Platypus Lobster Shack

It was E's birthday celebration, well, much belated. She didn't have any craving in particular, and S's friend has a share in this lobster roll joint, so we decided, why not? It turned out to be restaurant/bar kind of joint, and E usually disliked noisy places. So with the loud music and all, she was getting a headache. But since we had already made reservations, we decided to just quickly eat and go elsewhere to chat.

So as the name suggests, this place specializes in.... Lobster! Mainly East-Coast style lobster rolls. But even their non lobster rolls items have a lobster theme. That said, they do have a few non seafood items if you have friends, like me, who are allergic to seafood but would love to just come here with others who love seafood. There are things worth coming for here, we'll see.

We ordered a urchin and lobster bisque to share. I tot the urchin was just going to be in the name, but no, you do get a faint taste of the urchin in the creamy soup. It lends a very Japanese touch to an otherwise very Western soup. Interesting fushion, I like!

Urchin and lobster bisque

We also ordered a starter size Crustacean Bowl to share. With Uni creme, poached lobster, some rice, and a ton of other seasonings that are again, very Japanese in nature. A little reminiscent of salmon roe cream (mentai) with cheese. Rich, seafoody, fresh, and yummy.

Crustacean bowl

Lobster roll! I ordered the Piquant Garlic lobster roll, which doesn't have mayo. Trying to make some efforts at cutting down on my calories. Anyway it is seasoned with lemon marinated garlic. All lobster rolls are served on a tray, with a fresh salad on one side, and truffled chips on the other. The chips are nice!! That's what I meant by the non-seafood people have something worth coming for. Although a tad oily, but that's only because it's home made chips. The truffle flavour is strong. The lobster rolls are yummy too. The lobster was sweet and juicy, nicely done. The bread was soft and fluffy, just the tiniest bit toasted to give it a nice soft crust. But I think, I will not try to act clever and go mayo-less again. Lobster roll without mayo tastes... lacking. Hahahaha!!

Piquant garlic lobster roll

Zoom in to the roll and chips

Actually the serving isn't huge. I mean, it's a lobster roll, so you can't be expecting huge portions. From their website they claim that each roll contains the meat of a 4-500g lobster. I just discovered that they have a Platypus Restaurant at Bugis Junction which serves pasta and such on top of lobster rolls. Maybe that's a better option for more variety, especially for the non-seafood people. But I spotted mac and cheese and a duck roll in Lobster Shack that looks friendly enough. May just bring FQ there yet. 

Platypus Lobster Shack

China Square

3 Pickering Street
Nankin Row #01-31

Singapore 048660
Tel: 6438 7961

Cafe 2000 Seafood and Barbecue Buffet

I love barbecues. Like really really love barbecues. As a teen I was always trying to connive my friends to go chalets because I want to eat barbecues. Or drag them to the now-defunk Marina Bay steamboat barbecues for my birthday dinners. Now, I resort to Korean and Japanese table barbecue restaurants. So when I walked pass this place and smelled the grilling meats, I was besotted. I had to go there. What's nicer than barbecuing your own food? Having others grill it for you and delivered to your table! In unlimited quantities!

So Lynn, her mom and I went for our little tai tai dinner one Friday night. The BBQ buffet is only available on Friday and Saturdays. I made reservation and hung up, didn't even remember to ask about the pricing. Thank goodness it wasn't too unaffordable. The spread was decent. Not a huge variety, but decent. We didn't like the server though. A very snobby guy, who gave us instructions in a very talk-down manner, as if we are stupid. All because Lynn innocently asked if the food outside is the same. We really thought that the BBQ happens outside the restaurant.

So let me try to go through in a more course-sequence correct manner (we took our food in a haphazard sequence actually). Cold dishes first. The cold food section was fresh, served on beds of ice. Prawns, mussels, oysters, Hokkaido crab claws, scallops and crab halves. The prawns were fresh and sweet. I usually dislike oysters that are too fishy, but theirs was fine. The Hokkaido crab claws were sweet, but too troublesome so we didn't go for seconds.

