If I can be completely honest, I’ve been dreading writing this post. Yes, I went to Heston Blumenthal’s world famous, three Michelin star restaurant, The Fat Duck. Yes, the experience was amazing. What more do I say?

To make matters worse, I know one of the key ingredients that make dining at The Fat Duck an even more incredible experience is the surprise factor - i.e. you walk in thinking you’re going to get a “conventional” meal (which begs the question “What is food?”) and you get these gastronomical alchemist’s creations. And I kinda shot myself in the foot, since I had read up about The Fat Duck before, and I’ve seen posts of other bloggers describing their meals. When I sat down, I glanced at the menu, and half of me was proud that I recognized most of the dishes, but the other half was a little disappointed that not much had changed. Silly me.

Don’t get me wrong though - the flavours and creations were everything I thought they would be. (Except maybe the Pommery Grain Mustard Ice Cream which really didn’t float my boat.) Right from the start, with the Nitro-poached palate cleanser of lime and vodka which looked like a meringue but disappeared in your mouth, leaving your mouth feeling absolutely sparkling clean. (This was especially important to me as I had a sinus infection and my mouth was feeling crappy.) It even cleared up my sinuses which meant I could take in the aroma of the Oak Moss and Truffle Toast. Speaking of truffle, how decadent is it to have truffle TOAST! And how awesome. I honestly think that was one of my favourite dishes, seeing as it’s so rare that you get to enjoy the flavour of truffle where it’s truly the star of the dish and doesn’t have a million other flavours contesting for your attention. And I’m sure all of you are wondering about the legendary Sound of the Sea. I have to admit that I went in a skeptic, but was pretty much blown away by how the feeling of the shoreline was recreated in front of me. I still kind of feel like the iPod delivering the sound of seagulls crowing and waves crashing was a tad indulgent, but I do get where they were coming from - it makes it an entire experience, which heightens your attention so you look at the dish more as though it were a beach scene, which in turn helps to elevate the experience that little bit.

Probably one of the most exciting dishes for me was the much talked-about snail porridge. Having been brought up in an Asian (and predominantly Chinese) culture, I don’t automatically associate the term “porridge” with the ang moh style, i.e. oats. I generally think of it as watery rice, and so I had to remind myself that it probably wasn’t going to be the case. And indeed it wasn’t. On my plate was a little mound of green stuff. It kinda looked like barley, but I wasn’t sure. Sitting on the green stuff were a couple of snails (the extreme right one kind of looks like it has a face which started freaking me out haha), julienned ham and shaved fennel in a beautiful almost floral arrangement. This was pretty much a visual kick in the face, and all before I’d even had a bite. As if it could get any better, the flavour and texture that exploded in my mouth was sublime. The slight chewiness of the snails juxtaposed with the almost al dente bite the porridge gave, add together the crunch and slight bitterness of the fennel, with the entire mouthful married together by the smoky saltiness of the ham was amazing. I love snails, but who knew that snails and porridge could go so well together? Mr Blumenthal, obviously.

My hands down favourites, however, had to be the “breakfast” portion of the meal. After dessert, we were given a little cereal package each of parsnip cereal (which tasted SO much like cornflakes only better x1000), served with a small jug of parsnip milk (sweet and creamy, but with the lightness of semi-skimmed milk that hasn’t lost its flavour). My personal winner was the Nitro-scrambled egg & bacon ice cream, which was served on pain perdu with tomato jam and candied bacon. Setting aside the obvious tableside theatrics of the re-filled egg shells cracked into a copper pot over an unlit stove and frenetic scrambling action once the liquid nitrogen was added into the mix, the flavour was seriously out of this world. The bacon was both sweet and savoury, with a hint of that smoky bacon flavour (I mean SRSLY who doesn’t love bacon?!!) all in a super smooth custard, placed atop a slice of brioche that was cooked so it was crisp and caramelised on the outside with a gooey, eggy, almost molten interior. I love the full english breakfast, and I am delighted to report that a re-constructed, sweet, frozen version definitely hit the spot.

