USA Cheese Menu from Punjab Grill

Punjab Grill has a USA Cheese Menu which featured a four course end to end meal of dishes with cheese. I thought it was odd to have an Indian restaurant restaurant feature cheese from America out of the blue. The French/English/Italians might have made a better pick for a feature but what do I know eh?

We were served an amuse bouche of a spiced fried potato ball. In spite of appearances, it tasted like some sort of chaat.

My initial thoughts of their blueberry lassi was that it was quite sweet. After a while, it got pretty addictive. Finished it faster than I intended. This was ordered separately and not from the cheese menu.

The appetizer from the menu was a papdi chaat which featured American burrata and avocado with green coriander chutney foam. This was nice. Taste very chaat-y with the sweet and sour and a bit of heat.

Entrée was a lamb kofta that was stuffed with a mild Cheddar. The kofta, glazed with their Rogan jus was sitting on palak khichdi that had been infused with truffle oil. Very nice. Wanted to lick the plate clean kind of nice. I would imagine that lots of ghee or butter was in the khichdi. Flavours from the ball of lamb and the spiced sauce was moreish-ly punchy.

The main was chicken tikka in tomato makhani gravy with US Pepper Jack. Think butter chicken. Rich, more savoury than sweet and delicious. I mopped the plate clean with the mozzarella cheese naan which came on the side. 

There was also cumin pulao on the side of the "butter chicken" which was really good. Had a nice flavour from the cumin, was buttery and there might have been some cheese in it. So good that you could eat it on its own.

Dessert was a paan (betel leaf) kulfi with deconstructed dark chocolate. The powder at the bottom - that's the deconstructed dark chocolate. The other seedy stuff scattered around was mukhwas. A lot of flavours going on with a base of sweet lavender. Very nice dessert.

We were given the betel vanilla shot like the last time for digestion.

Revisiting The Ranch

My time for the flaming ramen is not yet here but I'm equally happy settling for a flaming boned in venison from The Ranch.

Bread has changed from the last time. They were rye previously. I preferred those over these mini baguette things. 

I remember their crustacean soup to be a lobster bisque. It's now listed as crustacean bisque in the menu. Still very nice soup. Oh, there's a ravioli in it now. Thought I detected something like prawns in the ravioli.

We liked the beef tartare from the last time so we ordered it again like the bisque. That gherkin-y beef tartare. They need to bring back the rye instead of those small baguettes. 

The Ranch has a competently done lamb rack. Nothing beyond salt and pepper on the meat. Good ratio of meat to fat for the bite and flavour. It was delicious with or without the twin peppercorn sauce on the side. If there was anything they could improve on, I thought a bit more char would have upped the game for flavour.

Ditto for the venison which was carted in with a bit of dramatics in a flambé trolley. For some reasons, The Ranch isn't big on caramelization. Anyways, the sauce was prepared à la minute. Picture's dark. There's cherries in it and after the flaming flourish, the two boned in pieces of venison had dark chocolate shaven over them. Too little chocolate shavings methinks. 

I've been having a bit of venison in the past couple of months. Coucou, The Market Grill, venison burger from Burger & Lobster (I'm counting this one) and now this. I'm crowning The Market Grill as the best of them because they are. 

The last dinner of 2020

2020 has been a trying year. For many and for myself. While I was tempted to say that I hope the next year would better or some shit like that, I caught myself because know that's not how it works. Reality would not bend for a change in the calendar. But I do hope that things get better as we go along and here's our happy meal from our favourite teishoku restaurant to mark an end to the annual milestone. And the link to all the times that we came here before that (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二, 十三 ).

I ordered lemon tea for the first time here because for reasons, they ran out of their Suntory on tap. I could be wrong but this tasted like something out of a can. From Seasons.

Sweet corn tempura which we've had previously. Nice munching with a bit of salt.

This was a first. Scallops they described in butter and soya sauce. Could taste the soya sauce but not the butter in the sauce. The scallops were really nice. The exterior was done with just the light char that flavour from the caramelization came through with insides that were still slightly rare. Vegetables were good quality, well cooked and juicy.

