Club St Social

I had walked past Club St Social many times before actually going in, and had wondered if it had anything to do with Pollen Street Social in London. I don't have the answer to that, but after having lunch there once, I'm convinced that they serve a great lunch. The problem, however, is that it comes at a rather high price which I'm not willing to pay on even a monthly basis. The lunch I had set me back $50, coffee included. However I went there at a pretty stressful time, and so was happy to pay that sort of money as a form of escapism. Now that I'm thinking a bit more rationally, I'd say that the food was good but not really worth that amount.

We started with the octopus, artichoke and potato salad ($18). I love octopus, so this was fabulous. The dressing was quite mild, and the octopus was very tender.

The grilled ribeye panini ($28) was fantastic. Let's say that the only other steak sandwich that comes remotely close is the Mortons steak sandwich...which comes free with martinis but that's another story altogether.

Pan seared lobster, avocado and yuzu mayo ($28) - expensive but oh so good, with thick meaty lobster pieces and creamy avocado and yuzu mayo sauce.

I really like how they've done the interior, with a super high ceiling and lots of natural light. A great place for lunching alone at the bar.

5 Gemmill Lane, off Club Street
Tel: +65 6225 5043
www.clubstreetsocial.com

Beef Bourguignon

We must have done something right, because we got invited back to the home of our favourite French chef for yet another dinner. Expectations were running high, and were most certainly not misplaced. We started the evening with a glass of red, some saucission and cheeseThey were fantastic with the wine. I think it was Emmental cheese, but can't say so for sure since I promptly forgot what it was after the glass of wine.

D cooked the same scallop dish which he prepared the last time - sauteed in butter. We were so happy to be able to eat it again.
Adding some lemon
In the meantime, the mashed potatoes were being prepared
He had already prepared his leek and carrot base
And in a cast iron pot, the beef bourguignon was already bubbling away - there was tomato paste, bay leaves, carrots, red wine and mushrooms in the pot.I gotta get myself one of these pots.
Scallops pan fried to perfection on a bed of carrot and leek, served with a wedge of lemon
Another look - this was absolutely delicious.
Wine No. 2
Hot crusty bread out of the oven
This photo below honestly doesn't do any justice to the dish. It was amazing. I have never enjoyed beef bourguignion this much. There probably isn't a better one to be found in Singapore, I dare say.
Amazing with the mashed potatoes. I'm so glad my friend A married D.
We were careful to buy only French cheese - Brie, Comte, St Albrey and one more (can't remember after 3 glasses of wine)
Our other friend made a lemon tart - this was great tooGood food and good friends - who could ask for anything more. No one needs rhythm and music

Oxtail Stew

I'm a huge oxtail fan, and it's not been easy to find good oxtail stew in Singapore. The best I've had recently was at the Tavern at the Tanglin Club but that's not exactly an everyday restaurant for me. So I managed to dig out a recipe to cook my own, one day after work.

I had 2 types of carrot pieces - those super fine ones for flavour, and the larger ones to eat as part of the stew

A few sticks of finely-chopped celery make a huge difference in the flavour of the dish
Frying it all up with garlic and onions, and setting it aside.
I rolled the oxtail pieces in some plain flour, seasoned with salt and pepper
These were fried as well
The good stuff - not that we would have chosen to cook with such good wine, but it really had to be drunk (it was beautiful, by the way...and even better after about 20 mins of breathing)In everything went, with some beef stockThe end result a few hours later - meat falling off the bone. Fantastic with a warm ciabatta.

Eng's Wanton Mee

We were itching to try something new out and turned to the internet to help us decide. This wanton mee stall had pretty good ratings, so we set out for brunch one weekend venturing to a place neither of us had been to before - Tanjong Katong Road - which always seemed so intimidating with all the traffic and parking problems. We found parking easily outside some poor bungalow owner's house.

You order from a form and bring it to the counter.
We ordered 2 bowls of dry noodles, as well as choy sum and fried wantons on the side. The char siew was super lean. The noodles were slightly thicker than mee kia, and were coated in a pork-lard flavoured oil. Loved them.

They are also famous for their chilli sauce, reputedly super hot - a couple of dashes were all it took to suddenly make our bowl of noodles a lot more flavourful.All in, a fantastic bowl of wanton noodles. We'll be back.

287 Tanjong Katong Road

Open from 11am-9pm

Leslie Tay has a great write up here: http://ieatishootipost.sg/2012/06/eng-wanton-mee-death-by-chilli.html

Esquina

We had heard a lot about Esquina recently, and while we normally make it a point not to try to follow the crowd, it was too tempting not to head there after leaving the office at 6.00pm on the dot the first day the boss was out of town. We got there at 6.10pm, only to be told that there were no more seats inside. No problem, we took one of the tables along the five-foot way.

We started with a serve of toasted corn

Which was fantastic with a Margaret River Chardonnay

My normal habit is to head straight for a red, but I had no regrets ordering this - not too dry, nicely balanced and it went well with almost everything we ordered.

First up was the salt and pepper squid with black ink aioli - this was very enjoyable, and much more tender with the use of baby squid instead of large squid pieces. They managed to get the batter down pat - nice and crispy and not too oily. Loved the black ink aioli as well - the squid ink added an extra dimension to the otherwise mayonnaise-like flavour.
It was great with the green chillies. Next up was the iberico pork and foie gras burger. This was superb. The meat was tender, juicy and absolutely flavourful. Up close - the only problem was that these weren't very large at all. We could have done with another serve. This was the confit pork belly with pork skin, chorizo and white beans. It wasn't as soft as we would have wanted it though, and the flavour of the accompanying chorizo/white bean stew wasn't all that exquisite.

The pork skin was average - not as crispy as we expected as well.

Since the servings were so small, we made additional orders - the ox cheek, topped with tongue served on a bed of what must have been sweet potato mash, was excellent.

The squid saffron and red pepper paella was pretty good too, but again, it was a rather small serve for some 20 odd dollars. Final verdict on this place: excellent food, great atmosphere but not really value for money (we spent around $175), and so we're not sure if we'll be back except for super special occasions. I'm sure there are many many people willing to patronise this place who earn more than us, and we also hope that it stays around for a long time.

Taste Paradise

We had our Mother's Day dim sum at Taste Paradise - this is a super overdue post - after protracted research on where the most value-for-money dim sum in Singapore was. And we ordered A Lot Of Food.

First up - glutinous rice wrapped in lotus leaf.
This was pretty good - nice and moist, with a good balance of rice vs meat. Cheong fun with char siew. Loved this - the rolls were soft yet supple.

The 口水鸡 here has to be THE BEST in Singapore. It's a beautiful balance of sesame sauce, chilli oil and some other sugary sauce. Unfortunately the other 口水鸡 I really like is far far away in Beijing.
We had whitebait with sweet chilli sauce - this was ok. Would have been better without the pseudo Thai chilli sauce. Ha Kau - this was good as well, with solid prawn encased in the wrappers. Egg tarts to end off with, which came too early. But they were great!
Char siew sou - not my favourite dim sum dish, but the mother liked it.
$10 XO carrot cake - nice but frankly overrated. Not as nice as our first try at the restaurant 2 years ago. Give me normal market chye tow kuay anytime.
The pork belly was crispy, and not too fatty. Thumbs up.
A close up of the skin.
We had this try-hard dish of tofu with minced century egg, wasabi mayonnaise and tobiko. It was nice but a little too complicated.
http://www.tasteparadise.com.sg/contact.html