Category Archives: Pricey ($30 – $70)

new ubin seafood (sin ming)

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the farewell feasts

been so utterly busy settling pre-trip administration that its been difficult to blog about all the good food i’ve been ingesting that’s been seriously threatening my diet regime. -_-.. but i suppose there’s something about eating great food that makes you want to share it with the rest.. so here goes:-

new ubin seafood kinda exists in a shady-looking area amidst car-repair workshops (which explains the rows of cars in various states of disrepair, some with obvious vandalism signs) so i guess if u wanna call it hidden, you could. its definitely a foodie’s place, considering this would be the last place you would expect a good zi char restaurant to exist. so there.

for the uninitiated, zi char translates loosely as “cook-fried” (which doesn’t make much sense i suppose), but describes a category of chinese food that involves huge fires and big woks to completely “fry” the food and imbue the essence of the “wok-heat” within. (gosh, translations don’t exactly make sense). well, nowadays the definition is kinda loose, but it essentially describes all sorts of dishes that are to be shared among many and eaten with rice/mantou etc..

so new ubin is pretty cool because it seems to have incorporated some western influences and modern amenities – first with a decent air-conditioned eating room (which apparently is fully-booked quite far in advanced during the weekends. we went on a weekday and it was mercifully less crowded), and then also with obvious western styled dishes mixed into their menus.

one of their signatures is the rib-eye beef with caramelized onions, a side serving of wedges and a plate of fried rice fired from the remnants of beef portions and beef oil ($56, see picture above). and boy.. this dish seriously trumps many major western restaurants in terms of the flavor, texture and savoriness of the beef. we ordered the beef medium  and gosh every bit was utterly delicious, meaty, tender and juicy with tons of flavors locked within. providing caramelized onions and mustard certainly didn’t hurt as well. then we come to the fried rice — fellow foodie laishan swears by it as one of the best fried rice she has ever tasted, and honestly i concur – the rice is fried just nice, lending the rice grains a certain level of “kou-gan” (loosely translated as ‘mouthiness’ or a certain bubbly efferverscent texture) and the beef ingredients (fried to a crisp) form the perfect juxtaposition to the rice grains. this dish is obviously blardy unhealthy but its utterly irresistible. this is a must order.

and you know what’s best? this place has no corkage charges and people are known to bring bottles and bottles of wine to enjoy it with this amazing rib eye beef. and honestly, with servings meant for 2 – 3 and the additional acoutrements, $56 is a pretty darn decent price. western restaurants ought to shudder in fear.

another signature is their fried hokkien mee ($24), in which a ‘small’ order comes served in a gigantic plate that can serve up to 7 bowls of glorious, seafood-broth drenched noodles that taste pretty awesome. again, you can choose to be blardy unhealthy and add tons of lard into the dish (i opted out), but its delicious on it own, with generous servings of ingredients like squid, barbecued pork and so on. the noodles are chewy and well cooked. yummy!

creamy sauce flower crab with fried mantous 

besides these, we ordered salted egg squid ($18), kang-kong fried in belachan, and flower-crab in creamy sauce paired with mantous and it was enough to fill 5 of us up completely. (we regretted getting 2 bowls of rice to share) once again, its utterly unhealthy food but also quite irresistible. to be honest, im not a fan of crab and i can’t discern between awesome seafood and just ok seafood so i shan’t comment too much – i just know i enjoyed the interesting and original creamy, slightly spicy sauce that the crab was cooked in, which made for a delicious dip for the mantous. (and gosh, i absolutely love those fried mantous)

all in all, a very delicious expensive that is obviously gut-busting and cholesterol racking. laishan mentioned that she could feel her arteries clogging as she gobbled down the salted egg squid so eat in moderation k? it might be quite unhealthy, but in moderation, the meal was utterly satisfying and didn’t leave one with that greasy, jelak feel that you sometimes get when you have gobbled down copious amounts of fats and such (i.e. like a gigantic kfc meal).

its not exactly cheap – we paid $35 a person for the meal (inclusive of orh-nee dessert, which we didn’t particularly like) but to be honest, considering the spread of food that we had eaten, it’s a decent price. overall, a good recommendation and a better place to bring your ang-moh friends to expose them to awesome, authentic singaporean food instead of the more expensive options of like no signboard seafood or ah hoi’s kitchen. 8.0/10

new ubin seafood (sin ming) |  Block 27 Sin Ming Road (behind Block 26), #01-174 Sin Ming Industrial Estate Sector A | local, chinese

ippudo mandarin gallery

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bowl of hot soup. 

ippudo is synonymous with ultra-popular, delicious ramen in NYC, with massive queues snaking all the way out of the restaurant during meal times. and knowing this, when we visited ippudo NY a few years ago, i always ensured we went at off-peak times of like 11.00 or like 5.30 to avoid the crowd. still, the wait was roughly 30 mins – 1 hr, so you can understand the hype.