Cold food section

Now the BBQ section. Their system is pretty cute. We were given clips with our table number. So we basically go to the raw food section, take whatever we want, clip the number to the plate, and pass it to the grill staff. They will grill our food, and deliver it to our table. The BBQ food variety was pretty good. Crayfish, prawn, salmon, otah, squid, lamb, beef, chicken, pork etc. It was only during our second round that I notice that what we initially took to be 'decorations' on the ice around the bowls of raw food, were actually real corn and gong gong. So I started picking the 'decorations' to be grilled. And true enough, they were cooked and delivered to us. Gong gong are not often seen, so I was going crazy with picking the decorations. Haaaa. Sorry they aren't very apparent in the photos. I took this photos after a few rounds of picking. =D

Raw seafood to be grilled

Squid and otah (spot the gong gong)

Poultry (spot the gong gong)

The clips with our table number

And tadaa.... our cooked food. I stole the sticks from the chocolate fountain to use to dig my gong gong flesh out. Haaa

Grilled lamb, gong gong and scallops

Now the cooked food. They have a decent spread, and seems to be having some crayfish special. There's crayfish in the cold food, in the BBQ, in the cooked food, and in the yong tau foo section. We found the roast section one of our favorite. We spammed the sausages quite a few times, as well as the ribeye. The guy at the roast section isn't very generous, and only gave us one sausage at the time. So we had to go back a few times.

The other cooked food was quite passable. Lynn's mom love crayfish, so we hung around the crayfish tray until the salted egg crayfish appeared.

Ribeye

Ribs and sausages

Fried fish in sweet and spicy sauce

Pizza and satays

Cereal prawn and roast pork

Salted egg cray fish and crackers

Their noodle section is seafood yong tau foo. You choose your own ingredients, and the type of noodles, and the type of soup. The chef then prepares it your way. I opted for Laksa gravy. Skipped the crayfish though, because I think I had a crayfish overdose.

Seafood yong tau foo

Laksa yong tau foo

Their array of desserts was pretty impressive. But I was too full to explore too much of it. Lynn's mom loved the durian mousse. We tried some of the chocolate fountain. It's... chocolate fountain lor.

Durian mousse

Overall it was a very good meal. We ate til we were stuffed. Lynn feels that she would never be back. It didn't impress her so much that she would want to return. I felt it was ok, and may consider bringing my family back just to try. And for the gong gong. Lol...

Cafe 2000
81 Anson RoadSingapore, 079908+65 6500 6112

The Chop House

We love Wooloomooloo. So when we found out that the group was opening a new restaurant at Vivocity called The Chop House, we were thrilled. And when we saw it's menu, we were even happier. It's a more casual concept compared to Wooloomooloo, hence more affordable menu. We planned it on a day we went to RWS for the Sea Aquarium. The thing is, we did shabu shabu buffet for lunch, and munched on snacks in Sentosa, before heading here to dinner. So needless to say, we weren't very hungry, but everything still looked good.

In the end we settled for a soup, a mixed platter and a dessert. I wanted mussels, but we weren't sure we could finish. That's how we decided to settle for the mussels soup. It was creamy, with pieces of mussels and some fish. It wasn't wow, but still nice. Some of the mussels were a little overcooked and tough though.

Mussel soup

Then our mixed grill platter arrived. Beef tenderloin, lamb sausage, pork sausage and lamb cutlet. On the side we were given a little rack of three condiments, all homemade. Mustard, beetroot jam and caramelized onion. I don't care for beetroot to begin with but Lynn liked it. I went totally bonkers with the onions and mustard. These are perfect for all the red meat in the platter!! And the onions were very nicely done. Meat wise, the beef was tender and perfectly done medium. Look at the juicy pink interior. Sausages, well, who can do sausages badly? The lamb was also delicious. Marinated just enough to ensure the muttony taste doesn't overwhelm, but still enough for the lamb lovers. The portion was comfortable for the two of us after all our nonsense earlier in the day. For a hungry day, we'll probably need sides.

Condiments

Mix grill platter

Juicy pink meat

On a separate occasion, I went with XP to try their mix seafood grill. I found the salmon to be a little on the dry side, and the squid, although perfect texture, were a little bland. The shrimps were nicely done to bouncy perfection. Maybe because seafood tends to be milder flavored than meat to begin with, we needed the sauce it came it. Very oddly, we were given the same three condiments that seemed more apt for meat. Turns out the first blur waiter put it down for some unknown reason, and the other waiter didn't want to disappoint us by removing. So I just dug into the caramalized onions anyway, but ignored the mustard and the beetroot.

Mix seafood grill

For dessert on the first visit, Lynn and I decided to share a cheesecake. It was a nice cheesecake, although I found the sauce suspiciously tasting like coffeeshop sweet soya sauce. On a third visit, my dinner buddies insisted it was maple syrup and on sampling, I agreed it was. But I so distinctly remember both Lynn and I thought it tasted like coffeeshop sweet soya sauce. Was it me, or did they mix up their sauces on my first visit?

