Epicurious (Singapore River)

It's a belated birthday celebration for S and we had initially thought of doing a high-tea type of gathering. Turns out E had very absentmindedly arranged for high tea with another bunch of people on the same day (nothing new for her to be this blur actually). So we had to push it to evening as a dinner instead.

When we first mentioned high-tea, S had suggested Epicurious because she wanted to try their all day breakfast. However, breakfast is served only up to 4pm. So by the time we went, no more breakfast menu. I reached early (actually, I was on time. They were late.), and started off my evening drinks alone.

Kidding. It was just plain water in that vodka bottle. I'm not an alcoholic who guzz Vodka before having my dinner. I was pretty famished, and so ordered a mushroom soup while waiting for them. The soup turned out great - chopped mushrooms in every creamy spoon. The kind I like.

Mushroom soup served in a cup

The rest arrived when I was midway through my soup. We took a while to decide on our mains. Because E came from a high-tea, she settled for just soup. S ordered some chicken with cheese thingy (it's name wasn't in English and my languages really ain't strong, t just couldn't stick). M and me ordered grilled tenderloins. We ordered an asian salad which sounded interesting with smoked salmon and yuzu dressing.

My medium rare steak appeared to be misheard as rare. I got a really bloody steak that wasn't quite something I liked. M's came ok. But on the scale of 10, their steak scored maybe 4 or 5? I sort of asked for it right, ordering steak from a place known more for their breakfast. S found her chicken not as good as she wished. We did enjoy the salad though, smoked salad in refreshing dressing plus generous sprinkling of nori pieces.

Grilled tenderloin - looks decent

Chicken with cheese something

Salad

We were actually a little disappointed by the mains, and so decided to get our desserts elsewhere. But if anything, this restaurant scores for their service. We were hardly neglected. And one of the guys was sweet enough to stand by the restaurant door waiting for me when I called up for directions while looking for the restaurant.

Ootoya (Clementi Mall)

I was heading to Clementi for some CNY shopping, or rather, Bak Kwa shopping. J's shop at Clementi market sells what I think is the best Bak Kwa in Singapore. Too bad they're gone before I remember photos, else they can hold a post by themselves. 

Anyway, back to the point, since it was Clementi, I asked E out for dinner. We roamed around Clementi mall trying to find a not-so-crowded-to-the-point-of-frustration restaurant and found it a hopeless venture. Eventually settled for Ootoya because of the poster at the door advertising some sangen pork that was supposed to be very tender or something. We had to wait a little for our table, but it was ok because there were seats at the waiting area.

The 'table' turned out to be a very long U-shaped one, with the outer side lined with chairs, and the inner side decked with a square platform. Basically diners were assigned seats with half the group sitting inside. I chose to be the one sitting inside, and had to take off my shoes, walk across the platform, and sit facing E at the edge of the platform. The nice thing about this concept is there was plenty of space behind me for my 3 kg worth of Bak Kwa. The downside is you are really sharing table with everyone else. We were fortuntate to get the last seat, so only had neighbours on one side. But the neighbours were really close to us, essentially right next to us since its the same table. I was overtly eavesdropping on their conversation and I'm sure I caught them laughing a few times at ours too.

It's so long ago I forgot the actually names of what we ordered. Essentially we both got pork cutlets in different sauces. One of it I think was a tenderloin but I forgot which one. I think E's comes with a separate rice, so she ordered black sesame rice. Mine came with the cutlet atop rice. The cutlets were thick and chewy. The non-tenderloin one was a little challenge to bite off. The sauces were rich and flavorful. We enjoyed the first half of our food. E didn't like her sesame rice too much and didn't finish it. The food got a tad cloying towards the end, being fried and saucy and all. I stuck to my usual habit of finishing up everything, but E gave up.

We did leave space for dessert and ordered a pudding (I forgot the name too - my fault for taking so long to blog about this). I remember it was sweet and nice and a very good ending to the meal.

Pork tenderloin in egg sauce?

The full set

Miso soup

Pork cutlet with seafood sauce? on rice

My full set

Dessert

Overall I remember leaving the restaurant very full and satisfied. I think I found the rest of the menu pretty interesting too. Turns out E owed me a favor and I got to have this meal for free. =)

Old Kim Guan (Sunshine Plaza)

Before I proceed I must first clarify that this establishment is opened by hubby's friend, so there's may be some bias. However, I will do my best to rate the food from a third-party point of view.