mind you, i think ippudo, NY is really quite good, and it has the crowds and the hype to prove it. well seasoned, delicious and nuanced soup broth paired with sinfully good char-shu pieces and noodles with a great ‘Q’ consistency, it’s the very definition of a good ramen.

so what about the singapore version of ippudo? hmm.. the queues somewhat remain, and its again good advice to come to ippudo at slightly off-peak timwes (read: earlier or later) if you don’t want to wait for too long, but its not as hyped as its NY sister. the menu is somewhat different as well, whereby the NY version stuck true to the notion of a ramen store with few other accompanying side-dishes, whereas the singapore one has incorporated quite a bit of other side dishes and mains, from hot/cold appetizers, salads and the likes (some look good to be honest, but when i go to a ramen stall, i go for the ramen).

so what about the ramen? i had chosen the shiromaru hakata classic with char-shu ($18) which promised a classically tasting, well-balanced ramen. and well, it fulfilled its brief. the char-shu was generously given — almost 5 – 6 pieces of well-broiled, flavorful meat that paired perfectly with the noodles and broth. the broth was a little light compared to local tastes but upon closer sampling, you could really sense that the flavors were firmly locked into the broth and masterfully nuanced. the only drawback? well.. the price and the stinginess of other condiments — to be honest, $18 is a little steep for a bowl of noodles, considering that other ramen contemporaries usually go around $12 – $15 and usually have much more other ingredients. ippudo’s ramen seems a little stingy by the fact that there is very little other ingredients added within the ramen bowl – i mean, the broth, noodles and charshu are all very good but not having almost anything else is a little sad. i mean, yeah you essentially could add in alot of other stuff like the onsen-tamago (half-boiled egg) and likes but these really hike up the price (i think each ingredient addition goes for around 2 – 3 bucks). so yeah, you could end up with a really expensive bowl of ramen if you want the full works.

didn’t try the rest of the dishes, but my previous experience of the akamaru ramen is that the soup broth is more intense in flavor and perhaps more suited for local flavors. to be honest i was pretty impressed by ippudo NY, but i can’t summon similar enthusiasm for ippudo singapore. i think the quality hasn’t exactly dropped — but the fact that it is fighting with some many other ramen contemporaries, be it tonkotsu king keisuke, ramen champion, marutama and the likes, all which aren’t too bad themselves and priced somewhat cheaper, means that it becomes that much more difficult to justify its price point or its hype. furthermore, we’re not comparing with the local variants of prawn noodles and chinese noodles and the likes, all which form some sort of competition with it.

ippudo’s worth a visit or two when you want the ambience and want a bowl of good ol’ hearty ramen. but its not gonna get the hype to make me a frequent patron at any rate.  6.75/10

ippudo mandarin gallery | 333A Orchard Road, #04-02/03/04 Mandarin Gallery, Singapore | japanese, ramen, pricey

sun with moon, revisited

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sun with moon has a pretty interesting history if i may say. this moderately upscale (more expensive than your casual sushi tei and ichiban boshi) started off at wheelock and gained much praises and rave reviews and quickly became the place to have a chic, delicious japanese meal what with creative favorites like their kamameshi rice and tofu cheesecake. at the peak of its popularity, it was practically impossible to get seats without prior bookings and the restaurant expanded to central, and then chijmes.

but then, somehow the expansion hasn’t done it much good, and the fierce competition at central (with all the other well-marketed and delicious japanese restaurants) forced the eventual closure of the central branch (now replaced with sque rotisserie and alehouse by emmanuel stroobant.. i wanna go try).  and to be honest, the standard at wheelock has also somewhat disappointingly dropped, so it was with a sense of reservation that we headed back for another try. (mind you, i was very tempted to just head to skinny pizza or cedele next door)

the restaurant is a chic, artfully designed space using much wooden elements and dim lighting to create an almost sensual effect. tables are nicely spaced apart so you get a sense of privacy to catch up on the latest gossip (its pretty obvious the design of the place is to attract girls somehow). i noticed that the ceiling had english translations of haikus sprawled across which to be honest, is tad contrived and a little trying too hard to be atas.

and mind you, they do charge quite a bit for their food (since they want you to feel that this is an upscale place). sushi of 8 pieces go for roughly 20 a plate whilst mains go for 15 – 20 and sets go from 20 – 40. you can’t just go on an ordering spree here as you could possibly do at sushi tei.

lets look at the food.

nixon sushi (4 pcs, $9.90) – grilled eel, cream cheese, egg and cucumber

i chose this because the japanese restaurant at cornell university does an absolutely heavenly rendition of grilled eel + cream cheese + avocado sushi roll (that’s called out of control) and i really wanted to taste something similar. and to be honest, this is disappointing. the flavors don’t mesh well together (honestly its lacking the avocado imo) and the resulting flavor in the mouth isn’t one that is cohesive or particularly memorable. and when you charge $10 for a plate of sushi, i would wish for a certain standard.

