Truffle Gourmet, Club Street

You know the places where you hold back on the bread, saving precious space for the good stuff that you know is going come. Well, this (49 Club Street) was not one of them. I think they are trying too hard to appear swanky and in the process, make up some for the lacking substance. Place is helmed by a Takashi Okuno, formerly of L’Operetta.

These were complimentary crostinis. I don't remember much of them.

And then some pan fried polenta with caramelized apple and blue cheese. The portions were puny. Each piece was probably double the size of my thumbnails and two of them probably a little less than a mouthful, but I enjoyed the flavors. The corn from the polenta, the tart sweetness from the tiny chunks of apple and the pungent blue cheese worked. But.....I wouldn't pay what they were charging to eat them again though.

This is grilled tomino cheese with truffled honey and jamón ibérico. Pretty penny charged for the cheese which was pretty tasty actually. But this isn't exactly any showcase of what the restaurant could do since it was pretty much the ingredients that spoke for themselves. Frying cheese doesn't require so much skills.

That's their uovo fritto. Breaded and fried half cooked egg with black truffle cream sauce. I didn't quite like the fact that they had to emphasise that they had added truffle crumbs (they actually called those shaven truffle) on top of the truffle cream that's suppose to be in the dish. Especially when those truffle flavors left some to the imagination. But the egg was rather nicely done.

The tajarin with truffle left even more of the truffle flavors to imagination. The rest of it was pretty much butter and sage and the pasta was unforgivably limp. I understand that this place was rather new. But it's been a month since they've opened and if they cannot do this pasta in a month, they'll never be able to do it. Overpriced and waste of money.

Fortunately, their beef ravioli was still decent. Think there was truffle oil in there too. Couldn't really be bothered any further at this point. 

Here's a first and a last visit.

More lupinity...

This was suppose to be just a quick stop for desserts after an unsatisfying meal at Truffle Gourmet. More of that later....maybe. So they were filled to the brim and we ended up sitting at the bar.

Since we had room for more food and didn't mind pushing back the memories of the mediocre food we had just a while ago, here's more stuff which we ended up with. 

This sharp knife was a mystery at the beginning. Later we realised that it was for the fennel. Three little pigs danced atop.

potato skins 

house-cured smoked bacon, crème fraîche

We thought that their potato skins with crème fraîche was quite nicely done and not over the top. Just that crème fraîche, bacon and I think we detected some cheese. Toasted cheese which added a little chewiness and aroma.

charred fennel

house-made goat’s milk ricotta, 

black olive oil, pine nut

Their charred fennel looked boiled rather than grilled. But the fennel did have a very distinctive and clean char aroma, pairing off nicely with the richness from the goat's ricotta. Liked.

braised savoy cabbage....again!

Nothing further needs to be said on this.

chicken hearts & liver salad 

parsley, radish, roasted garlic dressing

If I had any gripes about the food - I only wished for larger portions. This was a pretty dime we paid for a small salad with offal, but it was good. 

chocolate beetroot cake

goat’s cheese frosting

I thought the combination here was rather unusual. There was some strength from the bittersweet chocolate without creamy richness. In replacement, was that faint beetroot taste which surprised me by getting through all the chocolate. The cake was rather dense, dry-ish, offset by the goat's cheese frosting. Great that it didn't taste as sweet as it looked.

Banoffee tart

This was also quite good. It came recommended and tasted better than I imagined. Light airy cream on top of fresh bananas and caramel in a dense, buttery and crumbly base.

Bornga, Star Vista

Despite the fact that the meats were the supposed stars of this dinner (#02‐24, The Star Vista, 1 Vista Exchange Green, tel : +65 6694 4696), the majority of what we ate for tonight were probably vegetables. There were loads of it from the wrap platter to cold soups to the banchan (purple sweet potato mash is really good). And it all didn't feel heavy with just minimal carbs from the refreshingly light tasting cold buckwheat noodles.

Between the meats, it was quite obvious that their signature woosamgyup was clearly tastier. Thin sliced fat laced brisket in a light marinate that resembled tender bacon accompanied by their special dip which tasted of some fermented bean and pepper. The marbled ggot sal on the other hand were sliced a little too thick resulting in some difficulty in cooking.

