Birthday edition 2: Wooloomooloo Steakhouse

Yes, the name's quite a mouthful. We came across this name in an article together with Ruth Chris. Both restaurants were touted as great steakhouses comparable to Morton's and Cut. And we enjoyed Ruth Chris so much on my birthday, we were so excited to try Wooloomooloo for Lynn's birthday. I sourced for their menu online before making reservations, and I was drooling just reading through the menu. They had all of our existing favorites such as crab cakes, iceberg lettuce salad, lobster bisque, and foie gras. On top of that, they had several potentially exciting items such as mushroom soup with truffle oil, beef salad with truffle oil and beef wellington with foie gras! And this was before any recommendations from the servers!

We had discussed and decided on a few items beforehand. We agreed that we'll order the beef salad, since Morton's had sort of spoilt the market for iceberg lettuce salad. Then since there's already truffle oil in that, we'll settle for the lobster bisque. Foie gras is a must, of course, as is the crab cakes. Then we decided that we'll let the server recommend the beef. And for dessert, I've been told beforehand that there'll be a complimentary cheesecake for the birthday girl. So we looked through the menu and finalized on a passionfruit souffle, thinking that the sourness of the passionfruit will be perfect for cutting through the richness of the cheesecake. Sounds like a plan.

Then we arrived at the restaurant, and saw the next table eating gorgeous oysters served on a bed of ice. Lynn said she wanted oysters. Then we looked through the menu and started to wonder if we can finish all that we planned to order, plus the oysters. Then the server came along and made two recommendations for the starters. He recommended the Sauteed Garlic Prawns, served with a dash of lobster bisque (drool), and the Colossal Crab lumps, cold lumps of crab meat served over cold lettuce. Hm... both sounds good. More deliberation to do. And he also recommended the Wooloomooloo steak, which we were quick to agree on.

So after another 10 minutes or so discussion (so much for the beforehand planning), this was our final order: Pan-seared Foie Gras, Colossal Crab Lumps, Lobster Bisque, Wooloomooloo salad, Wooloomooloo Steak and a Passionfruit souffle. We decided against the oysters because it really seemed like too much (on top of the bread). We decided against the crab cakes because we thought we'll try something new, since Morton's had set the benchmark for crab cakes.

The bread was quite passable. We cut it into quarters, and only ate one quarter each. The butter was salty and went well with the bread. One of the few places we actually didn't finish the bread! The foie gras was... a disappointment. It wasn't very melt-in-the-mouth. It wasn't very livery either. At least to me. Lynn thought it was ok. Maybe my craving and deprivation was so huge that it couldn't satisfy. It just wasn't quite blissful enough. We didn't care for the caramelized apple, but we did love the 4 little piles of different salt and pepper served with the foie gras. Lynn tried to keep them on our plates, which was unfortunately cleared away subsequently, much to my amusement and her chagrin.

Onion bread served with whipped butter

Pan-Seared Foie Gras

After the not-so-exciting first two dishes (bread counting as one), came the Crab Lumps. Oh my goodness. Those were to-die-for! Fresh, sweet, juicy lumps of crab meat, served cold on a bed of shredded lettuce. The whole bowl was balanced on a tub of ice to maintain the coldness. A dash of lemon made it perfect by itself. It didn't really need the two dips at the side. But both the Louis dressing and the mustard mayo went well with the crab. I'm really missing the crab now. And it's not just me being seafood deprived post-surgery. Lynn went gaga over it too. I can come back just for this. Really. (And maybe several other things along with it. Haa...)

Colossal Crab Lumps

Then came our soup. The serving is smaller than Morton's, but good and bitter (from the cognac). We loved it. Just wished there was more of it. The salad, on the other hand, was ginormous. I tried to put my fork in the picture to show the size of it, but the picture really doesn't do it justice. Chargrilled filet mignon served on a bed of fresh produce in a mustard vinaigrette and truffle oil dressing. It didn't impress as much as Steakhouse's salad, and the truffle goodness came and went.

Lobster Bisque

Wooloomooloo salad

The Wooloomooloo steak is a 12-ounce ribeye marinated with a Cajun spice. That's roughly 340g. We usually share a steak this size quite comfortably. Their steak was another wow. The meat texture was PURRRRFECT~~ And the spices made it really aromatic. It was a tad bland on the salt, which was easily solved by requesting for some sea salt (to replace those that they cleared away. Haha...). This was served with a row of 4 sauces. Seriously, that was ALOT of sauces. Cajun, pepper, red wine reduction and mushroom (order from the right). I didn't like the pepper, I found it too sweet. I did liked the other three. So between the sauces and the salt, I had a really really good beef dinner.