There’s so much more that I want to say about the four-hour dining experience we had at The Fat Duck, but I really must show some self-restraint. The last thing I will give mention to, was that if I had to pick the single most outstanding part of the experience, I would have to give it to… the water. That’s right. I was feeling under the weather (and rather heavily medicated) on the day we made our foray into Bray, so I decided to stay off the alcohol. And while I was a little jealous of the champagne carts that visited the surrounding tables, I must say the water served at The Fat Duck was phenomenal. The still water which accompanied the majority of the meal was Wattwiller from Auvergne. This water contains no nitrates at all, which supposedly accounts for its remarkably clean and neutral taste. Towards the end of the meal, we were given another type of (still) water, Glenlivet from Speyside, which has one of the lowest mineral contents of any bottled water. This lends to it an almost sparkling, cleansing (not just clean) quality. I know it sounds a little ridiculous that I’m waxing lyrical about the bloody bottled water from this restaurant, but seriously. If you can get your hands on a bottle of either brand, try it, then you’ll understand what I mean.

To see photos of (almost) all the courses I had, check out my flickr photoset of The Fat Duck.

.. stars, that is. (This is the only post that I’m counting stars, since I don’t think I’m doing another combined-restaurant review.)

So it’s quite obvious that when Bunny and I were in London earlier this month, we weren’t really doing a lot of sight-seeing. Or, well, we were - but the sights we were interested in mainly came on a nice white plate (in most cases), on a table, in a restaurant. That’s right, we ate ourselves silly. Some might say we ate ourselves sick, but we’ll protest very loudly that it was crappy seafood in Barcelona that got us sick, not the copious amounts we ingested. One of the restaurants that we went to was Pétrus, located in The Berkeley Hotel in Knightsbridge, London. Some of you may have heard of Pétrus because of how 5 bankers from Barclays were sacked after having spent over £44,000 on a half dozen bottles of wine there. And indeed, the size of the wine list alone was rather impressive. But I wasn’t there for the wine.

Marcus Wareing, one of Ramsay’s many protegés, helms the kitchen of this two star establishment. To be honest, I didn’t even know that this was his place until a few months back when I was trying to figure out where to eat on this holiday. He’s probably better known for his time spent at the Savoy Grill, where it earned its first Michelin star with him at the helm. And I’m glad to say that the meal definitely didn’t disappoint with all that anticipation leading up to it.

The food at Pétrus was fantastic. It was fairly simple fare, but that didn’t detract from how impressive it was, especially for a set lunch. Anyone who’s heard me whine about the general state of “fine dining” restaurants in Singapore will know how highly I value good, fresh ingredients, since what you eat is really only ever as good as what you put in it. From the amuse of a foie mousse served with parmesan croutons (the foie had the texture of peanut butter, and I love peanut butter, so that was heavenly), all the way to the chocolate bon bons (pictured at the start of post) that we picked off their Bon bon trolley, every single dish that appeared in front of us was very well designed to showcase the natural flavours of the dish, without distracting or detracting from the main ingredients.

My favourite, however, was my main course. I know this sounds a bit silly because we mostly expect the main course - i.e. the main event of the meal - to be the show-stopper, but often it’s not the case. At Pétrus, however, I opted for the red mullet (above), which is a rather fatty round white fish that’s very common in Britain and the Mediterranean. It’s as beautiful as it is tasty, and the couple of times that I’ve chanced upon it here, I always have a lot of fun eating (and/or cooking) it. Here, it was served poached, with a wild garlic pesto. The flesh was firm and flaked beautifully, and the (relatively) simple cooking method meant that its flavours really shone through. The pungent pesto (and pesto croutons) on the side were brilliant at enhancing those flavours.

Another place from Gordon Ramsay’s empire that we went to, of course, was his eponymous restaurant at Royal Hospital Road. Here, we did the a la carte lunch menu, which provided a little more choice than his set lunch offerings. We couldn’t really face the Menu Prestige (far too many courses), as jealous as we felt when we saw some of the courses being served to the other diners, seeing as we’d had a slightly heavier breakfast that morning.

The first thing that hit us, here, was the impeccable service. It was very personable, without being intrusive (a fine line that service staff in Singapore are wont to trip over), and made us feel very comfortable despite the very amusing and very posh English families that were seated around us. (You could just about see some of those kids having their debutante balls!)