The food was a little pricey for sure, but I think I don't mind giving them another go.

Gayatri Restaurant, Orchid Country Club

butter chicken

gobi 65

crayfish briyani

sabzi vegetarian briyani

It took us a few tries to come down here (Orchid Country Club, 1 Orchid Club Road, #01-21, tel : +65 6481 1112) for dinner as they were almost perpetually booked for events during the weekend.

So there were some briyani, a tangy and smokey butter chicken and crisp gobi 65; the last of which varied in spiciness in the two occasions we had them. Their briyani was quite tasty with well seeped in flavour be it the crayfish or the vegetarian rendition. The flavour from the crayfish was actually not drowned out by the sauces. But I was surprised to see a little dish of mock meat dish with the other briyani.

I wouldn't come here for masala tea again. It costs three times of the outlet at Telok Ayer and came in a smaller cup.

More from Kian Seng Seafood

This was a family birthday dinner where we ordered up a bunch of what we liked from the previous visit including a couple of  items which we hadn't tried before. One of which was the dull skinned and mildly herbal kampung salt chicken that almost everyone else seems to be ordering; which turned out to be pretty good. Apart from the mild herbal aroma, the bird was what we felt to be nicely and sufficiently salted. It reminded me of the salt baked one from Plum Village which was juicer and had the advantage of being peppery.

Here's a second go at their spinach with three eggs and superior stock. Wow, this was just a turnaround from the previous visit. The gravy was noticeably much more flavorful  from the salted egg in comparison with then. This stuff is pretty damn good.

And a delicious dry stir fried kuey teow with preserved turnip (cai por), bean sprouts and chopped bits of kailan. I didn't care much for those strips of ham that they placed over the top, but the rest of the rice noodles were a medley of textures from the vegetables with a savory char aroma. Very good with the garlic chilli sauce on the side that they've provided!

Wolf, Gemmill Lane

Fergus Henderson inspired nose to tail dining has finally made its presence on our shores. The very first proclaimed of such, is Wolf (18 Gemmill Lane, tel : +65 6557 2224) by the Privé Group. Just right across the road from Club Street Social.

While exotic for some, food with offal and other innards is an age old eating habit which had been formed from time immemorial where every bit was a precious scrap. Awareness just been made a little hip in recent years. Definitely not new here in Asia.

The public philosophy behind what they create is respecting the ingredient (animal that died for your plate) and letting nothing go to waste. I'm curious at the the level of commitment that the restaurant has made backing that philosophy. Didn't think we saw much ingredients beyond what already can be found elsewhere. I'm sure there were many other parts we could have been served as food and that hearts and livers and sweetbreads and skin aren't the only things that maketh the beast.

some crispy fried pig skin

Some fried pig skin to start. Tastes like chicharron, sans the vinegar on the side. 

 grilled beef hearts, haricots verts, green grapes, walnuts, stout dressing

And then some medium rare hearts of cow. There was only probably 2 grapes in there. I don't think grapes cost so much. But the hearts were pretty good and grilled with little distraction but salt and pepper.

 pig’s head & trotter brawn, herb salad, crusty bread 

We were informed that this was best eaten fast as the gelatin would still hold from the cold. We personally though that the head cheese became a little more flavoursome once it has gotten a little less cold. Who really cared if the gelatin held eh? If anyone's wondering, this is terrine made of bits of meat from pig's head and trotter set in aspic. It tastes a little porky and we liked it.

grilled ox tongue, salsa verde, puy lentil salad

Grilled ox tongue was delicious. So was the bed of lentils and the mint and garlic salsa verde that they used.

sweetbreads & mushroom risotto

The fried sweetbread really reminded me of fried fish roe. I thought it was delicious. The portions of the sweetbread was however, a little too little. Risotto with trumpet mushrooms was pretty okay. Rice was very nicely timed with the cooking and not mind blowing. But it was quite addictive.

a side of  braised savoy cabbage, house-cured smoked bacon

This is probably one of the better applications of savoy cabbage I've had. In a really long time. Umami and lightly smokey. I'm going to order this again the next time.

rhubarb trifle

Not bad. This trifle is actually much better than the one at Lawry's which was too much tart and cake with too little cream. There was more cream to fruit ratio in there and it even tasted good with pepper.