pork belly kamameshi with soft boiled egg, $16.80 (without soup)

a restaurant recommendation, the kamameshi is essentially japanese rice cooked in an iron pot, where the rice normally gets slightly burnt at the bottom, giving a nice flavor to the dish (something like a mild version of a claypot). to be fair, the pork belly tasted great and had the melt-in-your-mouth sensation but what confused me was that when i poked the soft boiled egg and mixed the rice together, the watery-ness of the egg made the rice kinda wet and there wasn’t that slightly burnt effect in the end. (i dunno.. maybe the iron pot wasn’t hot enough, but my mom’s salmon kamameshi worked out fine). all in all, its a decent, special dish that can’t be found easily at other japanese restaurants but be warned that the flavors are somewhat lighter than what we singaporeans are commonly used to.

tofu cheescake, $6.50

a sentimental classic – the tofu cheesecake is light, very smooth and also very tasty. i don’t understand the concept of the cage to be honest, in my opinion its another example of the restaurant trying too hard but.. ah well.. they’re trying. its a tasty, satisfyingly good dessert- almost like the japanese variant to panna cotta with berries compote, though the berries here didn’t exactly go very well with the cheescake. wonder why.

all in all, to be honest, this place isn’t as good as what it used to be during its heydays. but there’s still good food and its worth a visit once in a while when you have to meet those gal pals and chit chat/bitch/catch up and the likes. lol. or yeah, a good dating spot i suppose. 6.75/10

sun with moon japanese dining and cafe | 501 Orchard Road, #03-15 Wheelock Place | japanese, upscale, desserts

au petit salut

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sometimes, you just need to take a break.

guys, i was so tired after returning from italy, so jet lagged, and realizing that i had much admin stuff to settle, i decided to apply for an urgent one day leave to really rehabilitate. and… well… take the chance to go eat some nice food with my parents – in particular, nice food that is out of my price range during dinner times but manageable for set lunches.

i think au petit salut is a pretty well known, french fine-dining spot, occupying a prominent spot along harding road that’s slight off dempsey — you can’t miss it when you travel down from holland road to orchard road as its this handsome, stately building. that being said, it’s not exactly that easily accessible as you have to make some sort of detour and enter from a side road, passing through golf courses and a beautiful, well-preserved old style church building.

ambience wise, au petit salut has this laid back colonial charm. we were seated outside at the verandah which was hmm.. tad warm considering that our table was placed at a spot where the roof was not exactly completely covered and the blazing sun rays seared inwards making my mom somewhat uncomfortable. service was pretty good otherwise, with good recommendations, polite and attentive servers and fast service.

let’s get to the food.

we ordered the set lunches. there’s two types of set lunch, the $35 one is the cheaper one with more selections whilst the $48 one is a executive set lunch that presumably contains the best dishes (foie gras, lobster ravioli etc..). we settled for the $35 one since it looked pretty decent itself.

my appetizer was homemade duck rilettes served with petit salad and toast (see picture above). the rilettes (meat that is cubed or chopped, salted heavily and cooked slowly in fat until tender enough to be easily shredded) was tasty and went well with the toast, which was fresh and crispy. i mean, its your quintessential authentic french cuisine recipe executed well — the flavors are great and tasty, but they’re a little tried and tested and lack the innovation that gives it a certain oomph. hmm.. i might be making a blasphemous statement here, but perhaps the dish could have that added pizzazz if some form of sweetness could have been incorporated into the dish? (say maybe changing the toast to a brioche?)

pan seared Onglet beef served with shallot confit, pommes frittes

so thanks to wikipedia, i found that Onglet, otherwise known as hanger steak, is a cut of beef steak prized for its flavor (but apparently not particularly tender). its kinda smallish compared to normal cuts of steak, and pardon my ignorance, but i didn’t feel that this cut was particularly flavorful or tasty. it was definitely good, and the shallot confit paired well, but it was a little too expected. pommes frittes were executed perfectly – crunchy, shoe-string style crispy and delicious. i’m not really impressed honestly.

soya cheesecake, jasmine tea sorbet and green tea sauce

yay for creativity once again! french desserts rarely disappoint (as compared to italian ones) and this was no exception. this dessert won my mom’s approval for being both utterly delicious and yet obviously healthy. the winner was the jasmine tea sorbet which was light, with faint whiffs of jasmine tea and very refreshing. the soya cheesecake was very light but still held its own because the the jasmine tea sorbet and the green tea sauce were similarly light on the palette and overall the dessert was refreshing, light and yet very yummy.

so.. all in all? if you’re searching for typical, authentic french fare, then au petit salut is your place. you get delicious french cuisine at a cheap price (if you choose set lunches) that is of an unparalleled standard. however, innovation and exciting new flavors is what this place seems to lack, except perhaps on the dessert front. perhaps its only the case for set lunches, im not too sure, but i would rather head to st pierre for a set lunch because it has really unique flavors served even during set lunches. and yeah, they serve a whole range of petit fours and amuse bouche, whereas au petit salut only gave fresh bread (which is nice also lah). 7.75/10

au petit salut | 40C Harding Road, Tanglin Village (Dempsey Road) | french, fine dining, set lunches, desserts               

li bai

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i-phone shots.

