Porky Pork

I needed to collect a free cabin baggage (complimentary from Citibank when I signed up for credit cards) from The Central, and since I didn't fancy lugging it around, I wanted to drive there to pick it up. The opportunity arose when J wanted to check out some serviced apartment at River Valley area. Since Central is along the way, we decided we could stop by The Central, eat lunch, pick up my free gift, then head to River Valley, before returning to office.

We had once spotted Porky Pork while waiting for our Gong Cha previously. So we decided that's where we would go for lunch. Between the five of us, we decided on sharing a Porky Pork platter for 4 pax, and an addition beef brisket. The platter comes with 4 buns or rice, and the brisket 1. We all opted for buns.

The platter consist of roasted pork belly, hungarian sausages, and pulled pork. The roasted pork belly was crispy, and sinfully yummy. The sausage is good as all sausages are. The pulled pork were nicely marinated, and goes really well with the buns. The sides were bland and boring.

Porky Pork Platter

Mac n cheese and mashed potatoes

The beef brisket was tender, but a little on a dry, apparent from the photo. Yet it was flavorful, and and doesn't have the typical overly beefy taste that briskets sometimes have.

Beef brisket

Buns

It wasn't too expensive, coming up to maybe about $10 each. However, sitting capacity in the cafe is pretty small. And upon my googling now, I discovered that they have closed down. This phenomenon is more common to restaurants that Lynn blog. She have a tendency to blog about restaurants that subsequently close down. I think as of now her 'curse rate' is about 20%. Even an unfortunate restaurant, which she intended to write badly about but never got around to, was at the mercy of her curse. Me, 2 out of about 100 posts. Not too bad at all...

Porky Pork

Le Bistrot Du Sommelier

This was the last, untried steak place found on Cnngo's best steak in Singapore list. Coincidentally, my boss mentioned that this is the one place in Singapore with 'real tomatoes', as opposed to the 'round red things that are called tomatoes but taste like cardboard' (quoting him). This place's star dish was supposed to be the 1kg bone-in steak. Since 1kg sounds like a lot, Lynn and me decided we need more stomachs. So recruited I and D to join us for this carnivorous dinner. Since most reviews recommended reservations in advance, I placed reservation about 2 weeks early.

Initially we were given a menu to browse. I couldn't find the 1kg steak anywhere and I started wondering whether it was supposed to be an advanced order item. Later, the server came by with a blackboard stand with the meat menu scribbled on it. Was delighted to find the Cote de Boeuf on it. =) On top of a medium rare steak, we ordered chicken liver pate (described on a blog I visited as 'divine'. We gave the foie gras here a miss because we were quite sure it wasn't pan-fried, and Lynn and me really love the ooziness of the pan-fried ones. We also ordered 2 dishes of escargots (6 escargots for 4 person is really inadeaquate), and another main dish of oven roasted chicken with 40 garlic cloves. Since the chicken comes with a herbed potato (I can't remember the name), we chose potato gratin and some kind of salad as sides for the steak. Couldn't find my boss's 'real tomatoes' anywhere on the menu.

The 'divine' chicken liver pate was served with some toasty bread, and some green plant that uneducated me don't recognize. Somehow, I couldn't taste the divine-ness of the pate when I spread it on the bread. Subsequently tried some by itself, and yeah, I think I could understand what that blogger trying to say. Weakly rich, slightly salty, with the livery taste at the back of your throat and a slight spicy kick at the end of it. The bread does cover off the livery taste, which will explain why I failed to detect the divine-ness initially.

Chicken liver pate

The escargots were a little different from the usual butter and garlic ones. Theirs were shell-less ones, completely smothered in a dishful of herby olive oil sauce, with bits of tomatoes. The texture of the snails were just right - good resistance to the teeth without being overly chewy. Nicely complemented by the herbs and tomatoes. We liked it.

Escargots

When the roasted chicken first appeared out of the kitchen, Lynn wondered aloud who in the world will order claypot rice in a French restaurant. When it was delivered to our table, we realized it was us. Haha... But when it was set down, it was sooooooo fragrant that I think all four of us literally drooled. Buttery, with the rich fragrance of garlic. The chicken was tender, and soaked up all the flavors of the butter sauce. I couldn't help thinking it would have been fantastic to go with rice. Maybe bread to soak up the gravy would have been great too. But too much may not be a good thing. Four of us sharing one pot made it memorable. Had it been a main course for one, I think I'll be sick midway through because of the richness.

Oven roasted chicken with 40 garlic cloves

The star arrived finally - our 1 kg bone-in meat. It was sliced out for us and arranged nicely in a circle on the plate. We ordered it medium rare, only to find D prefer medium well. So we started pointing out the not so bloody pieces and reserve those for her, while more bloody the meat that was near the bone were quickly reserved for Lynn. The meat was tender, and because of the bone-in during the cooking process, very well flavored. The sauteed onions piled on it were tender and sweet, and really went well with the meat. Pity is that because of the large size, and the fact that it was sliced up, by the time I got to the third piece, it was cold. It was still a very good piece of meat, a surprise considering this wasn't a steakhouse. The gratin was recommended by the server and was pretty good. I forgot about the other two so I guess were so-so.

Cote du Boeuf

Side dishes of potato gratin, salad and herbed potato

Finally it was dessert time. We ordered creme brulee and a waffle with ice cream. The creme brulee was OH-SO-NICE!! You can see the vanilla beans in them. So light and yet creamy at the same time, and the vanilla taste was subtly rich. The burnt caramel top was crispy and complemented the creaminess totally. It was soo good that we ordered one more.

Creme Brulee

Waffle

The bistrot was quite noisy on the day we went because of a very big group of caucasians a few table away. I think as the night progressed, they had more drinks, and got rowdier. And of course the price here for a 'bistrot' was quite challenging for the pocket. Not a place I will visit regularly for fear of an empty bank account. It was a very nice catch-up session with the two girls though. Next time, I think Lynn and me can do the escargots, the steak, and the creme brulee if we can't find kakis.