whine & dine

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.

Before I get on with the rest of my holiday’s food-posting, I have something quite pressing I feel the need to talk about. Chubby Hubby has just announced The Miele Guide. I’d already heard about this project a while back, and while I applaud the intentions, there are some issues that I have with the premise in general.

All of us foodlovers who live and eat in Asia surely lament the fact that most restaurants worth their salt in Asia definitely don’t get enough recognition. Singapore, which is known as a “food hub” has but one restaurant in the top 100 list. Hong Kong, another food hub, has three. And where are Japan’s?

That said, it must be noted that there IS a reason why Singapore (and most of Asia) lags behind in this circuit.

The one thing that I found more outstanding (apart from the food) when I was (fine) dining in Europe over the past month was that the service in there just brilliantly outshone this region’s best efforts. I know that service and ambience are not actually part of the critical factors which come into play when a restaurant is being judged for guides like the Michelin one, but I think it’s a crucial part of the entire dining experience. There is only one restaurant in Singapore where I’ve received consistently excellent service – to a standard which is on par with the fine dining establishments in Europe. (For those interested, this particular Japanese restaurant has not made any lists in any food articles or magazines either.) Elsewhere, service is either rude, ignorant, intrusive, or just inept. In Hong Kong, an unspoken rule is that you’re in a “good” eating establishment because the service is so bad that they musn’t feel the need to suck up to patrons. (Obviously this applies more to the lower end of the price range.) Nonetheless, I think this disparity is really the biggest area in which we trail behind our Western counterparts.

And while there are a myriad of reasons which compound our conundrum, I think one of the reasons that may have led to the poorer standards overall has to do with the exceedingly low wages we pay our local staff (both in the kitchen and in the dining room), which, low as the market rate internationally may be, has really taken “cheap labour” to a new level. Job satisfaction (which includes a variety of factors including reimbursement for one’s efforts) is one reason to stay and if the staff stays, the restaurant runs like a well oiled machine. Without knowing that staff will stay on for a reasonable length of time, employers also won’t spend the effort in training their staff adequately.

One other glaring reason is that I find our local restaurants don’t seem to get their hands on produce that is good enough. Which is why we’ll find that the cities which are more recognized for their food (e.g. any Japanese city, Hong Kong, Sydney) all have stellar produce at arm’s reach, whereas we fail to catch up to them. The food we make is only as good as the ingredients we start with, and even a chef with the most magical touch cannot do anything that would save a piece of rotten fish. Of course that statement was slight hyperboly, but you get my point.

Obviously, there are many things that we can point to, and the blame-pushing game is one that could go on forever if we allow it. And don’t get me wrong – I do think it’s a good thing, what the Miele Guide aims to do. But with all this talk of food in the region, what with Singapore getting its Michelin guide (we don’t deserve it yet, as our best restaurants are still the Japanese ones which are nowhere near the standard of the ones in Tokyo), and what not, I just have this sinking feeling that many restaurants which don’t deserve it are going to get too much recognition.

Let me leave you with one thought: when was the last time you spoke of a “famous” restaurant in Singapore, which has been around for at least 5 years, but has never had the phrase “the standards have dropped” or “the food used to be so much better” attached to it? That’s right, hardly ever.

Note: As mentioned previously, there’s still an issue with the comments system on my blog, so if you have any pressing concerns that don’t seem to be getting published, please email me. Thanks. The comments thing is mostly sorted, but if anything, again, don’t hesitate to email me. Cheers!

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.

I finally picked up a Le Creuset cast iron pot about a week or two ago, and I’ve been in heaven ever since. The reason why I never owned one before this is really just because they’re so bloody expensive, and also there’s a bit of a space issue going on in my kitchen right now. But free vouchers solved one of the problems so I’m glad to announce that I’m now the proud owner of an awesome deep-frying, stewing, risotto-making machine. Or, well, vessel, rather. And it’s yellow. :)

The first thing I did when I got back with it, apart from taking it out of the box to ooh and ahh a little more, was dig up some stew recipes I’d been wanting to try. I love stews, first because they taste so damn good, and second because they’re generally hassle free: you have about 15-20 minutes of active time prepping your food, then you ignore it for a good 30 minutes (or more) and all of a sudden dinner’s ready! Unfortunately, stews generally happen in larger portions than even bunny and I can finish, so I had to ring up a friend and bribe her into popping by for dinner. With dinner.

The first dish I cooked was a delightful chicken stew, which is sort of a play on Coq au Vin (i.e. Chicken in Red Wine), only I used a hen and cooked it in a white wine (namely, riesling here). I also decided to thicken the gravy a little by enriching it with cream before I reduced it into a luscious sauce, and all that was missing was a crusty loaf of bread to mop up all the sauce with.

Now, although most of us generally use cheap/crappy wines when we’re cooking with it (especially in such copious amounts), I would advise you to not just go out and get the cheapest bottle you can get your hands on. As with all ingredients, your quality of your final dish is always limited by the quality of the ingredients that you put into it, so while I wouldn’t waste a $800 bottle of wine in a dish where I wouldn’t be able to appreciate the subtle nuances of the wine, go pick up a decent bottle – which you should easily be able to within S$35 at your local supermarket.

Poulet au Riesling

2 tbsp olive oil
20g butter
150g streaky bacon, cut into lardons
1 large chicken (about 2kg in weight), chopped into 2-inch pieces
2 carrots, roughly chopped
2 medium white onions, peeled and quartered
6 cloves of garlic, peeled but left whole
1 bottle of Riesling
400ml whipping cream
200g baby button mushrooms
Italian flat-leaf parsley, chopped

In a large, heavy bottomed pan, melt the butter with the olive oil on medium heat. When melted, add in the bacon and cook for a few minutes until lightly browned. Remove the bacon from the pan with a slotted spoon, and set aside in a bowl. Turn the heat up, then brown the chicken (in a few batches, if necessary – to prevent overcrowding). Remove the chicken from the pan, then lower the heat, and slowly cook the carrots, onions and garlic until the onion is softened but not coloured (about 5-8 minutes). Return the chicken and bacon to the pan, turn up the heat, and add all the wine.

Quickly bring the liquid to the boil, then lower the heat and simmer partially covered for 30 minutes. Remove the chicken pieces from the stew, add in all the cream and boil to reduce the liquid until your desired consistency. It should have thickened enough to form a smooth sauce (somewhere around the consistency of whipping cream). While it is reducing, add in the mushrooms, stir through most of the parsley (reserving some for garnishing) and season with salt and black pepper. When ready to serve, add the chicken pieces back in and warm through.

Yield: Serves 4