im getting lazy hor? the introduction of an iphone makes toting around with a camera very leh-chey unless it’s some super major atas restaurant.. (but then those usually dim lights to such an extent that you’re pretty much taking night shots -_-) ah well, this post wasn’t pre-planned, but just that a casual lunch with my parents @ li bai was so surprisingly and pleasantly good that i felt compelled to blog about it.

so, li bai’s this cantonese restaurant located at the basement (i dont know why the address says GF) of sheraton towers – the decor and furnishings are pretty simple but echo an understated luxurious sense. mind you, the staff benefits here must be pretty awesome because some of the waitresses/captains have been working here for more than 7+ years since we first patronized this place. and as you can expect it, service is pretty darn excellent and personalized.

come here for their dim sum, which is intricately made and packs some serious nuanced flavor. the actual look of the dim sum might seem ordinary but the taste is nothing but. see above image, from top left clockwise, sui jing gao (water crystal dumpling – essentially different chopped vegetables wrapped in a crystal clear dumpling sheet), pan fried turnip cake, abalone spring roll and har gau (prawn dumpling).

i think har gau can be used as a standard to judge a dim sum restaurant’s worth since it is found everywhere, and boy does li bai come out with flying colors. the prawns are fresh and have that additional oomph and flavor locked within that really negates any need for additional chilli sauce or the likes. its also perfectly executed as the skin doesn’t flake or stick to the sides.

spring rolls are often the de facto dish of lousy american chinese food often really greasy and stuffed with semi-stale vegetables. so it came as a pleasant surprise that this humble dish was transformed at li bai to be a delicate, nuanced and utterly flavorful piece of confectionery, not the least bit oily. having abalone stuffing within didn’t hurt of course. =)

the other two dim sums similarly had such nuanced flavors locked within them and i’ll be willing to say that they taste much better than the average dim sum you can find here or even in hong kong (someone is gonna kill me.. hee).

we also ordered a noodle dish, that being a seafood crispy noodle – this is a must try at chinese zi char stalls or restaurants by the way – crispy wok-fried noodles that are immersed into a rich flavorful broth just before being served such that the noodles maintain their crispness by also soak up the broth. li bai’s rendition was well balanced, and what surprised me was how delicious the seafood ingredients within were. in particular, the cod fish was utterly flavorful and melted in your mouth – i’d seriously be willing to pay quite a bit for an entire dish of that cod. other ingredients like scallops and prawns were also juicy and well executed.

seriously, come to li bai for a great dim sum and cantonese feast. it’s not cheap, but its worth it. a small crispy noodle dish that serves 3 – 4 goes for $20, whilst the dim sum dishes are between 5 – 8 bucks for a plate of 4. (nice thing is also that they allow you to customize it to be say a plate of 3 or 5, depending on how many people you have, which removes the last piece syndrome eh?) 9.0/10

li bai restaurant | 39 scotts road, ground floor, sheraton towers, singapore | dim sum, cantonese, fine dining

chalk

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clearing the backlog.

the problem with food blogging is that whilst some restaurants really compel me to blog about the fantastic tastes and the artful decor (say, jaan), others simply can’t excite me to summon much enthusiasm to write about. so let me try to complete this whilst i have so time to spare.

chalk is the very definition of hidden find, tucked up above mount sophia at old school, where timbre is also sited. its a chillax, artsy environment what with the semi-industrial, minimalistic designs (seemingly with the swedish design aesthetic) along with tasteful paintings and furniture. getting here can be quite a pain if you don’t have a car, as it means climbing up quite a few sequences of steps from plaza singapura. but that gives it the secluded charm i suppose.

my first impression of chalk was hugely positive – nice ambience along with good wine and company, and the restaurant gave the sense of a cosy after-work chill out spot for wine and food lovers and artsy bohemian spirits alike. often quite packed and requiring reservations, the restaurant had the air of a crowded yet still sufficiently private feel of a popular dining club, if you know what i mean. food-wise, the first experience proved pretty good, what with a decent carbonara serving, nice desserts and at a price point that wasn’t too expensive.

so it was with these high expectations that i headed back to chalk to celebrate my birthday (now you know how backlogged this post is.. lol). and with high expectations came a high crash i suppose. what stunned me initially was the prices of the food as i stared at the menu – simple pastas were going at high 20s to 30s (the range of fine dining establishments), appetizers going at 20s to 40s (for iberico ham) and with flatbreads (some variant of a pizza) fetching at least 30 bucks. its was seriously pricey and i was kinda shocked at the menu and really even wondering what to order. lets not even talk about the drinks menu.

i mean, let’s be honest about prices. people head to restaurants with a certain expectation after looking at the ambience, the clientele and just the general hype, classify them as a certain type of restaurant (cheap/value, cafe-style/brunch, mid-range, pricey, fine-dining). to me, chalk fell nicely in between the cafe/mid-range zone, where i would have expected pastas at around low 20s and mains at high 20s – 30s.. hmm, i dunno, the shock really took away alot of the initial goodwill i had of the place. and of course, with such prices, you become just that much demanding of what you get served with.