D needed to print his poster at Sunshine Plaza and so a few of us went with him for the opportunity to have a long lunch. Since Y opened an eatery at Sunshine plaza, I had to be a friend and bring my colleagues there to eat. Of course friends aside, I had grounds to believe my colleagues will enjoy their lunch. I had previously brought S, who liked the curry gravy but wasn't too keen on the fact that the curry was chicken wings only. I saw her really digging the meat out of the wings, leaving all the skin behind. So this time round I warned the boys about the wings, but seems like it isn't such a big issue for them.

I ordered pig stomach soup, one of their signatures. E ordered the curry chicken - the other signature, together with You Wei Fan (literally = flavored rice). D ordered regular dry noodles, while C ordered mince meat dry noodles, plus preserved vegetables with braised pork. We ordered three BBQ wings, and all had home-made barley drinks.

The pig stomach soup is something I really like. Peppery and rich, and no sign of porkiness that some places have. I had tried their curry chicken before and thought it was so-so, although I vaguely remember liking the potatoes. Maybe it was the fact that I had it with the BBQ wings and having 4 wings in one meal is pretty overdoing it (or maybe S was right, and wings doesn't really cut it for curries). E liked it though. He said the gravy was rich and thicker than the usual ones. The flavored rice was, well, flavorful. Lol... E ordered extra white rice, partly to enjoy the curry gravy, and partly cos he has huge appetite.

The preserved vegetables was another hit. It isn't too salty so one can actually eat it plain without feeling the need to stuff your mouth full with white rice to compensate. The dry noodles turned out a little on the small side, and D found it unsatisfying. He too, had to order extra white rice to fill up his stomach with some of E's curry and C's preserved vegetables. The BBQ chicken wings is actually another signature. First time I went was the time I had 4 wings in a meal, and I found it so-so. This time round with only 1 wing, it's a lot better. Slightly burnt on the outside, fragrant on the inside. It goes really well with the chilli sauce provided. Hm, but have to honestly say I have eaten better ones elsewhere.

BBQ wings with accompanying chilli sauce

Signature pig stomach soup

Preserved vegetable with pork belly

Chicken curry and flavored rice

The barley drinks was thoroughly enjoyed by all too. The verdict I got from the boys? Good home-styles food. They liked it. And since I have a conflict of interest, I'll leave it with their verdict.

Hokkaido Sushi Restaurant

Another Groupon dictated dinner location. Came across their Imperial Ohmi Wagyu Beef Set meal promo on Groupon, and bought one set to be shared between Lynn and me. Good call, since the set really contain way too much food for one person. The groupon also entitled us to 20% off their ala carte menu, so we decided that we will top up with some orders from the ala carte menu if the set prove too little for two.

We did flip through their menu and were a little entertained by the pictures of their fish dishes which were somewhat reminiscence of those coffeeshop zhi char fish dishes. Then we decided we should finish the set before we decide whether we had the stomach space for more food. So all we ordered were two green teas, not included in the groupon. While waiting, I noticed that there was a festive promotion going on for the same set. It was going at $168. Good thing my Groupon was cheaper than that at $128, else I'll feel like an idiot for believing in the deal.

We were served the first few dishes very quickly. Wafu salad and assorted sashimi. These were quickly followed by sharks fin chawanmushi. The salad was very refreshing, with seaweed bits we liked. The assorted sashimi was WOW! There was one kind of fish we were told had truffle oil on it and hence, didn't need any wasabi or soy sauce. I didn't catch the name of the fish, but it was so good. Delicately sweet, completely complemented by the fragrant truffle oil. The other sashimi were good too. Swordfish was so fresh and sweet, salmon and tuna were of the perfect texture - not mushy like some of the chain restaurants. The chawanmushi was served with real sharks fin, not glass noodles. It was fragrant, light and very good.

The next dish took a while to be brought up - oyster omelette. They had nicely cut it into two and serve on two plates for us. While I usually dislike oysters for the fishy taste, theirs was so fresh that all you taste is the briny oysters that went so well with the eggs. So nice that I could actually chew the oysters (as opposed to my usual swallowing whole to limit the fishy taste). Once this was out of the way, our star was served. Imperial Ohmi Wagyu beef cubes, medium rare. I immediately picked up one slightly fatty piece, and bypass all the sauces to savour the original beef flavour. MMmmmmm, so aromatic, so nice~~ The next two pieces were to try the sauces. I preferred the sesame to the yuzu sauce. The fried garlic slices served alongside the beef were very good too.

