Revisiting Pizzeria L'Operetta

Haven't had pizza at Pizzeria L'Operetta for a long time. Their menu doesn't seem to change. Neither do their specials.

There's Suntory on tap, so a glass of dry bitter malt while waiting for our Neapolitan styled pie.

Genovese frutti di mare - some shrimp, squid and octopus. Delicious pizza but as a pizza, it's not as impressive as I remember them. Was also a tad expensive. I was hoping for more seafood for $32 because their AVPN certification certainly isn't worth that much. Maybe I'll just stick to Luka and Zazz.

Chocolate buffet at Clove

So...chocolate themed buffet with savoury and sweet dishes at Clove (Swissôtel The Stamford Level 2, 2 Stamford Road). Piqued my curiosity. Possibly half of the dishes in the buffet have chocolate, not all of them. There's a whole bunch of regular stuff that one could conceivably find in similar buffets but my focus was on the servings that had chocolate.

Here's a look at some of the stuff I had. Some. Because it was too much of a pain to try to take pictures of everything we had.

There's chilli mocha ribs. Pretty rich flavour from the sauce that was similar to the kopi c ribs from Baba Chews. Didn't get any of the chilli though. Sadly, the meat was crusty and dry.

Pan seared duck breast with 70% dark chocolate sauce. Nice. Meat was pretty tender and moist. The creamy dark chocolate sauce was savoury with just the faintest hint of sweetness.

That's gratinated cauliflower with white chocolate sauce and hazelnuts. I wouldn't have known there was chocolate in there if not for the description. Sauce was creamy and buttery tasting.

Very solid milk chocolate dal makhani. There was definitely a light creamy chocolate sweetness amid the spices. Like.

Baked salmon with ruby chocolate citrus beurre blanc - could taste the chocolate in the background which also had a faint creamy sweetness that you would almost miss.

And wok fried slipper lobster with ivory chocolate pepper sauce. Not getting so much chocolate here but it was pretty peppery.

So my first plate was a sampler of the chocolate savoury dishes.

That milk chocolate dal makhani was nice enough for me to polish a few pieces of naan.

Chocolate truffle Brie and chocolate sauce Camembert with pecans.

Gratinated oysters with chocolate béchamel sauce, mint lime gel and a dollop of chocolate. This was actually pretty good. For some reasons -  the lime, chocolate and toasted cheese worked with the oyster.

Oysters, cheeses and crackers. Blob on the cracker was onion jam.

Label is self explanatory.

Interesting ivory chocolate mustard but the pork belly wasn't so good. Meat was kinda dry.

Smoked duck with quinoa and shaven chocolate, tangerine mint salad with shaven chocolate, some chocolate bread and their Ruby Chocolate Ravioli. The latter was a ricotta ravioli with a chunk of braised beef on the side, something call ocean foam (no idea what was that) and shavings of the ruby chocolate which wasn't enough to register. The best part of it was actually that tender chunk of braised beef.

There was briyani with raisins and almond. Nice with the refreshing raita.

And a butternut cream soup with chocolate croutons. The soup tasted like it had maple syrup in it. Not bad though.

Couldn't pass on the cold cuts and tangerine mint salad. That white piece on the left was smoked snow fish. That one was nice. Going anti-clockwise, smoked tuna, coppa and bresaola.

More of those wok fried slipper lobster with ivory chocolate pepper sauce.

There's a laksa station. Not bad. No chocolate in this one.

The dessert on the left was named Nitrogen Cocoa. Had kaffir lime jelly, coconut sorbet and some sort of coconut foam served in a chocolate pot. Not bad. Those flavoured chocolate buttons on the side were very good. Great flavours from the raspberry, straw berry and yuzu. I had thirds of those. Don't remember the last time I had so much chocolates in one seating.

Poh, Chinatown Food Centre

Remember Poh at Empress Road Food Centre. They have disappeared a while back and then recently set up shop at Chinatown (#02-011 Chinatown Food Centre, 335 Smith Street) right next to Chinatown Fried Rice. Menu's very streamlined now with only their "preserved veg hor fun" and deep fried prawn paste chicken.

We had a serving of the oyster preserved veg hor fun. Preserved veg refers to chai por/chai poh (菜脯) if you didn't already know. The vegetable that is preserved is turnip in chopped bits which are then stir fried/seared with hor fun and eggs for this dish. 

The outcome was smoky and delicious and I liked that it was sufficiently salted. Came with plump little oysters and not forgetting crispy fragrant bits of fried pork lard. I'll be back for the regular plate and their prawn paste chicken.

Wagyu kushi and hot purple sweet potato latte from Don Don Donki

Don Don Donki (selected outlets) has wagyu skewers on sticks. A la plancha. I'm also hearing Japanese wagyu from the Kagoshima prefecture. Because it wasn't very expensive, we've had them a couple of times on separate occasions.

The outcome of the skewers is dependent on who makes them. We've had ones which had better charring and those which weren't as much. Likewise, the salt on these skewers aren't consistent. But they're good eating and aren't terribly expensive.

We've never realized that their purple sweet potato latte comes as a hot drink. It's creamy and thick. Not bad. Never occured to me ever that wagyu kushi and a hot purple sweet potato latte pairs as a snack combo but it has happened. 

Tiong Bahru Bakery X Drunken Baker

10th year anniversary menu by Tiong Bahru Bakery with Drunken Baker at the Foothills outpost (70 River Valley Road). It sounded interesting and I got suckered in. In retrospect, I am telling myself "I should have known better..."

This was their bianca pizza. With a crust that's purported to be made from a 160 year old sourdough starter. There's blue cheese, maitake, walnut oil and chives. We splurged on the $20 shaven black truffle. It was disappointing and underwhelming.

The crust was fine. Airy, chewy and not heavy. For something that had blue cheese (which is supposed to be salty), it was a bland-ish pizza. One can postulate how little blue cheese there was. The shaven black truffles hadn't any aroma nor flavour. Imagine that. There was also a pitiful amount of chives? Stingy is an understatement for the ingredients for a $40 nine inch pizza.

The lamb hot dog was served in a croissant. I thought that would be the regular croissant instead of this pitiful attempt to save on their pastry. For a start, there was a pretty punchy minty yoghurt and mustard which overwhelmed the lamb flavour in the sausage and any butteriness in the croissant. Chopped onions would have made a lot more sense than those three shards precariously perched on top of the hot dog. Poorly thought out with no experience at all and blatant disregard of flavour balance of their chosen ingredients. I'm not a cook and this much I can tell.

牛肉炒面 from Tongue Tip Lanzhou Beef Noodles (舌尖尖兰州牛肉面)

Hadn't noticed that there was stir fried beef noodles (牛肉炒面) from Tongue Tip Lanzhou Beef Noodles but then again, we haven't been eating here for a while. The savoury spices/sauce reminded me of a milder rendition of Xinjiang/Xi'an styled noodles or those from Dolan Uyghur Restaurant. Less intense without those heavy cumin accents. I enjoyed it still. Note to self : forget their braised eggs the next time. No flavour from the braising sauce.