Restaurant Andre

The husband and I went to Andre almost 2 months ago for his birthday dinner, thanks to me losing a bet with him that I thought I was sure to win. The entire episode, which cost me almost $800 in dinner expenditure, has left me extremely scarred, and I now no longer make any more bets with him.

We had a Friday night booking which we rang up 2 weeks prior to make, which surprised us since we called up shortly after the top restaurant list came out, and the restaurant was pretty empty when we got there. It filled up after, but it still didn't feel very full. 

Which suited us fine, since we were all geared up to try Singapore's top restaurant. A lot has been said and written about Andre Chiang's Octa-Philosophy, which frankly felt like a lot of complicated words that didn't make a lot of sense to me when put together. But we were game and waiting to be impressed.

The part that got me most uncomfortable was how well-behaved, cultured, polite and quiet we felt we had to be. Not quite us, actually.

The amuse bouches came - this was masala chicken skin

Popcorn vanilla

Porcini crisps with chocolate soil and patatas bravas

Lobster sandwich

PURE - a mixture of seafood with no seasoning, including amaebi, ocean trout, spanish palamos, wild herbs and normandy mussels. We had a 2011 Loire Valley sauv blanc to go with the meal, and it was excellent.

SALT - comprising sea lettuce (isn't this just seaweed?), shimeji mushrooms, apples, caviar on top of an oyster tartare.

BREAD (not one of the octa items)

ARTISAN - Smoked Kyoto eggplant with crisp duck tongues and salsify.

SOUTH - Apparently inspired by what must have been a trip to Montpellier, comprising 2 stacks of interlocking plates. The first was risotto with spanish mackeral, pan-seared seabass, and kampachi with bisque foam.

The second was persimmon, tomato sorbet, gazpacho, seaweed, hirame,

TEXTURE - Brittany blue lobster with gnocchi and truffle on a scallop cream

A close up, with the caviar

UNIQUE - grilled French artichoke and a Japanese barracuda fish.

MEMORY - This was the highlight of my meal. Foie gras jelly with black truffle coulis.

Too little, and gone too fast. Definitely appropriately named.

I have not tasted a better foie gras+truffle combi, and I doubt I ever will.

TERROIR - rabbit done rare, wrapped in pancetta with squash puree and charred leeks.

The first dessert was freeze-dried wildberries, honey ice cream, and berry mousse.

The second was a chocolate dessert that I don't remember much of, apart from ice cream and chocolate soil bits.

The Petit fours included madeleines, popcorn with popping candy and fruit pastilles.

And these little sorbet balls which neither my husband and I can recall the flavour of

Our verdict - excellent food, but it definitely came at a very high price. After factoring in 2 glasses of wine and taxes, the bill for 2 came to almost $800. Which was more than what we paid for our entire Bali holiday.  The same amount of money buys an economy class seat to Australia on Emirates, or feeds and educates a child in Batam for more than 1 year. So while we were grateful we had the means to enjoy a meal like that, it was something that we would never repeat, because it felt so wrong to have spent so much money on something so temporal.  No more bets. EVER. (especially if I'm going to lose them).

Plus, at this age, having really good zi char or seafood at a casual coffeeshop where they give you wine glasses without charging corkage, with a rowdy bunch of friends is what we've realised makes us really happy anyway.