While we were savouring the beef, our beef garlic fried rice was served. Minced beef fried with fragrant garlic and Japanese rice. What's there to not love about this? Next was the fish miso soup, with fish slices inside. Sweet and fresh tasting, although not totally unlike a coffeeshop's 鱼片米粉. By now we felt we could handle a little more, and both were keen to try 'attas' sashimi. Upon enquiries, the price of $77 for five slices of tuna belly (Otoro) sashimi was too much for us to accept, so we tried the cheaper Otoro sushi instead. Their vinegar rice was actually very nice, so we didn't regret our decision to switch to sushi. Just the right amount of sourness, stickiness and chewiness - at least to my untrained mouth. The Otoro, oooohhh, it was unbelievable. It melted in the mouth almost immediately, so smooth on the palatte, and so fresh and sweet. I can understand why this part of the fish is the best, and why it's so expensive. It IS good stuff! Our final order off the ala carte menu was their mixed tempura, since there wasn't any tempura items on the set meal. Their batter was very light, non-oily, and nicely crispy. Their dipping sauce was a little different from the usual ones. It was sweeter, and there was an additional taste that I couldn't quite place, until Lynn pointed out that it may be bonito flakes.

Wafu salad

Assorted sashimi

Sharks fin chawanmushi

Oyster omelette

Imperial Ohmi Wagyu beef

Ohmi Wagyu beef garlic fried rice

Fish miso soup

Otoro sushi

Mixed tempura

The food here is actually very good. I'm not very trained in Japanese cuisine, but from what this meal offered, I liked their freshness. The sashimi is actually very close to that I had in Japan, if not better. (Ah well, touristy food places probably weren't the most high quality food). But I'd be quite reluctant to return, only because of the price. A plate of 5 slices of salmon sashimi costs $30 on their menu! Too tough for my pocket without a Groupon. Still, I was happy to have my first blissful try of Otoro sushi here.

Privé restaurant

This restaurant was one of the 4 recommended as Singapore's best steak places on CNNgo website. Out of the four, Morton's was tops. Since CNNgo seems to agree with our verdict, we thought we could try the others. Bedrock had already been tried, and didn't impress us. So out of the remaining two, we chose to try Privé for Lynn's birthday dinner. While googling for Privé's menu (to make sure my pockets won't be injured too much), I came across a blog that talked about the restaurant. 


Excerpt from ladyironchef:

“Our steak is better than CUT Steakhouse”. Yuan told us at the start of dinner.

Having heard raved reviews about the steaks at CUT Marina Bay Sands (my foodie friends boldly proclaimed that they have the best steaks in Singapore), I was a little sceptical initially.

My partner and I were left speechless when we had our first bite of the steak. It was SO GOOD – definitely one of the best steaks I’ve had. And you know what? I wouldn’t exchange this steak for any kurobuta pork.

I sent a snapshot of this to Lynn, and got her super excited. You see, we had always wanted to try out CUT. BUT, from what we gathered online, CUT's prices were known to cost patrons some $1000 for 2 pax. Sounds too scary for us to check out. So seeing this post was making us feel that hey, we have a chance to try that standard of meat for a fraction the price! Privé puts up their entire menu on their website, so I had no problem finding out the prices.

We ordered the eye of Ribeye off their Josper Grill menu. Quoting the menu:"The Josper Grill is the latest professional tool that has taken the international culinary world by storm, with lauded chefs such as Heston Blumenthal, Gordon Ramsay and Jason Atherton creating Josper-centric menus in their current establishments. The Spanish hybrid indoor barbeque grill/oven powered by Bincho-tan ‘white’ hardwood oak charcoal is well-known for being able to grill meat, fish and vegetables swiftly, and more importantly, perfectly." We also ordered a duck confit, partly because we remembered Ember's fabulous one, and partly because theirs comes with foie gras mashed potatoes. How tempting is that? Of course there were our regular appetizers of pan-fried foie gras, cream of mushroom with white truffle oil and cheese. Subsequently added a creamed spinach side because the small serving of spinach that came with the foie gras was so good. We also had Pinor Noir - a glass each. We ended the meal with a dessert platter, in which we substituted their sticky date pudding for an additional profiterole.

Before our orders were served, we were served three variety of breads with butter, and some cheese something that I couldn't catch the waitress mumbling. Out of the three breads, I liked the hard roll and and foccacia. The last raisin roll I didn't like since I don't care for raisins too much, although Lynn did de-raisin half a roll for me. We had seconds for the foccacia and hard roll, which came hot. Love hot bread with butter!!

