Spaghetti with langoustine from PerBacco

I’ve always felt that PerBacco is understated. While that keeps the restaurant under the radar of the masses which is selfishly a good thing, it also makes me worry that there isn’t enough business enough to be healthy for them. I hope I’m wrong about the latter. Their chef Marco Fregnon is skilled at coaxing flavours out from crustaceans into cream sauces that shine. 

Recently, we tried their spaghetti with langoustine in a Gorgonzola béchamel sauce. That combination didn’t sound like it made sense at all since it’s a pairing of something delicate with something that was usually overpoweringly pungent. Couldn’t taste the Gorgonzola at all but what came through was a robust flavour from the crustacean. I could draw parallels with that to how they do their lobster carbonara.  

Blu Kouzina, Dempsey Road

We had eaten at Blu Kouzina (10 Dempsey Road, tel : +65 6875 0872) previously when they were located at Bt. Timah. It was memorable because it was our first time having Greek food and we enjoyed it. On top of that, the restaurant was using that fruity olive oil which was obtained from their family farm in Greece. Today we had more of that olive oil with their dense and soft loaves. Nice bread!

We had taramosalata, a mildly fishy (in a good way) and creamy dip made with cured cod roe. Delicious with their olive oil and bread.

That's the Talagani cheese, a sheep's milk cheese from Messina. The pan fried cheese turned out to be very much like halloumi. Both cheese are of different origins, but possess the same salty and milky flavour with a chewy texture.

And then some nicely charred but still tender octopus tentacles. This was good.

Followed up with some lamb chops and fried potatoes. I'm looking forward to coming back again.

Decker Barbecue, Robertson Quay

While I’m no expert or even have any levels of actual familiarity with American styled barbecue, specifically Texan styled barbecue which Decker (#01-17, 60 Robertson Quay, tel : +65 6635 8565) is allegedly making, this was quite good. No offence to any camps but this was altogether a much more tasty experience than the South Carolinian one at 85 South. Yeah, the only other American styled barbecue which I’ve tried. Outside the US of A and no less. Pretty impressed with the smoky ribs and the tender fall apart briskets from this particular outfit. I would like to come back and have those briskets again in sandwiches.

Yunos N Family, Ang Mo Kio Central

This shop was a local Muslim food stall (#01-01 Ang Mo Kio Central Food Centre, 724 Ang Mo Kio Ave 6) in the heart of Ang Mo Kio. We had mee rebus which was one of the things to eat here. What’s different about the mee rebus from Yunos were the "add on" options on menu which generally aren’t part of the usual offerings from others stalls. For this particular case, it was lamb ribs. I had three pieces in my bowl. Those ribs weren’t as tender as I was hoping for though. Their nutty kuah/gravy had a smoky flavour which I'm guessing is from the little burnt bits. Pretty decent mee rebus located just 10 minutes from Rahim Muslim Food, the other popular stall.

Gado gado was okay. The ingredients weren't sloppy at the least but I didn't think there was anything extraordinary.

The Rendang Chicken’O from Old Chang Kee

I haven't had curry puffs from Old Chang Kee in a long while because their puffs were shrinking along with the quality of the fillings while the prices have being going up. I don't particularly understand nor like the bulbous knots at the end of the pastry crimp. I don't remember them being so large in the past. Very obviously, they're trying to stuff us with more fried flour. I'm also lost as to why are the curry puffs known as Os these days. Anyways, there's a green rendang chicken puff that they're doing lately. Didn't taste very much of rendang if I might say so. It wasn't bad tasting, the fillings were just a little differently flavoured from their usual puff though I couldn't quite point out where. And it's not rendang.

Kite, Craig Road

I took notice of Kite (53 Craig Road, tel : +65 9729 7988) when they opened up late last year as they were by the same owner of SPRMKT. For some reasons, the restaurant went out of mind until recently so here's what we had from the visit. I was trying not to use the fusion tag but in the end, made peace with myself in agreement that they are fusion in many ways like many of the small plate joints that have been thriving in recent years. There's Japanese, Indian and even local influences in their food.

The other thing I learnt was that Leandros Stagogiannis is involved at the helm. Sounds familiar? Yeah, because he is.

Kite offers Tennent's beer aged with whisky oak. A smooth ale-ish brew from Glasgow of moderate bitter, some maltiness and interestingly beyond the other subtle complexities which I didn't bother with - a hint of whisky that came just before the aftertaste. I'm not sure if I had imagined the last part but that was what I thought registered. I liked it.

chicken skins, bourbon glaze, juniper salt

The chicken skins were quite nice. Crisp, flavourful - but not necessarily of the obvious ingredients that were mentioned. To describe it simply, it was salty and savoury. 

char siew wagyu

This did taste like char siew marinate and pretty much the only thing wagyu about it was the texture. Couldn't taste any of the natural flavours of the beef through the marinate. I don't think char siew flavour works so well with wagyu.

bread & butter

Actually, brioche and seaweed butter. The butter was nice in a salted umami kind of way, but I couldn't actually tell that there was seaweed. 

salmon trout 42Deg, seaweed, apples, sesame

Trout was very good. Tender, flaky and full of flavour. The sesame description from the menu was a bit of a misnomer as the dominant flavour on the presumeably sou vide fish is the furikake, not just sesame.

mentaiko somen, Hokkaido scallops, unagi, tobiko

The somen was also pretty good. I'm not sure what about it was mentaiko though. The torched scallops were awesome, cubes of unagi very nicely charred and flavourful as well while the spicy noodles kept us digging in until the very end. While this was a unique dish from Kite, the approach and flavour profile isn't so. Other restaurants have created similar noodle dishes with varying amounts of success simply because this flavour profile is well received.

Mangalica pork collar, you tiao veloute, spiced broth

The pork was buttery tender and I thought the creamy you tiao veloute was pretty impressive. If the idea was to create a progressive/contemporary update to ba kut teh, they've succeeded rather well.

lamb saddle chaat potatoes, spiced jus, tamarind mango chutney

I thought the Indian flavours were quite nicely done here. The lamb saddle was wrapped in a thin layer of fat which brought a nice lamb-y flavour together with the char on the exterior.