let’s talk service next. i would call it inattentive at best. there weren’t that many tables being served at that time, like 3 – 4.. which was surprisingly empty actually (maybe it was a sign). service was slow and it was difficult to get the waiter’s attention it seemed. furthermore, there was a distinct sense that some of the waiters (or perhaps owner?) of the place was fixated on serving this ang-moh family that were seated later than us and pointedly ignored us. and that’s annoying.

and then let’s talk food. surprisingly, the menu didn’t seem to have the well-acclaimed carbonara anymore, and the selections seemed to have thinned out. let’s see:-

(sorry if the dish name/price is inaccurate.. im trying to remember the ballpark figure)

seafood aglio olio, $32

to be honest, the dish didn’t look too bad or taste too bad, but i seriously don’t know how the restaurant would justify a pricepoint of 30-ish bucks. The ingredients don’t look particularly spectacular or expensive and neither does the execution seem to require some major expensive equipment. so why?

Coca De Matanza – Garlic Saffron Bread with Lean Pork Belly Meat, Fried Chorizo, Caramelized Onions, Roasted Garlic and Smoked Idiabazal Cheese ($36?)

i’ve said my piece about the price so i’m not repeating. taken on its own, this dish is actually a decent variation of your common pizza, with the caramelized onions, fried chorizo and pork belly meat blending well to create a flat bread that was both sweet and savory and tasted good. it’s a decent dish.

chocolate fondant, vanilla ice cream and sesame snap

sticky date pudding with brandy butterscotch sauce and ginger ice cream

vanilla pannacotta with berry compote

desserts was where chalk won back some points. the desserts felt inspired and the vanilla pannacotta is really something to die. for. light, but bursting with immense vanilla flavor and paired spectacularly with the berry compote, this dessert seriously left you wanting for me. haven’t seen another pannacotta that is as good as this to be honest. try this if you are here.

hmm. all in all? a disappointment, more from an overpriced standpoint. dishes were well-executed and tasty but the price left a bitter taste in the mouth. service didn’t help either. i liked their spanish flatbread, but found their others mains (didn’t really include them, but it included dishes like half a spring chicken and barramundi fish) to be too simplistic and uninspired to fetch such a high price. desserts were good. its sad to say this, but i doubt i would revisit chalk unless i hear sufficient good hype again. the competition out there is just too stiff. 5.0/10

chalk restaurant | 11 mount sophia, #01-03, singapore | desserts, western, contemporary

fika cafe

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a very odd reunion dinner.

the cny period is almost all over *sad* and well, for me it has been an unexpectedly enjoyable and fruitful one. spent time to just reconnect with relatives and the rest of the time finally getting to update my blog to one that would be much more easily navigable. =)

reunion dinner this year was a little interesting though. having had the extended family reunion dinners days before CNY eve, it was just the paltry me and my parents left to eat reunion dinner together. now, we decided not to have it at home this year not because my mom didn’t feel like cooking, but because we dad violently objected to washing dishes after that. hence, it was decided to head to a restaurant for reunion dinner this time.

but well, it was kind of a last minute decision, and with chinese restaurants either closed for their own staff’s reunion dinner or otherwise packed to the brim with pre-bookings, i decided to shuttle my parents to fika cafe, a halal swedish restaurant along arab street. surely that wouldn’t be closed. so there we headed.

fika cafe is a cosy, chic cafe that uses a predominantly white palette to create a clean, minimalistic, distinctly swedish aesthetic. my mom stepped in and commented that the furnishings looked very ikea, which is precisely the swedish design aesthetic – one of simple, bold design choices and well-organized, brightly-lit spaces. its no wonder so many people look to swedish designs for inspiration.

fika’s menu consists of crepes, sandwiches and mains that are indeed distinctly swedish – ranging from open-face sandwiches, salmon crepes to swedish meatballs, beef patties, grilled seafood and the likes. a word of caution though, do check with your server whether your dish is served chilled or warm – some swedish openface sandwiches are typically served cold so don’t get an unpleasant shock if what you assumed was a warm sandwich turns out cold.

swedish panbiff ($18.90)

essentially beef patties served with cream sauce along with lingoberry sauce and topped with some caramelized onions. this is yet another classic combination, essentially swapping out swedish meatballs for beef patties – it works because the sweetness of the lingoberry sauce pairs amazing with the savory, meaty flavor of the beef patty and cream sauce. delicious, but hmm.. i did feel that the patty wasn’t as well made as I could taste some tough sinews within the patty which detracted from the meal. and well, i tasted a much better patty in sweden before, so that’s what im comparing against.

grilled salmon ($22.90)

something you could easily see in the ikea cafe for half the price it seems. i felt that the fish was a little overly fishy (read: not fresh) upon first bites but it got better and more delicious as you ate. my mom did complain that the fish was quite dry, which i agree but i wonder whether it has something more to do with the cuisine.

