remember not to compare this with Tenshin. As much as the Keisuke Group would term this joint a tempura donburi specialist, this was not of the same standards.

The tom yam seafood pasta from 49 Seats

We had previously seen quite a number of people ordering the tom yam pasta from 49 Seats (#08-08 Orchard Central, 181 Orchard Rd) at the Kreta Ayer outlet and made a mental note to give it a try. As it turned out, the pasta was pretty enjoyable. Though there was nice balance of heat and sour from the tom yam cream sauce. It wasn't as heavy as we had initially thought. I can see why this was appealing. Don't expect too much out of the seafood though.

Sushi Jin (仁), Farrer Park Station Road

No, we did not have sushi at Sushi Jin (1 Farrer Park Station Road, Owen Link, #01-11/12, tel : +65 6443 3378). I think we would have wanted to. Or at least try their chirashi, but we decided to go red meat for this lunch.

We started with their truffle seafood chawanmushi. It's an a la carte item separately ordered out of their lunch sets. This was good, I could see that they tried to justify the cost with the ingredients which were of good quality and very safe but pleasing flavours of contemporary Japanese.

There was a wagyu foie gras don. At $39 we didn't expect top grade beef, but I don't think it was worth what we paid. We had no idea what cut of meat it was, but it was a rather small piece and since the menu did state that it was wagyu, we had expectations. Honestly, I couldn't tell this from any other decent quality beef. Even at the medium rare, we weren't getting the melt in your mouth thing. The foie gras was nicely done, so that was the salvation of this bowl. The rice was a little too little and that was such a pity since their sweet sauce was actually good with the rice.

Their wagyu don came with an onsen tamago. Same beef (pun definitely intended) as the previous donburi and the tamago was the real icing. This bowl had the same flavour profile as the truffle seafood chawanmushi because there was truffle soy sauce. In fairness, there were little we could have been unhappy about. In the same vein of fairness as well, we also thought it wasn't really impressive for $35. For less than half of what it cost here, we felt just slightly less better with the short rib and less fancy rendition at Tanuki Raw.  

I was really curious about their lamb with black garlic sauce but this was when things went downhill. The meat was quite overcooked to the point that it was probably medium well. While the meat wasn't tough, it wasn't quite ideally tender. And I totally didn't like the black garlic sauce which tasted like a viscous sweet teriyaki that had overtones of ginger. 

The odd thing was, there came from the chef the usual excuse about using the sauce as a foil for the lamb-y flavour which some people may dislike to justify the outcome of this dish without us even asking - and frankly, it was a tired one. Why the hell else would I order lamb if I didn't enjoy the flavours of the meat? I mean, why in the world would anyone even? It was way more enjoyable getting grilled lamb chops from Marché. You can quote me on that.

This is where I drop names. I know Sushi Jin is by Les Amis. We've previously had nothing but good experiences in our very limited visits to Les Amis' restaurants. I understand that this wasn't a high end gig and it wouldn't be fair to compare against an outfit like Aoki. With all things duly considered, this lunch was only marginally less expensive and that at a location with a much cheaper rental. Aoki gave us desserts while this one gave us chocolate ice cream that tasted like Wall's. And we had the fortune to watch the new guy in front of us screw up a tuna maki.

Pity cuz I wanted to like this place.

The mirin saba set and a bowl of oden from Nakajima Suisan

I rather liked this fish. It was a little sweet and didn't have much bones. Even though almost every neighbouring table had a saba shioyaki which looked a lot bigger and much more moist. I was just wondering if there was any reason why this mirin glazed fish was smaller.

Their oden was pedestrian. Not that it was bad nor were we having great expectations, but there was nothing in particular I would look forward to so I guess it's a first and a last.