Wooloomooloo Steak

Sauces for the steak

Finally came our desserts. The passionfruit souffle and the complimentary cheese cake. The souffle was by itself generic flavored. The passionfruit flavor was in the sauce. It was actually very good, tangy sauce. I only wished the flavor was in the souffle itself. Like Laurent Bernard's. The cheesecake was a light version, which was a really good way to end the meal. And it was served with a cheesecake flavored ice cream. Yum. The dessert portions were comfortable, and we managed to finish all our food. Yes!

Passionfruit souffle

Complimentary Wooloomooloo cheesecake

We really really loved the crab. And the beef. The rest were nice too, just not as impressive as these two. And the crab made us think that the oysters will be equally good too. And while we're back here why not try the prawns and get the lobster bisque. And maybe the iceberg lettuce salad will impress. How about the crab cake, seeing how great the crab lumps are. AND they have a crab lump salad! See Lynn, there's no way we can come back here and just order the steak. We're just not capable of it.


Wooloomooloo Steakhouse
2 Stamford Road
Level 3 Swissotel The Stamford Singapore 178882
Tel: 6338 0261

Grand Shanghai 大上海

I had actually visited this restaurant many many years ago in my late teens, when my dad signed up for Copthorne's hotel membership. He had many complimentary food vouchers from the package, and Lynn and me were tasked with utilizing most of them. Yes, we go that far back, the two of us eating together. Back then we thought that the food was pretty good, but seemed pricey. We didn't pay a single cent of course, using the voucher, but didn't look at the menu either. Anyhow, we never returned.

My return this year was on CM's request. She wanted to go and check out that place as a potential wedding venue. So we lumped it together with her birthday dinner and went there for dinner. This restaurant really takes their Shanghai theme seriously. The decor is old school Shanghai with gold chandeliers and red table clothes and carpet. The food is predominantly Shanghainese. The most Shanghai aspect of the restaurant? It's life band. The band plus the Chinese girl decked out in Cheongsam were belting out old Shanghai classics such as 夜来香，忘不了，上海滩 etc. It does bring you to the old school glamour of the old Shanghai era. At least how it is usually portrayed in movies.

W, G and me arrived first. So while waiting, us hungry trio ordered starters to fill our tummies. We ordered Shanghai 小龙包 (steamed pork dumplings). Their version is a pretty big, soup filled one. However, out of the 4 dumplings in the basket, we managed to break the skin of 3 of them, causing the soup to leak out before we can savor them. I don't think it's our poor skills. Maybe the skin just isn't strong enough for the size of the filling. But the flavor was yummy. We subsequently learnt (with CM's arrival and the 2nd basket) that if we roll the dumpling onto our spoon instead of picking them up, we were safe.

小龙包 － Steamed pork dumplings

We also ordered 锅贴 (pan-fried pork dumplings). Also much larger than the usual bite sized ones, these ones took me about 3-4 bites to finish. It was juicy, and flavorful. And I like. We also liked their appetizer - some marinated tofu which was a little spicy and salty. They even have vegetarian 锅贴 and 蒸饺 for my hubby!

锅贴 - pan fried pork dumpling

Appetizer

素锅贴 - Vegetarian pan fried dumplings

素蒸饺 - Vegetarian steamed dumpling

By the time we went through all the gigantic dumplings, we were not that hungry anymore. So for the dinner proper, we only ordered Peking duck, Prawn with salted egg yolk, and braised tofu made vegetarian. The Peking duck skin carved at our table side and served wrapped in egg crepes and sweet sauce, with prawn crackers on the side. The duck meat was subsequently brought back to the kitchen, chopped, and stir fried with some veggies and pine nuts. It was then served in individual portions on a bed of lettuce. I actually liked both variations of the duck and finished all my servings. I do think, however, that the duck skin could have been crispier. However, G barely touched his stir fried meat, and we had an extra serving anyway thanks to hubby. These were cleared away by the waiters because we really couldn't eat more food.

Peking Duck skin

The prawns were succulent, coated with a generous amount of salted egg yolk. Something we all love, and it went so well with rice. The tofu was so-so, and mainly ordered so that hubby had something to go with rice. The rest of us barely touched it, so as to give him more to eat.

Prawn with salted egg yoke

红烧豆腐 - Braised tofu in Brown sauce

I found the food pretty good, and the ambience nice. The service was ok too. And I liked that they have several vegetarian options, although they didn't really a vegetarian main dish. The dim sum prices are actually reasonable ($6++ for 4 gigantic dumplings). The others are not overly pricey. I think it's a nice place to bring parents for a treat once in the while. But make sure they enjoy Shanghai music. The music does tend to be a little loud and occasionally conversations may be a little difficult.


