La Tapería, Shaw Centre

La Tapería (#02-10/11 Shaw Centre, 1 Scotts Road, tel : +65 6737 8336) is a Spanish restaurant/tapas bar by the Les Amis Group. A little upmarket in appearance and like Les Amis' other restaurants, hallmarked by pretty good service from their staff. 

They opened a couple of years ago. Before they did, it was suppose to be called Terry's - also Spanish food to be led by a veteran from Manila, a chef named Terry who left because his understanding of what the restaurant was to be did not align with what the owners were trying to do. This place might have ended up differently and we could have suffered a culinary loss - or not. But we shall never know.

A fast forward to reality - the Terry's that was to be became La Tapería. To sherry-tint the establishment, there's a little interesting tidbit to them. The head chef Ng Wei Han, a local Chinese was previously from the defunct Au Jardin. Since 2007. Levelled up to become their executive chef in 2011 and was there till their last days. So what we have is a Chinese guy who's experienced in French cuisine making Spanish food. Cosmopolitan.

The first of the small plates was thinly sliced chilled Momotaro tomato with 50 year aged sherry vinegar according to the menu, olive oil and shaven bottarga. I thought this was refreshingly awesome. The thin slices upped the dressing to fruit ratio with the bottarga adding a fishy (yet tasty) saltiness to the sweetness of the tomato. Like.

Then came their patata bravas. Those potatoes were fried to a dry crisp with mealy soft insides. Pretty good.

This was served as fried eggs with blood sausage. Which we knew wasn't. It's actually eggs with chorizo and peppers. The mistake was realized when the actual fried eggs with blood sausage arrived and the restaurant didn't bill us for this. Classy because it was their mistake and they didn't make us pay for it but it did add an additional egg dish into our dinner.

That above was the actual fried eggs and blood sausage. There was some truffle reduction and quite a bit of mushrooms inside which is obviously not so obvious because of how the dish appeared. Those mushrooms tasted pretty good. Blood sausages were nice, but I'm pretty sure we've had better.

Sherried onion soup with saffron and almond flakes says the menu. There were little chunks of chicken too. This was by far the most memorable onion soup I could remember. If I had to describe it more accurately, it was actually an onion bisque. There was quite a bit of sweetness coming from those onions and sherry that went along with a savoury undertone. The second outstanding dish of the night after the Momotaro tomatoes. Now I wonder how much butter went into it.

Here be white asparagus with truffle and more eggs. Not bad, the asparaguses were sweet and juicy.

We had the charcoal grilled lamb rib confit with honey mustard. Pretty good too. Pretty glad that the honey mustard didn't mask the flavour of the lamb. The meat was scratch off the bone with a fork tender rather than fall off the bone tender.

Dessert was olive confit ice cream with raisin cream and Albariño syrup. So olives in itself, dried grapes and sugared fermented grape juice. At the base of the large ball of ice cream was something that tasted like bread pudding. We tried this for the novelty of having olive ice cream. Not bad, but not good enough to stop me from trying something else if I come back.

Revisiting Xi Yan Shaw

A second visit because we were in this part of town and wanted something Chinese and quiet.

That's their kou shui ji (口水鸡), or also known as saliva chicken; a Szechuan dish of poached chicken drenched in lip burning chilli oil and a bunch of aromatics. The rendition here looked and tasted little like the regular versions. There wasn't much heat and there were chunks of century eggs in the dish. I'm not sure if that little chilli they had placed on top was just decoration. Comparisons aside, this didn't taste too bad. Just not like how the dish is normally done.

That's the same three egg spinach dish that we had the last time. Decently done and pretty much the same comment I have on their garlic. I was actually surprised by the consistency.

One of the dishes we didn't get to order the previous time was their black truffle prawn omelette. The truffle flavours barely registered. The dominant flavour in the egg was actually from the spring onions. Can you imagine? Spring onions. But this tasted not bad.

Rang Mang Shokudo, Japan Food Town @ Wisma Atria

The tipping point that landed us in Rang Mang Shokudo (#04-50 Wisma Atria, 435 Orchard Road, tel : +65 6262 3504) today was pretty much because they didn't have a queue. And yes, this shop is another of the 16 eateries that are located in the relatively new Japan Food Town at Wisma Atria. They do buttermilk marinated tori karaage. 