swedish hash ($18.90)

not good. again, it was dry and the beef cubes weren’t juicy and were quite tough to chew on. i don’t really get this dish to be honest (my dad ordered it) – perhaps the beetroot slices and the sunny side up was meant to lend some sauce/moisture/sweetness to the potatoes and beef pieces, but it didn’t exactly seem to work. i didn’t like this.

cheesecake drizzled with lingoberry sauce ($7.90)

this desserts is where fika cafe salvaged some points back. the cheesecake was moist and delicious to eat, and paired superbly well with the lingoberry sauce (i wonder whether i can buy this in singapore). somehow the sweetness of the sauce complemented well with the light frothy sweetness of the cheesecake to create a delicious dessert.

hmm.. all in all, disappointing mains with a more decent end with desserts. to be honest what annoyed me more was how pricey the food was – we ended up paying $97.10 for 3 people, having only gotten mains, one dessert for sharing, and drinks. i mean, i really doubt the base ingredients are that exotic and unless lingoberries are really expensive, there isn’t much to justify a cost in terms of ingredients. execution-wise, these foods are simply comfort foods that seem pretty easy to pull off (but they weren’t exactly well executed). i’m wondering if the very notion that it is swedish food (something seemingly unique and exotic) would have raised the pricepoint.

satisfy your swedish food cravings at the ikea cafe my friends. fika cafe is better for their ambience and desserts. 5.25/10

fika cafe | 257 beach road/arab street | desserts, coffee, swedish food

cherry garden

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a case of mistaken identity.

there’s a funny story to how my family ended up in cherry garden for my birthday dinner. you see, i had sampled food from peach blossoms @ marina mandarin during the cornell hotel school asia pacific conference and had found the offerings from the new HK chef to be pretty awesome, and so had planned to bring my parents there. so, when my parents asked me where i would want to go, i simply said “marina mandarin, peach blossoms”. but somehow, this mandarin business is super confusing, what with mandarin oriental, marina mandarin and mandarin gallery. lol. and my parents were more familiar with mandarin oriental and well.. absent mindedly booked at cherry garden @ mandarin oriental.

so we ended up there. and i was kinda annoyed initially, complaining that my parents should check which fruit i referred to next time. haha. but to their credit, all this nonsense of peach blossoms and cherry gardens and mandarin stuff.. is seriously confusing.

anyways, its not as if cherry garden is at any rate worse, so let’s get on with it. to be honest, the ambience in cherry garden trumps peach blossoms - cherry garden has a modern interpretation of a traditional chinese inn, mixing ultra-modern glass paneling and stone walls with traditional elements like wooden arches and pavilion-styled roofs. the servers seem to be mostly from china, and are pretty professional — one server accidentally spilled a dollop of  tea on my tablecloth and insisted on changing a fresh one for me. however, it must be noted that i was kinda annoyed with their semi-audible comments of “ta zai pai she me (what’s he photographing)” whenever i whipped out my camera to take photos of the dishes. like.. seriously, deal with it. its an occupational hazard. and its free publicity. =)

so, we ordered the orchird set menu, which was $78 per pax (min 2 people). let’s start the show.

first up was the chef’s special appetizer of the day (see picture above) which happened to be wasabi prawns and drunken chicken. the wasabi prawns were big and juicy, bursting with flavor and with just the right amount of wasabi that was not too overpowering. and the prawns were pretty big and satisfying for an appetizer. the drunken chicken was smooth and tasted pretty decent as well. i’d note though that i found no relevance between the two dishes that were plated together – its not as though we’re expected to eat both together, which is something you would assume if you found yourself in a french restaurant. hmm, the difference in food cultures eh?

double -boiled shark’s cartilage soup with shark’s fin and honshimeiji mushrooms

i apologize to the animal lovers out there, as i really did not know the menu include shark’s fin. =( but oh well, since the damage is already done, let’s just tuck in alright? now, you know there was a time where i thought double-boiled simple meant boiling twice, but one of my friends later kindly corrected me that double-boiled essentially means placing the ingredients (in this case the shark’s fin) within a ceramic jar that is immersed in a water bath in a pot that is then boiled. essentially, its using two layers of boiling to protect the special ingredients. cool eh? the soup was amazingly nuanced and flavorful, with every spoonful bringing out immense subtle flavor and texture with the shark’s fin.

braised fish fillet with tofu and capsicum in black bean sauce

ahh innovation (at least to me)! never really tried a combination of fish (cod in this case) and tofu with black bean sauce but i must say, this was an inspired pairing. the black bean sauce nicely coated both fish and tofu and brought the two seemingly disparate ingredients together to create a dish with great flavor (from the black bean sauce) and different levels of texture on the same bite (fish and tofu). nice stuff.

