Big Mama at Kim Tian Road

Big Mama is a fabulous place for dinner on Saturday nights - we were there in a group of 7, and having booked the first seating at 6pm, we were told we had to leave before 8pm. No problems there, since the food arrived very quickly. It's a homely, unpretentious place and excellent for large rowdy groups, since you can get to try a bit of everything - the servings are huge.

They're very generous with the appetisers, and when the plates were emptied, offered refills cheerfully. Top marks for service.

Close-up of the various appetisers -my favourite was the jelly-like spicy blocks, which were a bit like cubed 凉粉.

I absolutely loved their seafood and chives pancake. Soft on the inside and crispy on the outside.

Great with the chilli dipping sauce

We ordered suyuk, which is...siu yuk. The platter arrived looking like this:

Ooh the pork was delicious - very soft and tender, and not too fatty so it didn't feel too sinful popping everything into our mouths

Two ways of eating it: either with sauce and cucumber, or with a slice of radish and bean sprouts.

Bulgogi beef - this turned out soupier than expected, but still tasty nonetheless.
 
We ordered a spicy grilled chicken, which came with raw veggies and had to be stir-fried at the table.

The final product with rice cakes - excellent.


The seafood hotpot was really good as well - this was not too salty, just the right amount of spice and really good with white steamed rice.

It had noodles at the bottom, which were nice and chewy.

A fantastic place to go with greedy friends.

Website: http://bigmama.sg/menu 

Bistecca alla Fiorentina Take 2

Our second (and self-declared last) bistecca of the trip at Trattoria Mario's - THE Florentine institution at the Mercato Centrale. They're open only for lunch and are horribly crowded, but their bistecca is fantastic- juicy, tender and thick. Not cheap at 35Euros but it's money spent happily.

Steak with truffles

Steak with black truffles shaved over, done medium rare. Juicy, fragrant and beautiful with a glass of red.

Il Cantastorie, Florence, Italy.

Bistecca alla Fiorentina

Grilled medium rare, seasoned only with pepper, salt and olive oil.

Ristorante Osteria Enoteca Sotto Le Fonti, Siena

Burrata with Truffles

The most amazing burrata ever - topped with shaved black truffles
La Scala, Trastevere, Rome

Lunch at Au Petit Salut

Au Petit Salut has a great set lunch for $36++, and we had a very nice lunch there one weekday afternoon - it was cool, cloudy and perfect for sitting outdoors.

They were pretty generous with the flow of bread, which was nice.
I had the escargot for my starter - the bread was excellent with the herb+garlic butter.
The snails were tender, but it's the sauce that makes or breaks the dish. This one had a bit too much tomato at the bottom, but nothing to complain about really.The husband had the pork and prune terrine. He probably thought it was undersized :) But he liked it - not too salty, and not too fatty. The husband had the beef stew that came with horseradish froth (which we thought was a bit too much). I thought this was a brilliant dish - the sauce was like a consomme, very light and drinkable. The beef cheeks were super tender as well. I liked this better than he did.
I had the bavette steak, which we found out, was something similar to skirt. He liked this more than I did. So being good Asian diners, we swopped plates eventually. The fries were super crispy.
His dessert was a lemon chocolate tart with yuzu sauce and a camomile honey sorbet, which cost an extra $4. All was good until I tried the sorbet...the only thought that went through my head was "YARDLEY".
I liked my cheese platter though. For a supplement of $6, I got comte and reblochon after having told the waiter that I did not want any goat or blue cheeses. This was a very happy ending to a very enjoyable meal.
Website: http://www.aupetitsalut.com/aps/aps-contact.php

Japanese Curry Recipe

We bought a couple of random packets of curry back from Tokyo to try cooking Japanese curry at home, and were pleasantly surprised to find out how easy it was. I feel kinda cheated all these years for spending all that money at restaurants eating karei rice, when it's so simple and cost-efficient to do it at home. This particular pack (House brand) that we bought from Tokyo was very flavourful. When we found it in Istean Scotts, we immediately stocked up on a few more packets. There are no instructions in English though, so there is a need to figure out how these things work. Chopped up carrots and potatoes - the Indonesian potatoes were great. Chuck is good for the recipe too - all you need is about 2 hours of stewing.
I fried one large chopped onion in a combination of butter and olive oil, before adding the beef, and then the carrots and potatoes.
After that, the mixture needs to stew for a couple of hours in some stock - I used chicken stock, which helped to add some flavour. The curry paste only goes in after the beef is tender, and not before - otherwise the likelihood of burning is much higher. It kinda looks like chocolate blocks.
This is what you get after throwing the curry paste (or rather, blocks) in - the paste has starch in it, so everything immediately thickens. More water can always be added.
We were cooking udon, so we got it ready in a separate pot.
Ugly, but really yummy.
Since I had a lot of curry, the next day I went to Isetan and bought pork katsus and rice from the supermarket cooked food counter, and instantly we had katsu curry rice. Cheap, fast and easy.