Although it would be unfair to compare Ramsay’s with Pétrus, seeing as we didn’t have the set lunch here, it’s probably fairly safe to say that the fare at Ramsay’s was significantly more refined. And I’m not just saying that because of how liberally our plates were littered with slices and cubes of black truffle. The menu here went beyond showcasing the feet-on-the-ground good flavours of fresh ingredients in skilled hands, and arrived at an impeccable presentation of the season’s produce. It was impressive to witness the use various cuts and parts of an animal in the same dish. For example, my main course of Best end of Cornish lamb with confit shoulder and thyme jus (above, lower right picture) showcased the fillets, the shoulder and the stock all made using lamb which were married together on one phenomenal plate.

But the dish I enjoyed most here was my starter. I’m a little hung up on sweetbreads at the moment, which has been the case for the last couple of months. I thought, at first, that this had something to do with the lack of availability in Singapore (not many restaurants that I can afford to regularly patronise offer it), but after veritably gorging myself on the stuff in Europe, I’m still hung up on it! My starter was sautéed foie with roasted sweetbreads (above, lower left picture), all tied together with two slightly sweet accompaniments - carrot purée and almond velouté. Three weeks later, I’m still drooling when I look at a picture of, or think of this dish, so I’m going to give myself an easy out by not describing it. Suffice to say it was a dish with simultaneously the best foie gras and the best sweetbreads that I’ve tasted. I must mention, though, that the restaurant seemed to revolve largely around veloutés of all shapes, forms, and names (sometimes being dubiously dubbed a cappuccino - but you can’t fool me!), which was a bit amusing to observe.

The last restaurant which I’m writing about here is one that I went to without Bunny. London is a city that has been stealing my good friends from me for the last four or five years, and one of them who is finally coming back to Singapore around the time when I’ll make my indefinite departure (so maybe it wasn’t London that she was running to, but me that she was running from!!) is an old friend from school. She picked a restaurant that I - in my ignorance - hadn’t heard of before. It’s a newish joint in the Soho area of London known as Arbutus, which boasts both a ridiculously affordable set lunch menu (about 15 quid for a 3-course meal), and bold offerings of offal.

Unfortunately, the only offal on the menu when I was there was stewed pigs head (the biggest picture in the above collage), and it wasn’t on the set lunch menu! So we decided that one of us would order a la carte (me, being the greedy one), and one of us would have the set lunch so we could compare the food. My dining companion, A, was really tickled with the idea of eating a pig’s head. I suppose the way the dish was phrased, an active imagination could lead to you wondering if the entire head was going to appear in front of you (it definitely crossed my mind), but what I got instead looked a little like a slice of a terrine, bearing no resemblance to the part of the pig that it came from. The fatty meat (slightly reminiscent of pork belly, only with much more tender meat), was served with a little pile of caramelised onions and a swoosh of potato purée. The texture of the purée was incredibly smooth, and while I enjoyed the dish marvellously, I think it would have been taken into a whole new level if a little texture contrast had been injected into the dish.

Interestingly, her set lunch main course beat my a la carte one to a pulp. The breast of lamb (bottom left corner) was very flavourful, impeccably cooked, and the accompaniments, while lacking a little on the presentation scale, tasted amazing. My bavette of Scottish beef had a slightly strange texture, which sort of felt like it was marbled with cartilege, only a little chewier. It was tasty, but still a bit strange. Arbutus, for me, will go down as the king of potatoes in London. After my perfectly creamy purée from the starter, I had dauphinois potatoes served in a mini cast iron coccotte, and while I daresay I was biased strictly because of the vessel it was served it, the alternating texture of creamy potatoes that still held some bite, and crispy, cheesy crust was delicious. Awesome potatoes, delicious no-fuss food, and charmingly friendly and casual service all for a great price made this restaurant a great experience.

So now you can probably see why within the first week of my arrival in London, I was crazy excited about the rest of my trip. With a start like that, who can guess what’s to come? Besides The Fat Duck, that is. But that’s another story for another day. :)

To see the rest of the photos that I took at the above restaurants, you can access them in my flickr sets here: Arbutus, Pétrus, and Restaurant Gordon Ramsay. In the descriptions of the sets, as well as in this post, I’ve included links to the restaurant websites.

I just got back from one of the awesomest holidays I’ve ever had (and when I say awesomest, I mean awesomest). I spent slightly under 3 weeks in England and Spain (namely London, Madrid and Barcelona - plus a day trip out to Brighton if you count that), with the majority of the time spent in London.