oven baked boneless spring chicken in barbecue garlic sauce

this dish puzzled me for a few reasons. when it was first served, i questioned the rationale of an atas restaurant serving something that looked as though you could buy it off a western hawker stall for possibly 1/4 of the price. then i also questioned the notion of asking us to eat this chicken (tendons and all) with just a pair of chopsticks, when it seemed to be begging for a fork and knife to operate on. ahh well, those initial questions aside, the chicken was juicy and well flavored, the barbecue sauce being just right and the flavor seeping into the entire piece of chicken. but yeah i rather eat this with a fork and knife please?

stir fried rice vermicelli with seafood, silver sprouts and yellow chives

this dish is worth its money — look at the luscious scallops and prawns! the vermicelli was perfectly balanced and tasty, and i liked how the shredded egg strips brought a freshness and change in texture to the dish. yummy. and i don’t know whether its an odd practice, but i like to add vinegar to my noodles after the initial few samplings, because i think the vinegar adds a different and equally tasty twist to the noodles (usually i do it for e-fu noodles, but it seemed to work here as well)

refreshing sorbet with herbal jelly, aloe vera and assorted fresh fruits

ahh.. a healthy way of ended a sumptuous meal. the sorbet had the right amount of sourness and complemented the herbal jelly, aloe vera and fresh fruits perfectly. its a simple dessert to be honest, but its good and hmm.. the use of herbal jelly and aloe vera is kinda unique. upon looking at the photo i realised i actually ate watermelon without feeling like puking because these watermelons had no seeds! haha

so overall, nice ambience, good food at an acceptable price range. come here for an family celebrations and the likes for guaranteed good food. 7.25/10

 cherry garden |  5 Raffles Avenue, 5F Mandarin Oriental Singapore, | chinese, cantonese, family, upscale

the moluccas room

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a taste of indonesia.

when it was time to choose yet another establishment at mbs, i wanted pizzeria mozza but my friend suggested moluccas room, which drew blank stares from me.

“it’s really good indonesian food with good reviews!”

*blank*

“it’s by the promenade with a riverside view”

*blank*

…

which explains why i was hopelessly lost and couldn’t find my way to the restaurant despite my friend giving helpful tips like “it’s near gong-cha and 7-eleven (i never knew mbs had these type of shops) and “its near avalon” (sorry, don’t club). but i finally found it after walking the whole span of the promenade. the ambience is one of laid back, elegant, riverside dining. a semi open concept with outdoor ventilation and pared back furnishings create an almost balinese-luxury resort like feel. i suspect the notion of these promenade restaurants is to create a middle-tier of restaurants for people who refused to shell out hundreds paying for mozza/db bistro moderne/cut and the likes. so out you go. =)

ok let’s talk service. to be honest, service wasn’t too good. our first server was slightly curt and made no effort to really make us feel welcome – his service was nevertheless professional, but it just felt slightly cold. other than that, we felt a little ignored throughout the meal as well, a good litmus test being that my glass of water remained empty for quite some time before i gave up and motioned for a refill. its kinda sad for a restaurant with really pretty decent food. let’s get to it then.

amuse bouche – indonesian pancake with eggplant carpaccio and cucumber

nice, appetizing start to a meal. the pancake was fluffy and flavorful, with the eggplant lending further flavor and crisp to the simple appetizer.

confit sakura ayam tuturaga – light citrusy confit chicken curry from the northern sulawesi region, $33

with this dish, my eyes lit up as i started to comprehend what style of cuisine moluccas room offered – essentially western-style ingredients and cooking methods fused with indonesian spices and sauces. and indeed this was a rewarding and flavorful partnership — the curry lent a certain sweetness to the chicken but did not overpower the entire dish. as per confit, the chicken skin was crisp and delicious to bite into. i did feel however, that parts of the chicken within did not seem fully marinated and had some loss of flavor, but it was overall a really decent and flavorful rendition of a indo-western fusion dish.

angus steak rendang – tender beef steak tenderloin topped with an extremely flavorful Javanese style rendang curry sauce, $35

again, the curry sauce wasn’t overpowering, something you would have expected from traditional indonesian dishes perhaps. but this level of flavor (perhaps more suited for foreigners) incidentally also brought out the meaty flavor of the beef steak, which was juicy and tender. a masterful fusion once again.

baby eggplants with belachan, $18

hmm.. this wasn’t too impressionable, and in fact i felt that the eggplants weren’t completely cooked till soft, and the belachan flavor hadn’t completely permeated into the eggplant. it felt like a simple home cooked dish that was cut back on the belachan intensity, not really that worth it here.

sate udang java – luscious grilled prawns marinated with secret Javanese recipe, $27

you might wonder at this point whether i thought the food here wasn’t good but enter the sate (is it me, or is sate a super pretentious way of writing satay? and yes, the sate had an inflection tagged to the ‘e’.. lol) the grilled prawns satay were amazingly tasty, with flavors bursting in your mouth as you bit into it. the accompanying sauce complemented perfect with the grilled prawns, lending a spicy and tangy flavor to the dish. the prawns were really. grilled. to. perfection. ’nuff said.

