Les Amis Au Jardin

The afternoon before the dinner at Mortons, we celebrated the first birthday of the daughter of a couple very dear to us - they were instrumental at ensuring the errant keyboard player at our wedding didn't continue playing our opening song in the wrong key. The party for the clueless one-year old was at Au Jardin at the Botanic Gardens - it was a great party, too bad the VIP probably can't remember any of it (usually this applies to old people too, when they get drunk).

We were on the second floor of the restored bungalow.

Even the decoration looked good enough to eat.

The savouries from top to bottom: smoked salmon sandwich, prawn beignet, scrambled egg with caviar and mini caesar salad tartlet. They were pretty good, actually, especially with the Cloudy Bay that was served (not pictured). The mini caesar salad tart was very interesting.

The sweets from left to right: financiers, almond and raspberry crumble, berries tartlet, chocolate tartlet and opera cake. The almond and raspberry crumble was a winner, particularly with pink Vevue Cliquot champagne (not pictured).

Birthday cake: strawberries and cream from The Patissier. This was easily one of the best non-chocolate cakes I have ever eaten. It went beautifully with coffee.

Mortons The Steakhouse

When I was at Mortons with the husband 2 weekends ago, it was quite apparent that September was a good month for birthdays since we heard the Mortons staff sing happy birthday no less than 10 times the entire 3 hours we were there. Since we were there for the same reason, we couldn't really complain although around the 4th time or so, we started feeling a bit strange.

I'll start with the service: it was excellent. We had a waiter called Anand who was apparently from KL. He was friendly, unobtrusive and the only waiter in Singapore that made me feel that I wanted to leave a big tip despite having paid the service charge.

The night started off with him explaining the different cuts of meat, seafood and veggies that they had that evening. He also said the bread was the best in Singapore....we were skeptical until he brought out a beautifully baked onion loaf that was still warm. We had to stop ourselves from eating too much.

For starters, we had natural oysters...they were very fresh and tasted wonderful with the horseradish and lemon.

We also had lobster bisque that our wonderful waiter took the initiative to split into 2 bowls without being asked. This was probably the best lobster bisque I had ever eaten....it had a fresh crustacean taste without being fishy, and I dare say that there was quite a bit of brandy thrown in too.

My rib eye steak - done medium. USDA beef is really something else....having lived in Australia for 6 years, I was quite used to good beef, but this was much better than anything I had ever eaten in Australia. It was tender, tasty, fragrant - simply perfect.
The husband's tenderloin fillet butterflied, and our side dish of mushrooms and spinach.

I was a bit embarrassed to photograph the Idaho potato that my husband ordered since I was using a flash, and was worried that I had taken too many photos already. But the Idaho potato was really good as well - I've never eaten a potato so tasty on its own.

The warm chocolate souffle came free for the birthday girl : ) with Haagen Dazs ice cream.

It certainly wasn't a cheap meal, coming up to almost $400 since we both had a glass of wine each. But it was worth the once-in-a-lifetime experience...unless the husband and I both get better-paying jobs soon.

Mandarin Oriental Singapore

Fourth Storey5 Raffles AvenueMarina Square

Phone: 6339 3740

Bar open from Mon- Sat 5pm - 11pm, Sunday 5pm - 10pm

Dining Room open from Mon - Sat 5:30pm - 11pm, Sunday 5pm - 10pm

The best or luak in Singapore

I had heard about Ah Chuan from the ieatishootipost website, and finally managed to make my way down to Toa Payoh. The stall is located within a food centre, but only a handful of stalls are open at night. It's quite quiet, and if you're looking for other things to eat, it may be difficult to find something you really like.

There were quite a number of people waiting around 8pm on a Friday night. We waited about 15 mins....not too bad, in my opinion (I've waited an hour for bak chor mee before).

When we finally got our plate of or luak, we realised the wait was all worth it...the starchy bits were soft and fluffy, it was nicely flavoured (not too salty), and the egg was cooked just right- not too hard either. The chilli was excellent too.

Don't get there too late though...they started wrapping up at 8.30pm.

The satay stall at the corner is pretty good too.

Ah Chuan Oyster Omelette

Toa Payoh Lorong 7 Food Centre Blk 22

Stall 01-25, 3pm-9pm, Closed Tuesdays

M Hotel Buffets

I was at the M Hotel 2 weeks in a row for buffets...the first was for lunch (courtesy of my big boss), and the second was for dinner (courtesy of my uni mates). They have a buffet restaurant on the second floor, where the entire place just revolves around the buffet. The lunch buffet is $36 per adult, which the steamboat dinner buffet costs $40 per adult.

First, the lunch buffet. They had cooked seafood - clams, prawns and mussels.

Sashimi and sushi

The salad bar

Sarawak laksa

Roast meats - duck, pork and char siew

tempura soft-shell crab

breads to go with curry

the salad bar again

the dessert consisted mostly small bites of kueh and cakes

jellies

I didn't see the fruits and durian pengat till later, by which time I was happily eating with my colleagues and had put my camera away. I ate 3 bowls of durian : )

The next visit a week later, I went for the steamboat dinner buffet. The entire place was packed solid on a Wed night.