The soup came just when we were starting round two of the breads. The server had thoughtfully split our soup into two bowls for us. The mushroom soup was rich, full of mushroom bits, with a mascarpone and parmesan crisp. The fragrance of the truffle oil floated up to our noses the moment the soup was set down. Sadly, we could smell it but couldn't quite taste it. The crisp was so cheesy and good with the soup. Subsequently found out that if we let the soup sit for a while and the temperature drops a little, we could taste the truffle oil better. Yum!

The foie gras was a little of a disappointment. Wasn't quite as soft and melty as we liked. In fact it was quite similar to that of Bedrock's, in that I wasn't seduced to want to have it again. (Bedrock was my first time having foie gras, and I didn't get hooked. Only got hooked when we went to Brawn). I think it's not quite as fatty, which will explain the less-than-ideal aroma, and the harder than preferred consistency. Oh well, means that this was a slightly less cruel meal right?

Then came the steak. It wasn't wagyu, so did not have the rich fatty aroma that I so love. However, the meat was lean yet tender, with a very good chew. I agree with ladyironchef - this was a very very good piece of meat. The eye of the ribeye is supposed to be the best part of the ribeye. Our 340g shared between the two of us was a very nice portion. There were occasional fats at the edges that tasted more aromatic. There were some parts that was a little too charred - doesn't bother me but Lynn didn't seem to like it.

The duck was a let down again. It didn't match up to Ember's, and there was no foie gras taste at all in the mashed potatoes! The fats weren't quite melty enough, and by the end of the meal, I was quite sick in the stomach of the fats. The creamed spinach was very nice on the first mouthful - creamy and smooth. Towards the end, it started tasting a little like curry vegetable. Not sure why, must be a full stomach warping my senses.

Our dessert platter was selected because we couldn't decide what to eat. We were told to eat them in a specific order - Lychee Granité and lemon meringue tart first because the sourness helps clear our palate. Then the apple strudel, then the profiterole, and finally the Valrhona Chocolate Mille Feuille. We ended up sampling the Chocolate Mille Feuille first because we love Valrhona chocolate. Then we did everything in our own time and sequence. Lol. I mentioned a birthday celebration during my reservation and Privé gave us a complimentary, nicely decorated slice of birthday cake. Unfortunately they didn't inform us earlier, so with that entire dessert platter, we had to forego half the cake. 

Cream cheese something

Bread and butter

Mushroom soup with white truffle oil and mascarpone and parmesan crisp

Pan-fried foie gras

Eye of ribeye - half portion

Duck confit

Foie gras mashed potatoes

Dessert platter

Profiteroles

Apple strudel and vanilla bean ice cream

Valrhona chocolate mille fueille

Lychee Granite

Lemon meringue tart

Prettily decorated cake plate

Like the rainbow and the hearts!

We really enjoyed the steak here, tasty to the very last bite. Next time we probably will skip the foie gras, stick to the soup, and see if we can't order something else. I did remember that the other stuff on the appetizers list didn't tempt us too much. The seafood platter on the Josper menu looked pretty good though, may try it next time in substitution of the duck confit. Steakwise, this place scores. Saw a few vegetarian options on their menu too, may bring my hubby back for some special dinner some day.

Paradise Inn (Funan)

This dinner was essentially decided by Groupon. Haha... I chanced upon a Groupon which was $8 for a Traditional Double Boiled soup worth $17.90. Expecting myself to have some solo lunches because of hubby's alternate Saturday work schedule, I purchased it months ago for one of those Saturdays. Turned out I never had that solo lunch. The groupon was expiring this week, so I finally headed to Paradise Inn on Monday at Thomson Plaza, only to discover that the soup is meant for 2-4 pax. No way I could finish that alone (maybe I could, but I didn't want to look like a glutton trying).

So I asked Lynn out for dinner yesterday to make use of this deal, and we decided on the Funan branch. Initially she was asking who else was going, before I pointed out that two of us soup lovers falls within the '2-4' pax. Not because of our larger than average appetite. You do need to know that 1 serving in a Chinese restaurant typically means a small rice bowl full, which really isn't a lot.