sate ayam madura, grilled chicken tenders served with creamy roasted peanut sauce, $22

you might see the price and think i’m really retarded to come to mbs and order satay at a price that could give you platefuls of satay at say chomp chomp. but to be honest, the chicken tenders here make normal roadside satay look like emaciated bits of chicken. this satay ayam madura is juicy and succulent, globs of tender meat skewed together and bursting with flavor. i kid you not. the fried onions and garnishings and special peanut sauce further elevated the flavors of this dish to another level. ok la, $22 is really a bit steep, but.. somehow.. it’s worth a shot. haha. you’d understand my comparison of the emaciated chicken after you have bitten into one of these.

we skipped desserts because somehow i think the service left us a bit cold. but all in all, the food here is really good stuff and worth a shot, especially to sample the uniqueness of indonesian-western fusion dishes. and yeah… come try to sate, you wouldn’t be disappointed. this is a nice place to bring your atas overseas friends and allow them to sample some local dishes without them tearing and wheezing from some potent curry. its also a nice place for a casual get together with friends for a decent meal. if you are willing to spend though. =) oh come on.. you’re at mbs. -_-  7.0/10

the moluccas room |  2 Bayfront Avenue, #01-81 The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands | indonesian, fusion, local, upscale

carnivore and rio tapas lounge

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berry cornucopia.

its cool to have friends working at mbs, because they know the ins and outs of the place and can easily recommend you good places to dine at. so yeah, thanks phili — though, minus points for you for calling forty hands forty handles.. lol! anyways, its real cool to meet old friends and just have a riotous time. part 1 was at moluccas room, which will be on a separate post later, and since it’s late i’ll just tackle desserts.

carnivore and rio tapas lounge is the third such brazilian churrascaria (brazilian word for steakhouse) joint, following after vivocity and chijmes. men love this place in general because of the copious amounts of meat that is served whereas their female companions usually gag at the thought of eating so much oily meat. this joint at mbs utilizes the inherent atas ambience of mbs to incorporate an additional rio tapas lounge and included desserts, cocktails and teas into their menu. it’s here we had our dessert, as phili mentioned that she liked what was served her. let’s review!

churros with chocolate, berry and cheese dips ($10)

this dessert is not too often seen in singapore, but its pretty common fairgrounds food. essentially a spanish-style doughnut, churros are pretty common in US and latin america, and are often paired with (and dipped in) hot chocolate. the churros here obviously surpasses common fairgrounds standards, being crisp and warm – as though one was biting into a pot of sunshine and sugar. it’s not too sweet, only lightly dusted with sugar, so the general savory flavor of the doughnut is more pronounced, and pairs well with the different dips. (i like the chocolate dip the best, whilst phili preferred the berry dip). good stuff that’s worth the try.

we also got the strawberry cheesecake ($10, see first picture), which was yet another rendition of a deconstructed cheesecake in a martini glass. apparently the notion from the chef (as phili explained), was that anything in a martini looks sexier. to be honest, comparing the two deconstructed cheesecake, carnivore’s rendition paled in comparison to relish’s version – mainly because it felt as though the proportions of this was slightly off. for one, they seemed to have added a minuscule portion of the crust, and had too much cream cheese, so one ended up eating dollops of cream cheese alone, which kinda defeats the purpose of a deconstruction. furthermore, i don’t get the inclusion of blackberries, raspberries and gooseberries to a strawberry cheesecake. i mean, the ingredients are fresh and all, but the construction of the dish wasn’t too inspired.

chocolate trio, $12 (from top, lava cake, chocolate ganache and chocolate cake)

i note yet again the copious amounts of berries. this pastry chef loves his/her berries indeed. in fact, the berries lead to a hilarious conversation as we tried to figure out what berry each one exactly was, debating whether we were served boysenberries [i concede, looks like they are blackberries instead] and not knowing how to name the gooseberry [the orange/yellow berry with bougainvillea-like leaves] . berries are pretty confusing stuff, especially if you start considering currants.

anyways, the dessert was pretty decent, especially the ganache – well balanced, luxurious and not at all jelak. the chocolate cake was kinda flat and i felt that the lava cake wasn’t hot enough (though it might have been my fault for me holding up everyone by insisting on snapping a shot).

ambience-wise, this place is pretty open-concept, which wooden chairs and tables placed in the middle of the mbs mall, illuminated by nomad lamps (luminous lamps that changed colors every tens of seconds). its a pretty laid back, chill atmosphere, and the hugeness of the mbs mall allows you to talk a bit louder without worrying about being a nuisance. service was decent, and the servers actually went to help us figure out the name of the gooseberry. =)

all in all, a nice chill out spot for some desserts and drinks. food-wise, it probably isn’t going to be any different from the vivocity joint so you pretty much know what to expect. 6.5/10 

carnivore and rio tapas lounge |  2 Bayfront Avenue, #01-77/78/79/80 The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands | meat, desserts, drinks