McMuffin Stack from McD

Because sometimes I just have got to get some McD. The savoury salt and fat filled sandwiches that my body never begrudges in the morning. This was nothing like the Mighty McMuffin but I take what I can get. Didn't I just have something similar minus the "chicken bacon" a couple of years back in Bangkok? 

Steak tartare from Les Bouchons

Les Bouchons has a menu that hasn't changed much for years. I found out recently that their restaurant Robertson Quay (#01-02 The Quayside, 60 Robertson Quay, tel : +65 6733 4414) has steak tartare. One that we had to mix for ourselves. 

In retrospect, I preferred to have someone professional doing this because I couldn't get the ratio of the condiments right. I also blame it on the measlier portions of aromatics. While it wasn't bad per se, I had a more enjoyable eat even with the gherkin-y rendition at The Ranch or the spicy heady one at  the defunct Hippopotamus. Remember them?

It's worth nothing that their parent (or is that sister?) restaurant L'Angelus prepares this dish tableside for a just dollar more. 

Bismillah Biryani, Dunlop Street

I've heard about Bismillah (48 & 50 Dunlop Street, tel : +65 6935 1326) and their dum biryani for years. The owner, a Pakistani who's been here for a few decades never thought the local renditions to measure up and decided to whip up his own rendition. The rest is history and in recent years they've listed in the Bib Gourmand. Never got around to giving them a try until today.

We ordered their kid goat biryani.

And the lamb chop biryani. Bismillah's biryani easily costs twice or more than the regular prices we're used to paying. 

The preparation is different from most of the local variety. The closest other rendition I've encountered was Azizah at Geylang Serai which is incidentally also Pakistani styled. There's less oil for starters for the both of them which resulted in a dryer and lighter plate of rice. This is where the similarity ends.

Bismillah had more spice going on and is served without dalcha. Instead, one gets something which I thought tasted like buttermilk. Not raita.

Some of the chunks of the kid goat was dry. Wouldn't come back for that again. The lamb chops were fatty, nicely marinated with spices and hence, flavourful. Nice and also 33.3% more expensive than the goat biryani.

The other thing I liked from them was their haleem - a stodgy stew of lentils, mutton and spices. And some other stuff which I probably don't know about. What impressed me about the haleem was how it had been thoroughly infused with the flavour of mutton. I'm venturing a guess that a lot of fat went into the dish. Delicious though. 

Note to self : don't get their mango lassi again. Tasted like melted mango kulfi. No yoghurt flavour.

Tess Bar & Kitchen, Seah Street

Been wanting to come to Tess Bar & Kitchen (38 Seah Street, tel : +65 6337 7355) for a few years now so it's finally happened. We ordered a number of small plates which was what this place was essentially about. Plates that goes with drinks. 

Delicious lamb short rib they do here. The menu described a pomegranate crust which I was unable to relate with those ribs. There was a glaze though. Tangy and sweet and spiced up. The lamb was flavourfully fatty and slide off the bone tender.

Camembert with truffle salsa and garlic toasts. Yum! Where were the thyme flowers?

Roasted cauliflower with cheese was also pretty good. It was supposed to be aged cheddar according to the menu. Not getting any sharpness or much salt from the cheddar. Menu mentioned scorched cashew nuts as well. Quantities of those cashews must have been so little that I don't recall having had them.

Their bone marrow's a signature item. Those beef cubes that was served with the marrow were incredibly tender, layered by a warm sweet glaze made with some jus and some wine. I think. I thought that the point of to dish was lost because I ordered this for bone marrow. Which the dish had very little of.

I liked the chicken liver toasts. There might have been a bit too much of the grape and port chutney left things a bit too sweet but I thought it was a forgivable off balance. Still delicious.

Fried pork belly passed muster. That black sauce on the side was described as Asian dip. Liked the sweet and spicy from it which worked with both those guava and pork belly. More of the guava would be nice though.

This was a dessert called Tess 1.0. Interesting because it had salty elements in it like the truffle salsa and pretty generous sprinkle of diced Gorgonzola piccante. Sweetness came from dried fruits and honeycomb. So this ended up being quite intensely salty and sweet. But no truffle honey or compressed grapes like the menu described.

Revisiting Sushi Kou

It's a been a while since we last ate at Sushi Kou. Maybe not that long. A month back or so was the last. We landed ourselves counter seats today.

We had ankimo ponzu while we waited. We tried this the last time we were here and thought it was good. Salty and light liver-y flavoured bits coupled with the bursts of citrus from the ponzu and flavour from the chopped negi.

Among the things we ordered, was their grilled akauo teishoku. Seasonal apparently.

Fish was firm and flaky with that light crustacean-y aroma that I enjoyed. Beware the dangerous bits of sharp bones that one would have to navigate.

The teishoku came with some sansai bonito and miso soup on the side.

And what tasted like lychee jelly with nata de coco.

This was their aka ebi lobster sauce. The aka ebi was pan fried and served with a garlic-ky lobster cream sauce that was crazy creamy delicious. The heads of the prawns were filled with the head fat which oozed out into the cream sauce while I was extracting the meat. That head fat infused portions of the sauce tasted like it might stop one's heart.

A second serving of rice was gotten because this. Hotate uni sauce.

Seared scallops with uni and ikura in an uni infused cream sauce. Hell yeah this was good too! There wasn't so much uni flavour in the sauce but that didn't stop it from being heart stopping good. Those uni on top of the scallops were cooked somehow. The texture has changed to something akin to crab roe. I liked it still though.

Revisiting Merci Marcel

Dinner by happenstance at Merci Marcel.

We hadn't an idea how the duck rillette with marinated pear and Camembert would look like when we ordered it. Made sense that they were on toast. This was a flavour bomb. The savouriness from the rillette, a mild sweetness from the pear (marinated ones, not those sliced ones) and then the nutty melty Camembert. Umami and dripping with grease on bread. How could we not?

Merci Marcel's tarte flambée had a thin crust. Kinda like a sturdy pastry rather than a dough crust. That thinness made it lighter and easier to eat. Textures from the asparaguses, thin bacon strips and rocket and their flavours. Savoury.

The menu mentioned blue cheese and apples. Very little blue cheese of unknown origins and I don't remember tasting anything like apples in there.

We ordered a striploin. It's okay. Sauce was not bad. Creamy mushrooms were delicious like I remembered them. Meat was a little sinewy. Wished it wasn't. I didn't dislike it as a whole. In my head, I just kept comparing and comparing and comparing and comparing. And comparing.

We finished with a simple chocolate cake. Not the one that will elicit the most pleasurable moan but pretty competent. If I had to nitpick, I wished that the chocolate were a bit more intense. But we liked it. Cake was dense, soft and not overly sweet. Loved it for the simplicity and cream.