The fried chicken comes by its own or in a set as featured in the picture above. Actually, there are two different types of sets. This one (above) is the regular set with a bunch of vegetables for salad and there's a economy set which has only leaves of lettuce and curry flavoured potato salad that the regular set does not have. Hmmm....

The variety comes from the toppings or sauces that one gets to choose for the fried chicken. This one's mentaiko mayo. The mentaiko was weak in the mayo so hindsight whispered that I should have picked something else. We tried the salt and pepper rendition which was tasty but pretty salty. Otherwise, the karaage was pretty decent. The chicken had a crisp exterior, was served piping hot and was thankfully not overly greasy. Don't mind coming back to try another flavour.

A mentaiko kaisen don from Teppei Syokudo

To be honest, the offerings from Teppei Syokudo has lost most of its allure for me. Their marinated kaisen don doesn't have the same appeal as it initially did and those breaded fried offerings from their stall were frankly kinda boring - not to mention that you can often find better in those Japanese fairs inside Takashimaya. But today, we walked past and saw that they now have an option for their kaisen don with mentaiko. I was half hoping that those would be grilled and sliced, but they weren't.

The truth is, they were rather generous with that one sac of roe and that got to a point when it was a little overwhelming at the end when one is out of rice. If I ever patronize them again, I'll just stick to the ikura don.

Senso 2016

It's been almost a decade since the last time at Senso (21 Club Street, tel : +65 6224 3534). Time certainly flies. And right under our noses it did.

Their bread basket seemed to have shrunk a little from what I can recall. But these folks still do a better bread basket than most. Except for maybe Oso.

Tonight's amuse bouche was a lightweight blue cheese and crostini.

There was green pea soup with ricotta and black summer truffles from the truffle menu. The creamy was nice in a green pea-y sort of way. Little chunks of the ricotta cheese gave richness and the black truffle aroma was a nice addition.

We had burrata with prosciutto San Daniele and grape tomatoes. That's a half portion already split up.

From their summer menu, Amalfi lemon risotto with prawns and Tropea onion coulis. The rice had a lemon fragrance and was cheesy at the same time. Prawns had a nice bite to them and those red onion coulis tasted like fruity dollops of jam. I liked this.

From the truffle menu, veal medallion with truffle mascarpone, artichokes and more shaven black summer truffle. I would describe this as silence inducing good.

The meat from the veal was tender and lightweight. Paired nicely with some fruity sauce they described as Senso puree and whatever one could mop off the plate with.

And we ended with a very satisfying affogato. I think we have been missing out much from here.

Starring Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle

This was my first visit to Tai Hwa after they have gotten their Michelin Star just nine days ago followed by choruses of divisive opinions on that outcome. As much as I would tell myself that this is likely my favourite ba chor mee stall in the whole of the island from the first time I had it nine years ago, the truth is that I do not come eat here as much as I would like. Or even with any regularity. Once a year or so sounds about right. Why so? The two hit combo of being located where they are and that I really dislike queueing would be a good start. And there’s a whole lot of other things to eat out there. Singapore. But that’s just my excuse. 

Still, the memory of the flavour latches on for theirs, as attenuated as it may be, that I eventually return. Albeit with very low frequency.

This is my first time trying their mee sua. So I've pretty much had all the noodle types from them. I didn't dislike it, but also didn't feel that it's as satisfying as the other noodles. I'm after all a mee pok man. Lol. Pun not intended. My sequence of preference would be mee pok, mee kia, kuey teow and mee sua. The other first time event in this visit was the wait time. Previously it averaged 30 minutes. The queue today was about five times longer at 2 hours 20 minutes. The longest I've ever queued in my life for food. I'm resigned to say that I will not be coming back if the wait time does not go back to the previous duration. Damn you Michelin.

So is it worth a Michelin Star? I don’t know. I liked them before the luminance and getting starred doesn’t do much to sway much of my opinion of them even amongst mutters of lowered standards. While getting starred does raise an eyebrow, the guide is far from being the holy grail of opinions in the ocean of subjectivity. That guide is mortal. Or a conglomerate of mortals. Subjected to preferences, personal idiosyncrasies, the strictures of life (yes that’s very general, but that’s the point) and failings of mortality. One needs not treat it like a bible. It’s just a guide. And for us locals, a whole lot of us know better what’s good anyway.