Baileys cheesecake

On separate occasions, I had tried their Mussels Mariniere. The mussels themselves were deliciously cooked. However, if you're a broth drinker like me, be warned. The mussels broth was incredibly salty. Saltier than any other mussels I have tried. And I've also tried the Sirloin steak, while a friend tried their Australian Lamb chop. I preferred the lamb to the beef. It's not that the beef wasn't good. It's just that the lamb was better. Or maybe I was simply in a lamb mood that day.

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

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.

Jumbo (Clarke Quay)

The boss was out of the country, and J had a $100 voucher at Jumbo's. So we thought it'll be fun for some of us to go for a long seafood lunch. I mean, there was a minimum spend of $200 in order to use the voucher. $200 sounded like a lot of food, but easily achieved by the 10 or so of us. Since Clarke Quay is the nearest branch, that's where we made the reservations. Over the phone, the lady told J that he could have additional 10% off because he's a Jumbo card member. Yay for us!

Cute Crab!

Now, 2 months later, I'm finally getting around to posting this. Photos taken with my phone tend to be forgotten and hence, joins the queue for blogging turn some what belatedly. Thank goodness for V's recommendation of the Evernote Food app, which I used to take down the names of the dishes! Looking at the number of photos I uploaded, I think back then we over-ordered quite a bit. But then again, there was what, 9 of us? And some of them boys have really good appetite.

After much browsing and discussion, we finally confirmed our choices. We ordered two appetizers. Roast Duck Mango Salad, and jellyfish. The jellyfish was pretty normal - just right amount of 'crunch' vs softness (how do one describe jelly fish??!!). The salad was something we all liked. The mango was juicy and sweet, and the small pieces of roast duck added an extra oomph. The duck was very nicely roasted, and a few of us were fighting over the skin, because of the nice charred flavor it had.

Jelly Fish

Roast Duck Mango Salad

In the meat department, we had Golden Phoenix Chicken, and Mocha Pork Ribs. I was thoroughly deceived by the chicken. The picture (both on the menu and mine) makes one imagine beautifully roasted chicken presented in an artful manner. It turned out to be fish paste (!!!!) under that chicken skin. So it was pretty much eating a piece of fish cake with a chicken skin on it. It was nice actually, but I felt so cheated. The pork ribs had a good balance of bitterness and sweet from the coffee, yet it was still savory. Yum.

Golden Phoenix Chicken

Mocha Pork Ribs

What's Jumbo without seafood? We had Cereal Prawns, Scallops in Yam Basket and Chilli Crab. Prawns were covered in a generous mountain of sweet and crunchy cereal. The prawns were fresh, and overall delicious. The scallops were ordered because I though they looked interesting. They were fresh and sweet, and the yam baskets were nicely mashed, not gooey at all. The presentation made them look like fried abalones. Cute!

Cereal Prawns

Scallops in Yam Basket (don't they look like abalones?)

Chilli crab was of course the star of the show. We were given disposable aprons to protect our clothes. I didn't use mine, because I thought that I wouldn't quite be so rough. But there were flying crab shells from around me because of random people trying to crack the hard pincers using the nut cracker (me included). Thankfully none of them hit me, so I was still chilli gravy free at the end of the meal. I liked their crab. Right balance of sweetness and spiciness. The crabs were quite meaty, not shrunken like some you get occasionally. They didn't ask if we wanted male or female crabs, so I think we were given males. I poked around and couldn't find any roe. :(

Chilli Crab

Disposable apron

To even out that carnivorous meal, we have to have something in the vegetable section. Spinach Tofu with Mushroom and Sambal Kang Kong came into the picture. The tofu was topped with mashed spinach and fried, then smothered in a gravy with a mushroom mixture. Already had tried this at many different big chain seafood restaurants. They usually taste roughly the same. Sambal Kang Kong was ok - the sambal was fragrant, and the dish not disgustingly oily. (Sambal Kang Kong is always oily, so I can only say it's not extremely oily... Haha...)

Spinach Tofu with Mushroom

Sambal Kang Kong

We also ordered a Seafood Fried Rice, mainly because a Chinese meal don't seem complete without rice. Haha... Theirs had a good portion of diced prawns in it. Would have liked the rice to be more evenly coated with eggs though. Haha... High standard...

Seafood Fried Rice

The bill did come up to more than we bargained for, because the staff said that the 10% discount cannot be used concurrently with the voucher. Although J was sure he was told differently, we didn't argue for it. After the voucher, we paid $30 or so each. J felt bad that he caused us to spend more than he expected. But hey, for such a sumptuous seafood lunch, none of us were complaining!