We chose a Spareribs with Winter Melon with conpoy soup, and added on fried white bait fish, three egg fried spinach in stock, and a Supreme Seafood fried rice. The soup came in a pretty large pot, which divides out to about 3 small bowl-full of soup for each of us. The soup was rich, very sweet from the conpoy and spareribs. The ribs were tender. Lynn found them a little to 'porky', but nothing a dip in chilli with soya sauce can't solve. Guess the groupon made it worthwhile - $8 for a huge crockpot of soup. But not something I will pay $17.90 for... I'd rather go to Soup Restaurant for that kind price. I mean, I do like it, but not at this price. (And seriously, both my moms can fix a soup at this standard...)

The fried white bait were quite small. Very crispy all the way through. Nice in a kind of way, but we prefer those slightly bigger ones which are crispy on the outside, but you can still feel the fish inside. These ones were just crispy - a little like fish flavored potato chips or something. The spinach, hm... wasn't bad, but I had better ones elsewhere. Still, it was a good complement to our fried rice and fish, considering we were both having bad throats and really should be avoiding fried food... The fried rice was very regular tasting fried rice with good portions of shrimp meat.

Small bowls of soups dished out for us by the server

The main pot of Spareribs and Winter Melon soup with Conpoy

Three egg fried spinach

Fried white bait fish

Supreme Seafood Fried Rice

Overall the food weren't too bad, but wasn't something we would rave about. Pretty pricey actually. I always say Pu Tien serves very regular homestyle food for ridiculous prices, but with what I just paid for, I'd rather go to Pu Tien. I do think Pu Tien's chef does a better job. The service staff who collected our payment wasn't very nice too. He was literally waiting with his arms outstretched while I was trying to look through the receipt entries. And our card wasn't returned to us after 15 minutes. We had to go to the cashier counter to ask for it. Not exactly the best service...

Shin Kushiya (VivoCity)

My foie gras craving hit again, and I needed to return Lynn her truffle salt (which I had carefully weighed out exactly half for myself). She suggested Shin Kushiya for their foie gras kushiyaki. Sounds awesome, and it seems to match the truffle salt...

First round of orders were all kushiyakis. The foie gras with caramelized apples came first. Slightly crispy on the outside, so soft and melty inside, and oh-so-blissfully yummilicious. The truffle flavor got lost in the sweet teriyaki sauce so we didn't go too much in that direction. Two generous pieces of liver for about $10. We were carefully savoring every morsel of it. Every thing else came in a single platter. We ordered chicken balls, stuffed shitake mushrooms, Ton Toro (pork neck), pork belly, asparagus wrapped in thinly sliced beef, premium beef, and mozzarella wrapped in thinly sliced pork. The chicken balls were aromatic, and mushrooms were good. Pork neck had a lot of tendon in it that I couldn't chew through and didn't care too much for. The pork belly was a little tough too. Asparagus was horribly tough, too 'old'. I couldn't even bite through the stem. We couldn't taste the cheese in the the mozzerella wrap. The highlight of this platter? The premium beef. It was fantastically enhanced by our truffle salt, so we had that blissful silence for a little bit. (This 'blissful' description is coming up quite a bit, but we've somehow started describing our food that way... can't find a better way to represent our feelings at that point of time.)

Second round of order included a garlic fried rice, pumpkin salad, fried octopus and squid in batter, and grilled onigiri (triangular rice ball) with bonito flakes. The garlic rice was really good - fragrant, with each rice grain separately well from the next, but still sticky the way Japanese rice is. The pumpkin salad was nice, but nothing spectacular. In fact, we found they used potatoes to bulk up the salad before added pumpkin to the top, so there wasn't a lot of pumpkin. The fried octopus and squid was quite heavily battered and a little too oily. Though the seafood were fresh, I couldn't quite tell which were the octopus and which the squid. The onigiri was almost forgettable, until we realized it's blandness went well with our truffle salt.

Grilled foie gras with caramelized apples

All our kushiyaki - (from left) stuffed mushroom, chicken ball, pork neck, pork belly, pork with mozzarella, prime beef, asparagus with beef

Garlic rice

Roasted pumpkin salad

Fried octopus and squid

Grilled onigiri with bonito flakes

I think I had better kushiyaki at a Japanese restaurant at Cuppage, I can't remember its name offhand. Except for the foie gras of course, that was the utmost highlight of this meal. The premium beef kushiyaki too. I can come back just for these two items. We actually saw wafu steak and beef katsu (beef cutlet) on their menu. Those looked tempting, but we weren't sure of the quality of Japanese steaks. I mean, yes, some of the best meats comes from Japan, but we're not sure the chef is eloquent at cooking steaks. Badly done steaks will be a damper, no? But the beef katsu sure looked interesting, and we may try it the next time, given the premium beef kushiyaki was so good.