It was bloody brilliant to be able to spend time with one of my best friends in the entire world. On our last day there, we realised that it’s pretty much been 4 1/2 years since the two of us have been permanently based in the same country, as I’ve been in Singapore and she’s been jetting all around the world with the last 3 years spent in London. Come next year, we’ll both be in China, which is as scary as it is exciting, and everyone should join me in casting meaningful looks her way in hopes of getting her into the same city that I’ll be in - Hong Kong.

When bunny came up to join me, we proceeded to eat our way around that bit of Europe, and I’ve collected a total of 12 Michelin Stars in the past 18 days. I know putting it that way makes me sound like I have something to do with restaurants that have earned Michelin Stars, but really I just ate in them. A whole bunch of them. And while I’m the last person to say that stuffy chi-chi fine-dining is the only way to eat, it’s definitely something that’s not easy to do in Singapore, so I’m really thankful for the opportunity we had to taste the creations of some of the greatest chefs of this time.

To give you guys a teaser of the proper posts to follow, you can already see from my flickrstream that I went to Petrus and Arbutus, but I also visited two of the three establishments which each have been awarded 3 of the coveted stars in England, namely Restaurant Gordon Ramsay (at Royal Hospital Road in London) and The Fat Duck (in Bray). The best meal of the trip (and - dare I say - that I’ve ever had), however, I will have to keep a secret for the time being, but all I’ll say is that it took place in Spain.

Keep your eyes peeled, and I’ll try to get the photos and posts up and headed this way as soon as I can. :)

It’s good to be back.

Well, not quite hot, but things are certainly warming up with new kid on the block 25 degree Celsius. A couple of days ago, a dear friend texted to say that she’d found a new cafe/cookbook store in Keong Saik Road (just down from 1929, and across from Whatever cafe). Very familiar with my compulsion for buying things-that-I-already-have-too-many-of (i.e. cookbooks - and also teeshirts), she then requested that I not tell the bunny where this tip came from.

I’d imagined that it would be more of a cafe with a few shelves of cookbooks on sale, but 25°C is more accurately described as a small bookstore, devoted entirely to cookbooks (and a few non-recipe-books related to food), with a test kitchen and a small seating area for the cafe at the rear. I felt like I’d stepped straight into heaven - conversely, and into bunny’s worst nightmare - when I crossed the threshold. Floor to ceiling shelves! Lined with cookbooks! On almost any topic imaginable! By all manner of authors! And reasonably priced too!

I first visited 25°C on Saturday, just stopping in to check it out and grab a cup of coffee - which was delicious, by the way! Apparently, it’s a secret blend they import from Taiwan. I left almost 2 hours later with my pockets significantly emptier, and loaded with four books to add to my already sagging shelves. And mind you, I only left with four since I was limited by she-who-guards-the-bookshelf. Of the four, my favourite has to be The Cookie Sutra, which I only spotted because I accidentally knocked it off the shelf while staring at the books on baking, but immediately had to buy when I flipped through it for its hilarious pictures and witty quips. (Take a look inside and you’ll know what I mean.)

Having been dragged out against my will since it was time for me to head back to work, I made a reservation for lunch there today, and invited two friends who share my love for food (and cooking) to join me in the heart of the Bukit Pasoh Conservation Area. I was really eager to try out the food there (having spotted duck confit on the menu), and couldn’t have been gladder that I did. In the end, I decided to go with the minute steak, which was a lovely melt-in-your-mouth slice of beef, lightly marbled with fat and so incredibly tender that I actually got a slight shock when my knife went through it with almost no effort at all. The confit, which both my friends had, however, was a little overcooked and ended up being slightly tough around the edges - which was a pity - but the one thing that both dishes shared were the friggin’ unbelievably tasty potato sides. The confit was served with a caramelized onion mash, and I had pan-fried potatoes which were lightly crisped on the outside and so fluffy on the inside to go with my steak. The three of us also shared two desserts - a sticky date toffee pudding that was drenched in butterscotch and flavoured with plenty of nutmeg, along with a warm Valrhona chocolate fondant which tasted like pure, crazy-delicious chocolate fudge.