Grand Shanghai
390 Havelock Road
Level 1 King's Centre
Singapore 169662
Tel no: 68366866

Melben Seafood (Ang Mo Kio)

Finally got around to writing this post. Been wanting to do so since the day we ate here, but my neurotic side refused to write things without following chronological order.

It was a belated birthday celebration for L and me, the September babies, as well as E the October baby. Yes, it's stretched across more than a month but September was a bad month and we just couldn't find a common time for all 6 of us to meet. So finally we arranged for dinner. And I said I want crabs. So someone suggested Melben and off we went to Melben.

I had made the assumption that a HDB void deck coffeeshop wouldn't entertain reservations, so I didn't try for a reservation. Thinking that if we reach slightly before dinner time, we may be able to get a seat in a decent amount of time. I was wrong on both counts. They were not the usual void deck coffeeshop but more of a in-between of a coffeeshop and a restaurant, so it seems that they do entertain reservations. And I reached at 5.45, but we only got a table at almost 7pm.

Ok, my main qualms about this place. They really 吊起来买. I can't think a English counterpart for this phrase. Direct translation, it means that one hang oneself up to sell. Generally it means that one makes a big deal of him/herself/one's things to raise the rewards/price. Bad translation, I know. >_< Let's just say they are way too proud.

Queueing for a table was ok. I understand that there's a lot of patrons, and crabs isn't quite something you can rush through. So I dutifully stay in the line for more than an hour. We were given the menu while in the queue, so that we can place order before we get a seat. I was initially impressed. Hey, this means that I can get my food as soon as I sit down right? Wrong. When we placed our order at 6.15pm, all that happened was my order was scribbled onto an order chit, and that chit given to me. Duh. Finally we neared the front of the line at about 6.30pm. So finally, a lady came to get my chit from me at 6.35pm. In return, I got a card saying "Food Waiting time, 6.35 - 8.05", and was told that we placed order at 6.35pm, it means that we are not allowed (seriously??!!) to complain about food not served yet until 1.5 hours later, which is 8.05pm. 1.5 hours wait for my food, are you f***ing kidding me??!!

We got our table 10 minutes or so later, and settled down for our long long wait. Food was eventually served, granted, it was ahead of their cutoff. I believe they had intentionally overestimated the probable time to prevent people from bugging them. But still, it took 50 minutes from my point of order til my first dish was served. I'm not impressed. Yes, it's crowded, but if restaurants like Jumbo or Long Beach can serve up their food within 20 minutes despite their crowds, why can't Melben do the same?

I do not like waiting so long for my food!

Ok, enough about the impossible amount of waiting time. Let's get to the food. First dish that came up, stir fried baby kailan. Normal stir fried vegetables in oyster sauce that you can find in any coffeeshop's tze char stall. This was followed by Gung Pao Chicken - diced chicken fried with spring onion, onions and dried chilli. I found it on the salty side but still manageable. We also ordered a crispy seafood tofu. I think I preferred Ka Soh's.

Stir fried baby kai lan

Gung bao chicken

Fried Seafood tofu

Finally came the star of the night. Crabs. Ok, actually Melben is more well known for their white pepper crab. But I was so craving chilli crabs so we ordered that instead. It's actually pretty good crab. The sauce was a good balance of sweet, salty and sour. The thickness was just right. The crabs themselves were firm. However, another proud thing about Melben: they had a disclaimer in their menu. "No guarantee of the firmness of the crabs". Maybe not quite phrased the same way, but the gist of it is there. So if you get crappy, shrunken crabs, you have no grounds to complain.

Chilli crab

Fried buns to go with the chilli crab

The other signature dish of Melben's is their XO crab bee hoon soup. I do like the soup. It was creamy, with the sweetness from the crabs. But there was ALOT of bee hoon. They told us one serving serves about 4 pax. There were 6 of us, so we ordered additional bee hoon. On a nice note, they actually gave us an extra bowl of soup to go with the extra bee hoon. But the final amount of bee hoon was so much that each of us had to eat two (small) bowls. With all the other food and the buns, we were stuffed.

XO crab bee hoon

Overall, I think their food is decent. But the wait is totally not worth it. If it was a 30 minutes wait, I would say those were fantastic crabs. However, it was almost 2 hours wait in total. I expect ALOT more for 2 hours. As such, I won't return. Not to this branch anyway. They have another outlet in Toa Payoh. I may give that one a chance, and see how bad the wait is.