The meats - beef, chicken, pork, lamb and other various innards
The carbs: noodles of various styles

various mushrooms and tofus

seafood - they even had promfrets

yong tau fu station

Dips and chinese herbs. I was most pleased with the herbs!

The veggies - a pretty good variety

more carbs...I didn't try them though

The dips were really good. They had suki sauce, sesame sauce, sesame oil, spring onions, garlic, chilli, ginger, soy sauce - you name it, they had it. Just one thing that I was craving that wasn't there...chilli oil. Otherwise it would have been perfect.

The dinner desserts were more interesting than the lunch desserts. They even had green tea panna cotta (which I was too stuffed to try)

Jellies

Drunken prawns. These were really fresh...EXCELLENT! We had numerous servings.

Throwing it all in

The best finale to dinner - durian pengat! (I had 3 bowls again)

I would rate the dinner buffet as being more worth the money and value, since the food was of pretty good quality. I really enjoyed the different soups, and adding in the herbs to my own liking made me happy since I felt was in in control of how herbal I wanted the soup. The lunch buffet wasn't priced as attractively as other buffets which give much more food for a few dollars more.

I'm keen to go back for the steamboat. Any takers?

M Hotel

The Buffet at the 2nd Floor

81 Anson Road

Tel: 6500 6116

Kaiho Sushi

After hearing many good things about the various Japanese restaurants in Cuppage, a couple of girlfriends and I decided to try out one of the places that does an omakase dinner (ok, it was really me that made the decision to try it out). Kaiho Sushi is run by a Singaporean chef who, from various online reviews, has apparently worked in various famous places under various famous people. He has a $48 and $100 menu - we decided to go for the $100 menu since we had a reason to celebrate.

First up: dare I call it an amuse bouche? Boiled spinach with sesame sauce. Very normal.

Course 1: Salmon soft bone. This tasted a bit like picked cabbage, but with a bit more bite. I couldn't quite appreciate it, especially since I'm not really a fish fan.

Course 2: Sashimi. This was pretty good. I have no idea what fishes were in the set (anyone can give some advice?), but there was most definitely otoro which was really good. The ama ebi was extrememly fresh as well.

Course 3: Shimeiji soup. This was fairly ordinary too - just a clear mushroom broth.

Course 4: Kama shioyaki. This was really quite good (high praise considering I'm not a fish fan) - the fish cheek was meaty, tender and tasty, and went well with the grated radish.

Course 5: Kisu Tempura - this was nice, but fairly ordinary and not at all mind-blowing.

Course 6: Assorted sushi - there was hotate, sake and toro....not sure what the other fish were. The fish was fresh, and the rice nicely vinegared.
Course 7: dessert, which was 1 scoop of ice cream. We had a choice between yuzu, black sesame and green tea. I chose the yuzu, which was very nice and delicately flavoured. Quite a refreshing end to the meal.

Verdict: At $100 per head, this wasn't terribly exciting, and I'm not sure that I would go back again for the omakase. The food was decent, and the raw fish was very fresh so if there is a next time, most likely I would go for only the sushi and sashimi.

Kaiho Sushi Restaurant
5 Koek Road, Cuppage Plaza #03-01/02
Tel:67381315
Website: http://www.bernardtang.com/

Random Meals in Bangkok

We ate quite a bit in Bangkok, all over the city and at various eating places. The first night, we found this restaurant on the top floor of Central World at Siam. We were initially looking for another restaurant instead, but this looked pretty authentic, plus there were lots of locals waiting for a table. There was no English name, but I'm guessing with my limited Thai that the restaurant was called Tha-Siam.

They had mostly pork-based dishes, and also served sticky rice which we were very pleased about.

Sticky rice goes better with larb than steamed rice...which works better with curries.

The husband and I love larb. Unfortunately, we forgot that Thai people love innards...so the larb came with a variety of heart, lung, intestines and other unidentifiable objects, making up about half the plate :(

The tom yum goong was really tasty. We enjoyed this very much.

The chicken wings were very good as well - crispy and not at all oily.

What's a Thai meal without som tum - phet nit noy : ) The entire meal cost us 300 baht, including drinks = approximately S$20. Not bad for 3 people dining in air-conditioned comfort.

The following night, we decided to try this restaurant called Somboon somewhere near the National Stadium. It took up almost 3/4 of the street. It reminded me of Jumbo restaurant - very popular and full of locals.

The signature dish is the curry crab. We found it decent, but not particularly mind-blowing.

Kangkung with garlic

Squid with garlic

Vermicelli with large prawns....this was pretty good.

Tom yum talaay - fairly ordinary.

The next day, we headed for a nearby coffeeshop to have lunch. We ordered standard coffeeshop stuff, including fishball noodle soup (kuey teow nam sai look chin), phad thai and fried rice (kao phad gai).

At the airport, after checking in, we had our last fix of som tum and kuey teow nam neua : )