Truffles at Otto

I've gone to Otto for lunch off and on since the last blog post, but none of the experiences were worth blogging about until the husband decided to be nice and organise a truffle meal just for the sake of having done it. We read somewhere that the white truffles were from the Langhe area of the Piedmont region in northern Italy and from the countryside around Alba.

The menu looks deceptively cheap, but these are all pre-truffle prices. If I don't recall incorrectly, shavings were $14 per gram.

An amuse bouche of smoked duck and mashed something. Not very memorable.

My starter was the scrambled egg with blue swimmer crab and white truffle ($19). It came looking like a rather thick paste.
The husband ordered the mushroom soup with foie gras morsels and white truffles ($19). So we were wondering for a while - where where the truffles?
And voila - they appeared in the form of ugly knobs on a weighing scale.
As the waiter shaved the truffles onto the plate, I could smell the aroma. It was amazing! The taste of the egg before and after the truffes was so different.
The husband's soup - after. The flavour of the mushroom soup was so nicely enhanced by those thin shavings. We were weak and truffle-laden. Heh.
I ordered the homemade egg tagliolini with white truffle and white truffle emulsion ($26). I got excited just by looking at the texture of the pasta. I love freshly-made pasta.
The waiter gamely brought over a huge truffle so I could photograph it.
This was huge! Alas we couldn't eat it all.
Hard at work shaving over the pasta.

The glorious end result
The husband's dutch veal scaloppine with marsala wine and white truffle ($38). I'm not a veal fan so I wasn't too sure about this, but he enjoyed it.
I would rank this among one of the best pastas ever. Al dente, flavourful, and bursting full of truffle flavour. I wished I could have ordered another plate.

The greedy boy ordered the white truffle creme brulee for dessert.
It was insane. I've never tasted anything like it - sweet cream so evenly infused with truffle flavour, and super smooth too.

The bill was a bomb, but it was worth every penny. We agreed that we would not eat at another fancy restaurant for the rest of the year. That's why our New Year's Eve dinner is going to be teochew muay.

Nadaman Again

We tried Nadaman for dinner with a discount - it's not worth the money otherwise. The husband and I ordered the omakase sets, and I can't quite recall what they cost but they were rather Exhorbitant with a capital E.

The emptiness of the restaurant says it all.
The starters for his set - a tofu dish, a fried fish and baby bok choy. Very ordinary.
I ordered a slightly less expensive set and had the tofu and bok choy.
A clear broth with a tofu/egg like cube.
His sashimi - otoro (or chutoro?), hotate and snapper I think it was
My sashimi - maguro, tai (sea bream) and the same unmemorable/unidentifiable fish. Slightly less elite cuts.
There was a california roll that came with one of the sets (I forget which).
Teriyaki gindara. Normal.
There was a serve of foie gras on braised daikon.
This was pretty good!
Random vegetable dish to fill up the time and space.
The tempura was pretty good quality. Crisp and light. Enjoyed this very much.
The husband had sushi. This looked pretty. I'm sure it tasted good too.
Lots of fatty looking fish.
I had teppanyaki beef - this was very yummy. Loved the garlic and pepper.
I also had the udon. I couldn't tell whether it was freshly made or not, but it felt like dehydrated udon to me.
Texture wasn't too bad, but fresh is always better.
Yuzu sherbet
Black sesame ice cream on top of creme brulee
Definitely an enjoyable meal, but it created a significant dent on the wallet. We're not gonna be going until the next major discount.

Hill Street Tai Hwa Bak Chor Mee

I've resisted posting about this stall for a while because it's crowded enough and certainly doesn't need a larger following (which equals longer queues). But I've come to realise that good food is worth sharing about, and so reluctantly I've decided to post this.

Side thought - why are all the BEST (my vote for best Char Kway Teow and best Bak Chor Mee) stalls from Hill Street? It must have been one heck of a foodie paradise in its heyday. I remember my dad buying braised duck from the hawker centre that was pretty damn good.

Back to the Bak Chor Mee. The erractically long queue (but always long). Normal waiting time is about half an hour on average.

And after all those excruciating moments lining up, this is what you get. Lard-laden, vinegar-splashed, salt-fish laced Heaven in a bowl. Words are not enough to describe how amazing this bak chor mee is. The perfect combination of salty, sour and meaty on top of al dente noodles.
We normally order a side bowl of wantons and pork balls to share. The normal serve is not enough.
No address supplied. Don't compete with me in the queue. Go figure it out yourself.

Hill Street Char Kway Teow

The husband and I were determined to try Hill Street Char Kway Teow before the old hawker stopped frying, and drove to Bedok one Sunday after church. We saw lots of people queuing but no one standing in line, which was nice.
The char kway teow did not disappoint. It was moist, sweet, spicy with all the flavours of the different ingredients coming together in an amazing way. Calories worth consuming.

Hill Street Char Kway Teow

Blk 16 Bedok South Road

#01-187 Bedok South Road Market & Food Centre

Tel: +65 9042 1312

Set Lunch at Crystal Jade Dining In, Vivocity

The husband passed his exams recently and picked me up for lunch to celebrate one dull and uneventful Friday afternoon. The wonderful man had even booked a table for 2 at Crystal Jade Vivocity after remembering that I had waxed lyrical about the set lunch. I can't remember how much it cost but it was a 7-course set lunch that we thought was pretty good value. $48? $58??

We both started with the roast pork and jellyfish. Crystal Jade has amazing roast pork. The skin is always crispy and the meat always moist.
I had the shark's fin soup with crab roe - the standard starchy fare that went great with red wine vinegar.
The husband had a more eggy version. I liked mine better.
We had a great view of the waterfront. And envied all those other people dining on company entertainment accounts.
We ordered the XO carrot cake as a side dish - I've always liked this dish. Wonderfully soft carrot cake with amazing dried seafood flavour.
A close up. This was probably about 10 bucks.
Steamed chicken with black fungus
Black pepper beef ribs
Ha cheong gai. This deserves special mention. It's probably one of the best har cheong gai I've ever eaten. The skin was super crispy, the inside oozing flavour and moisture.
Cereal prawns. This was okay.
But super pretty!
Finally the carbo to end the meal - I had steamed chicken on top of steamed rice. I have to say that this was a real surprise - I hadn't expected very much of this dish, but it was really enjoyable because it was so simple. The chicken must have been marinated with rice wine, and the soy flavour was intense without being salty.
The husband had zha jiang mian which I normally view with some amount of suspicion. The noodles were nice but the sauce was rather lacklustre, falling back on cheap bottled chilli sauce (or that was how it appeared to me).
Dessert was mango with sago/pomelo (I forget now). Normal, nice, decent.
More hits than misses. We'll need to do this at another special occasion.