I’m so glad that I’ve found this place. It’s a lovely quiet-ish, cosy refuge from the hustle and bustle of the area, and one that’s rather reminiscent of an English book cafe you’d escape the thick of winter in, warming up over a steaming cup of tea and a good read. They encourage browsing - so long as you don’t do it with food on the table - and I forsee myself spending many Monday afternoons hanging out here, and I’d definitely recommend like-minded cookbook junkies to head on over too!

25 Degree Celsius
25 Keong Saik Road #01-01
Singapore 089132
Tel: +65 6225 5986

Culina has been not just one of Singapore’s major produce suppliers to restaurants, but also where most serious foodies-who-cook will make pit stops at to pick up items that may be difficult or near impossible to find in their local supermarkets, especially when preparing for a dinner party. Recently, Culina opened a third branch at Dempsey, alongside their existing Bukit Timah and Orchard Boulevard retail stores.

To be completely honest, I’m really not a fan of the Dempsey area. I used to go there to eat at Samy’s (southern Indian curry) when I was younger, and always associated it with a mildly rural-ish sort of feel, considering all those funny little bike huts and art galleries scattered around the area. I loved it then. I liked it still when a wine bar opened, and I was even quite anxious to check out PS Cafe when it opened. (I was quite disappointed, apart from the brunch.) However, ever since it’s become the hip new place, I’ve been steering clear of it. It’s probably similar to how I can’t stand One North @ Rochester Park - too often, I get scared by hip places as - and I know I’m stereotyping - too often they spell high prices, bad food, mediocre drinks, and horrific patrons.

However, just before I started work, Bunny and I had been not just trawling Sydney for the best food we could get our grubby hands on, but also exploring as much of Singapore as we could, seeing as I wouldn’t have much of a chance to eat out with her once I started in the F&B industry. One of the places we wanted to check out, was Culina Enoteca - or the little café/restaurant in Culina’s Dempsey branch. We popped by on a Monday just before noon, were pleased to find that we had almost the entire area to ourselves, and settled in for a quiet lunch.

Now, Bunny has a long-standing love-hate relationship with bagels. She’s probably be hugest fan of bagels one could find in Singapore, aka the land where “bagel” is synonymous with Starbucks, at best, and at worst, a ring-shaped brick of stale dough. You can imagine her delight when she found that the smoked salmon sandwich (pictured above) was served in a fresh onion bagel, that’s right, she went a bit mad. And she had every right to, as this bagel was amazingly fresh, and beautifully fluffy, all while retaining its crisp exterior. The filling, however, disappointed a little, as it looked a bit more like a cream cheese bagel topped with a light scattering of smoked salmon, instead of a smoked salmon bagel with a little cream cheese. The onions, also, were sliced a little too thickly and had to either be avoided, or they’d completely overwhelm the flavour of the salmon and cheese.

My steak sandwich (pictured at start of post), however, was delicious. The beef was really juicy and had just enough fat such that it was oozing with flavour, but no huge chunks to make me gag on. (I don’t like eating soft fat. I only eat the crisp sort - like on siew yoke.) The beautiful ciabatta buns were also smeared with english mustard, which had just enough kick to it.

It was, in fact, the most fruitful morning, as I even managed to pick up some truffle honey (I will make ice cream soon) and had a stroll through jones the grocer where I found a few other bibs and bobs.

While I can’t vouch that Dempsey will be as pleasant an experience on weekends, I had a lovely time there that Monday morning, and I intend to visit it soon on one of my off days.

Culina at Dempsey
Block 8 Dempsey Road #01-13
Tel: 6474-7338

Some suppose that New South Wales is so named because it’s the new, southern hemispheric version of Wales. These are probably the same people who describe much of Australia as “England with better food, weather and quality of life” - and of the three, I can personally vouch for the first two. British food has often gotten quite some flack for being generally overcooked, dry, stodgy, and only existing to be washed down by that pint of beer, and while I am actually a fan of quite a few British dishes, the food in Australia is certainly something else.

Bunny and I spent a week in Sydney scoffing down as much food as we could find. Generally ignoring the touristy sights (though we didn’t really have much else to see, considering how our room at the Shangri-La had quite the view), we made a beeline for as many restaurants as we could fit into our trip.

