More seasonals and beef tartare at Atout

It's been a little over a year since the last time we were at Atout. That last time, we came for their Brittany artichokes and sautéed Mirabelle plums. We were here today for the Vacherin Mont d'Or, black winter truffle and persimmons. What I personally hope for is that one day, Patrick would start making boudin noir again.

What also appeared on the seasonal section of the menu today were their house made smoked goose rillette. These were smokey as the name described and had a spice I couldn't put my finger to. Delicious anyways.

Pretty good Black French Winter Truffle linguine. The sauce had a light cream flavour to pair with the truffles. A little low on salt here methinks. Personally I thought cheese and butter would be the preferable combination. 

Our first time ordering their tartare de beouf - but we kinda knew what we would be getting because we expected that it wouldn't be very different from the one from Le Bistrot Du Sommelier. And we were right. Love the chunky mince of the tartare and their balanced tangy spicy seasoning.

Been a while since we last had the Vacherin Mont d'Or.

Ordered this with onions and bacon. In retrospect, those weren't necessary. The cheese alone would have sufficed. Nice toasty crust we got today.

Persimmons are in season. The persimmon tart I was looking forward to was a little more fancy than I had imagined but it did the job. Honey flavoured cubes of the fruit on a creamy & tangy cream passion fruit curd cradled in the dense buttery crust. Would be remiss of me not to also mention that refreshing mandarin verbena sorbet on the side.

This is the way. To end. Bitter coffee. That soft oatmeal raisin cookie on the side was so buttery.

McD's Quarter Pounder is back

It's back. Guilty pleasure which I'm not complaining about but I wonder why now and why was it ever taken off the menu in the first place. I haven't had the Angus cheese burger enough to make a comparison. While I learnt to accept that one, I too remember lamenting when they first replaced the Quarter Pounder with it.

This had a more moist patty which was substantially larger than the generic patties that they use for the rest of their burgers. That size also changed the balance the cheese to meat ratio making this less cheesy than the old Double Cheeseburger. And because it was less cheesy, one could taste more of the meat. Didn't taste so beefy.

So Good Char Chan Tang, 100AM

So Good Char Chan Tang has opened up at 100AM (#01-04 100AM, 100 Tras Street). This was the their third outpost we've been to after Capitol Piazza and TripleOne Somerset. Food's serviceable mostly -  some stuff I like better than others. These guys are among the better cha chan tang in this era together with Tsui Wah and Legendary Hong Kong.

Was curious about their baked cheese spaghetti bolognese after having had that with rice and egg. It's the same bolognese sauce. Couldn't tell if the minced meat in it was chicken or pork. It's definitely not beef. Looked better than the experience of eating it because most of the sauce was on top with the toasted cheese. Once you've dug in, I kinda felt that there wasn't enough sauce, or even cheese for that matter to go round with the noodles. That's my only gripe. 

Fried ee fu noodles (干烧伊面). The sauce was a bit more intense than the more commonly available braised rendition. Cannot be seen in this picture but there were sliced mushrooms in it. It was okay on its own but pretty delicious when paired with their zesty pickled green chilli.

A side of poached lettuce with oyster sauce for some obligatory fibre. Even though it was just poached lettuce and oyster sauce, the one from Legendary Hong Kong seemed done more nicely.

Breakfast at Nakajima Suisan

We were at Nakajima Suisan (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二, 十三, 十四, 十五, 十六, 十七) one of the recent weekends for a grilled fish teishoku breakfast. A happy meal big breakfast kinda thing involving freshly grilled fish, rice, hot miso soup and some other things.

Got a double up saba mirin. Because an additional portion of fish never hurt. Topped the rice with mentaiko.

Seem to recall it not having so much bones previously. Anyways, it was deliciously savoury on the inside beneath that sweet caramelized mirin glaze on the surface.

Noticed that the saikyo mero looked larger than how I remembered them. Deliciously oily and flavourful as always.

Today's shishamo were disappointingly skinny and were oddly not salted at all. Not as much roe as I would preferred them to have.

Lamb chops from TWG

This was not the same as the one we had previously even though there's lamb and black garlic involved.

Bread has genmaicha. 

That's paired with butter that......also has genmaicha.

In spite of its innocuous appearance the lamb was pretty good. I was initially disappointed by the lack of char on the surface but quickly changed my mind after realizing the proper medium doneness, the moistness in the meat and the natural flavour of lamb that was present in said meat. Even managed to strip one of them cleanly off the bone.😱 Houjicha infused black garlic and rosemary lamb jus on the side be damned.

Revisiting Roberta's Pizza

I don't think Roberta's a thing like they are in NY. This shop at MBS is pricey and represents little value for money which places it out of reach for most people. Not that people couldn't afford it. They just wouldn't be willing to pay MBS prices for what appears to be pretty generic ingredients that are backed up by a tiny media blown reputation. Pretty sure it tastes better in Brooklyn as well even though I've never tried it there.

Not that they are bad here. While Roberta's may lay claim to one of the earliest honey on spicy pizza out there, I personally prefer Cicheti's sopressata to the former's Bee Sting. Maybe there's more flavour from the salami and a bit more presence with the honey. I'm also barely getting any cheese from this which I will sin it for. So I'm just gonna go with - it's not bad per se for this one, just underwhelming.

There's a truffle pizza special with shaven black truffles and ricotta and something else. We topped it up with lamb sausage. $5 for a puny handful of lamb sausage bits doesn't endear them to anyone. Credit where it's due, those bits of sausage was flavour packed...I was getting I think cumin and I'm sure cardamom with the salt and lamb-y fat flavour. So intense that I couldn't taste much of the black truffle. My bad with this.