Doesn't look apparent but this was their white fish in shiso tempura.

A happy meal deserves their beef cheek in miso and red wine. 

Suju also has one of the better gindara teriyaki I've had.

One of the happy components of having a meal here is the rice and those takuan. They pair so well together and I almost always get seconds.

 

Burrata cheese soba from Healthy Soba IKI

Healthy Soba IKI has a Christmas special. Burrata cheese topping on their soba. Nice. Again it's all sitting in some tsuyu with a fruity olive oil and tomatoes, topped with tomato salsa, burrata cheese and negi. And black pepper. Tangy and creamy at the same time paired with their freshly made soba.

Proprietor Noguchi-san came over and asked about the food. Short chat broached the topic of their previous cheese soba. Apparently the shavings of cheese were 36 month Parmigiano Reggiano. Who woulda thunk?!

More food from Burger & Lobster

More food from Burger & Lobster.

These above were their lobster nuggets. Each "nugget" was a claw, six pieces of them for $18. So if $3 is a fair amount to pay for a fried shelled lobster claw to you, here's where you can get some.

That's the lobster mac & cheese. Nice crusty salty melted cheese that sealed a ramekin of macaroni which was soaked in something that tasted like a creamy lobster bisque. Full of creamy crustacean flavour and had bits of lobster meat as well.

Lobster rosti wasn't as impressive as the previous two items. Rosti wasn't bad but the lobster here was just salty without the sweetness. Will not order again.

They had this venison burger for the Christmas season. Venison patty with Brie, bacon and cranberry relish. Not bad. But I couldn't tell the meat from their beef burger.

Something they called Texan waffle chicken. Chicken's not bad. Buttermilk fried and very moist with a pleasant savoury marinade. The waffle was thick and sweet and had come crunchy sweet bits in them. For some reasons, I was popping mouthful after another of the waffle until I finished one. Didn't do it for the second piece because of the sugar overload by then.

Pretended to quench thirst with their expensive but delicious pineapple tea.

Sushiro in December

It's been a few months since we've hit Sushiro. While it can be fun to try some the items they've introduced into the menu which we haven't tried before, there's also us being us sticking to what we liked from them. 

One of the newer item their hiyashiame which was flavoured with cinnamon powder. This was sweet and pleasant from the combination of cinnamon and ginger.

There's a madara shirako gunkan. No idea why madara is in the name but this was a better one than the shirako gunkan they had last year. The ingredients were mostly the same. This one had more shirako.

The stacked snow crab nigiri looked better in pictures. It's okay. Not the better tasting snow crab out there since you do get what you will be paying for.

Their scallop sushi is generally not bad. Applies for this one with more scallops and ikura.......

......and the one which have larger scallops.

This ankimo gunkan also looked nicer than the one we got from last year.

We had chutoro. Not the better one out there but it's sometimes the luck of the draw for a conveyor belt sushi joint like this.

Some sesame marinated snapper nigiri. Unusual flavour profile for a sushi which we haven't had before from the sesame.

The nigiri with the big red prawns are one of those good ones to pick.

The other no brainer is the gunkan overflowing with ikura.

Not traditional but there's an appeal to tuna mayo.

Tried their whole (yari ika) spear squid nigiri. Are these like babies? Tasted much like the regular squid sushi except for the mouthfeel. Wished they hadn't decided that there was a need to include that tiny dollop of ginger paste.

I liked that their tamago yaki was sweet and chilled. 

Albacore tuna was tender.

Chilled chawanmushi with dashi jelly was unexpectedly refreshing. There's a scallop and shrimp in it.

The noodle item we hadn't tried before was their shirasu mazesoba. This looked better in real life than the pictures on the menu. There was a light sauce which I could describe as savoury and that was all that accompanied the shirasu and negi for the noodles. Nothing unnecessarily complicated. I'd eat this again.

Amaebi not so sweet.

Tai looked dry-ish. 

The Earl Grey pudding from Hattendo was nice and creamy. Really creamy.

They also had these sweet potato cream buns from Hattendo which were also nice. There was milky sweet potato flavour in the creamy filling.