Many would say that a culinary tour around Sydney is not complete without a visit to legendary restaurant Tetsuya’s, by the time we’d decided to make the trip to NSW, there wasn’t an available lunch or dinner reservation in sight. Lucky for us, we managed to get seats at a dozen other establishments, one of which being Yoshii, which is rumoured to be better than Tet’s, on the first night we arrived. Of course, I’m in no position to cast any opinion on that, but I can say that our dinner at Yoshii was nothing short of phenomenal. The next day, we headed off to the Sydney Fish Market and had the best fish and chips I’ve ever tasted, along with our first whiff of oysters for the holiday at Doyles. We were so impressed with the food here that we also decided to head back on the last night of our trip to their original location on Watsons Bay.

For dinner on my birthday (Tuesday), we got ourselves a cosy little table at Rockpool - a two hat establishment right on The Rocks helmed by prominent Australian chef, Neil Perry. Having already snacked on macarons at Lindt in Darling Harbour, we decided not to overwork our stomachs and stick to the five course fixed price menu, instead of the chef’s tasting menu which had twice as many courses.

On the next night, we ventured out by ferry from Circular Quay to Rose Bay, where we had my favourite dinner of the entire trip at Pier. A tiny little 55 seater that juts out over the marina, this restaurant had been awarded three chefs hats, and rightfully so. Every single dish of our (restrained) three course meal that night was thoughtfully put together, with bunny and I - for a change - without words to describe the gastronomical heaven. My favourite of the night was my dessert, which was a green apple ‘cloud’ served with pistachio ’soil’.

On our last full day in the city, we finally managed (after 3 days of wrangling) to procure a table at The Tea Room at Gunners Barracks. With beautiful china and an even more delectable view, it really was a pleasant end to our stay in Sydney.

The one thing about Sydney - besides the food - that really stuck with me was the level of service we received wherever we dined. I once read a post about a top restaurant in Singapore where an Indian waiter calmly accepted rude behaviour when a white man insisted on addressing him as “Brownie”. Instead of being praised for his professionalism, the writer went on to indicate that such tolerance of racism is what allows it to permeate society. An incident at Pier reminded me of this, when a local couple - clearly drunk from too many bottles of wine - started making a ruckus by screeching waitstaff who’d pass by their table. One of them even ended up being called all manner of inappropriate names, and while I, as a paying customer, would have preferred that the management evict the twosome, said waiter calmly attended to them as if the insults and shrieks of laughter were merely a figment of my imagination.

Being someone who loves food as much as I do photography, I often carry my camera around in hopes of documenting all the food I consume (in nice restaurants, at least) digitally. Unfortunately, in Singapore, I’m often not allowed to take photographs of the food - or sometimes even the interior of the restaurant. As a result, whenever I’ve got my camera with me, I now make a habit of checking with a waiter to make sure that it’s fine. Another thing that took me by (pleasant) surprise was how the waiters A) were all surprised that there was a need to ask at all, and B) effusively urged me to do so. So far, Singapore is the only city in which I’ve ever encountered an issue with taking photographs in restaurants, and I hope that our local restauranteurs will take a page from cities far more established in the world-wide culinary scene, especially if we want to advance to the same level.

All in all, the past week was probably the best holiday I’ve had this year. I may be a good 5 kilos heavier from all the crustaceans I’ve imbibed, but all the better to tide me through the work-day. For those of you who have a death wish, feel free to take a look at my (finally) complete Sydney Photoset on an empty stomach, but consider yourselves warned. My personal recommendation would be to browse through it after lunch while you’re combating the food-coma and about to get cracking on an afternoon of work ahead.

&ot

Macaron is an interesting concept, as far as Singapore’s dining scene goes anyway. A dessert restaurant that doesn’t serve you post-dinner sweets, but treats FOR dinner, it’s not a particularly common sight on our sunny shores. (It might well be the first one, but I’m not 100% sure of it so I shall claim ignorance for the time being.)

Now, my bunny is not that big a fan of desserts. Give her meat - cow, pig, poultry, game, anything - and she’s happy. But desserts? She’s the sort who’d swap her dessert for an appetizing-sounding appetizer, whereas I’m the one who’d forgo my starter to indulge my sweet tooth. (Actually, I’d probably just insist on all three, but nevermind that.) As you can imagine, it wasn’t too easy a feat to convince her to try this new-ish establishment. Read the rest of this entry »