Saturday, May 30, 2009

Saturday Lunch @ Gunther's

time really flies, before i knew it a new Saturday dawns. last Saturday, i spent morning and night working till the wee hours of Sunday. hectic as the week was, i managed to find time to attend an annual foodie lunch sesh organised by Brad and Yixiao @ Gunther's.


i've passed by the Purvis area many times and only head for Shinryoku. the angmo restaurants around the area intimidate me and i never thought i'd visit any one of them until Sat.


i was just on time that day. when i opened the door to Gunther's, i saw several men in grey at the counter. a thought fleeted to my mind reminding me the reason why i'd feel intimidated. anyway, i got over the initial 'eye opener' and went in.


it's interesting that the chosen colour for the interior was a dark shade of charcoal grey. i can imagine having a nice romantic dinner at night with mild candle tealights flickering. As for day, with the natural light coming in plus the bright spot lights, there was a warm (literally) feel to it.

table set for 25 food bloggers!


what attracted me was the vases on display, they were very pretty and some extremely intricately designed. they were made of glass and i have a particularly liking for glass art. each piece was unique and have their own interesting characteristics. i noticed the lighting had their very own pretty designs too!

i love this vase a lot.

this too!

i love this pair of lights. Definitely not easy to mould them to something like this.

i finally met LIC and got to know Jiaxin who was really friendly and i thoroughly enjoyed chit chatting with her. I also met Philip and Serene, Maureen and Yixiao. Everyone was friendly and of course we spoke of the food we have eaten, are going to eat and would be eating for the day. it was quite exciting for me and it was the first time i've ever attended such an event. i'm actually a green horn to this.


the menu was a 4 course Carte Blanche where we get to savour chef Gunther's creation of 2 starters, a main course, a dessert and coffee or tea at a very special price only for this session.


frankly speaking, i have never done fine dining before and don't exactly know what to expect coz it was up to Chef Gunther's creation for the day and that moment. i like surprises and this i believe is my 3rd 'surprise me' meal i have had thus far.


with this, i was surprised all the way and in fact, wowed almost entirely!


the huge crab was alive and moving, bamboo clams, white asparagus, lobster, fava beans and short neck mussels.. i was eagerly anticipating what kind of meal i'd be happy. don't think for a moment that the simple tomato is no fancy stuff. you'd take back your words once you have a taste of what it became.

japanese tomato

this is one of my favourite dish. it is one sweet tomato wedge and sourish enough, very much to my liking. the fava bean was good too. smooth and soft with a tinge of light edamame taste. yums!

cold angel-hair pasta, caviar

when this was served, i thought i smelt leaked gas coming out from the kitchen and asked JaiXin if she smelt the same. i had no idea it was the truffle oil which was emitting such a smell. i felt so ignorant :p. in short, it was something new to me. caviar, truffle oil, nicely cooked angel hair pasta, i liked the taste of this a lot. it's very tasty but the truffle oil kinda steal the taste of the whole dish and thus the caviar didn't exactly blend in. could only taste the caviar when eaten by itself.

Poached white asparagus, Bouchot mussels

this was our next dish. it was supposed to have sakura prawns but mine had none. nevertheless, i thought the asparagus tasted like radish and the crab meat was uber sweet and firm, it was good and i wish i could have more! the short neck mussels were small, but i can taste and smell the sea that very short moment!

Grilled Cote de Boeuf, Japanese sweet-corn, sauce Bordelaise

then came the black angus beef seared on the sides, with that little bit of fat and done medium rare, it was yums except that i felt the seared part was a tad too dry. i love the japanese corn though! it was sweet and some of the parts were nicely caramelised. very flavourful, crunchy and juicy! that super thin slice behind the beef was actually super thinly sliced potato, fried. it was very light! so light that i couldn't really believe it was potato. one of the staff mentioned that they have a machine to slice the potato to paper thin sheets!!


Fine apple tart a la dragees, rum & raisin ice-cream

after so many surprises, i was expecting more for dessert. i like the ice cream. it's light, smooth and have sugar coated nutty bits. as for the apple tart, to me it was only average.

i totally enjoyed myself, but was tired towards the end. i didn't take a pic of the restaurant name unfortunately, but i took pics of the loo coz i was quite impressed!

can't wait to meet these new found friends soon and have another wonderful meal and i thank LIC for giving me the opportunity to join this event even though my blog's not entirely devoted to food :p!

4 comments:

ladyironchef said...

hey no problem man, i'm glad you enjoyed the lunch. Great to finally meet you, see you for my next food outing yeah?

Cheers
Brad

claudine said...

hehe definitely!! :) if work permits though haha

Anonymous said...

Il semble que vous soyez un expert dans ce domaine, vos remarques sont tres interessantes, merci.

- Daniel

claudine said...

Hi Daniel,

pour le compliment!