An eye opener - check out this blog on food in Taipei!

i was searching for cheap and good food in Taipei when google presented this blog.

and it is such a gem!

i already found some places which i wanna go!!!!!

Can't wait!

My list if we can find the places!

1. Saveurs - value for money french food!
2. Crepes! Crepes! and more Crepes! - CREPERIE LA BRETAGNE; SUZETTE 
3. Japanese - Either DOZO or SASHI-MIYA
4. Desserts! - 85 DEGREES CAFE; PATISSERIE LA DOUCEUR; PATISSERIE SADAHARU AOKI PARIS

hmm... actually, just check out her strongly recommend list..

there are so many to choose from!!! Gosh! :D

Roadside food in BKK

i guess many people are skeptical as to whether there will be consequences after eating the roadside food in Bangkok. i had my doubts last time, but since last year, when Cece and me adventurously tried our first roadside food, we were yummized (erm means addicted to yummy food) by what seemed like unhygenic roadside food.

Contrary to the many thoughts of the terrible after effects in consuming these food, they are in fact very delicious, cheap, and no bad side effects having consumed them. it is definitely as authentic as one can get to thai food. i really enjoyed my road side meals this trip.

it's not difficult to know where the good food places are, you can always find either a queue or many people waiting to be seated etc. it's a disadvantage not being able to speak thai, but the locals can manage with simple english. anyway, whatever it is, you just need to point to whatever you fancy. afterall, pointing is an universal sign language.

i was staying at Baiyoke Boutique hotel and just outside is the Patunam night market. Along with night market of bargain items, people also need to eat. as such, simple food like these actually are the highlight for the night market walkabout if you dare to try. 

this grilled fish was covered with salt when it was bbqing by the hot charcoal. it's damn popular coz the locals actually sit by the tables and order like one fish per pax. the grill was always filled with the fish and it looked so darn mouth watering good and i just had to buy it. At only 50 Baht (equivalent to SGD 2.10) it's yummiliciously good. the meat is fresh coz it is easily detached from the bones, juicy and tender and you know what, it's has this awesome sweetness which i have never tasted in a fish for a very long time. MUST BUY! by the way, it is not salty if you don't eat the skin. anyway, no one eats the skin coz it's scaly.

if i remember correctly, they call this phad thai. it's similar to our fried kway teow, except it is tastier, more spicy and sweet and yummy with no frills ingredients. it looked very little when the 'chef' was cooking it, but it came up to a huge packet. it's loaded with peanuts, bean sprouts, green onions, tao kua and that's about it. but it's so tasty and appetising when i drizzled it with the calamasi. shiok and it costs only 30 baht!

this is the pork kway teow soup which cost only 30 baht. for this mere sum of money, you get a generous amount of smooth kway teow. the soup was awesome. so sweet and so savoury. it's delish stock! i found out that the cook had put radish in the soup as well. the pork slices were very tender and had just enough fats to make it really delish. the pork balls, so firm, bouncy and crunchy. the pork liver even after 'swimming' in the soup for quite sometime, was still soft and tender. this is really one of my favourite roadside dish and will try whenever i am there! If you are crazy about spicy, put the chili powder into the dish and definitely spice it up lots!

for 25 baht per 100g, there are a variety of fried items you can choose from. from small sized prawns, to pork ribs, to chicken gizzard etc, the sinful fried food whilst it is cooking sure catches not only ones visual attention but smell and sound. haha, it's damn good and very worth it. good to have it with a can of beer which obviously is so darn cheap in bkk. excellent side dish!!

the above was dinner for our first night there when we touched down and headed out to look for food.

another night when we returned from central world, the cab drove by this row of street side stall selling these really huge fish. we decided to try it on friday night before we flew off the next day.

i'm not sure if you can resist this, but i sure couldnt. it looked really darn good with the fish grilling on this hot stove of charcoal. by the way, the fish were alive when they were being put on to the stove, that's how fresh this was. however, it wasn't really as good as the earlier fish we had coz this one had too many bones and the meat was a tad tougher. this cost 120 baht. we ordered other dishes as well, but coz my cam ran out of battery, the rest were stored in my hp.

the fish before it was rubbed in salt and bbq-ed. IT's ALIVE!!!!

the street side hawker doing their stuff! so pro they are!!

fresh fresh veges to accompany our fish!

that's how the fish looked like when it reached our table.

home early on a Friday night

i'm home early today for the following reasons:


1) Cece couldn't meet up coz she got lots of stuff to clear

2) I couldn't meet Cece coz last night my swelling bottom right wisdom tooth gum was hurting more so i told her i was going to visit the dentist

3) dentist i didn't go, didnt even call to make appointment. the swell went down and it feels less painful, i was lucky.

4) i was extremely tired. for the first time this year, i yawned more than 30 times today. i hardly yawn so much in a day regardless at work or home.


either i was lacking oxygen, or it must be all thanks to the tiramisu last night.


yesterday, i was having happy hours drinks @ paulanars with a group of gal pals i haven't met for the longest time. thereafter, i left them and headed to mustafa but first for dinner.


we were around Jalan Besar. neither of us knew where it was located nor the name. he only told me it served pasta.. since i don't really know the area well, i just followed him. so we walked (me in my uber high heels for the day), along uneven pavements, siaming potted plants, tables and cars. it probably didnt seem the case, but i definitely found it a challenge and i was super worried that i'd sprain my feet. haha! Thankfully, the walk went ok and i was pleasantly surprised when i saw the signage!


ad hoc, unknown and after a long walk on a hot thursday night, we reached PASTA INC which was on my TTT (things to try) list! seriously unexpected but was absolutely delighted, i think i squealed slightly! never exactly thought that i'd be there actually.


the entrance were glass doors darken with a layer of blackish/brownish film and we couldn't exactly see inside. a guy opened the door and welcomed us in. the place was small there was a big group of about 10 or 12 gals celebrating someone's birthday. two couples and 2 empty tables - one for 2 and the other for a group of 4. so we took the table for two and were promptly given the menu.


it was actually quite dark coz there was minimal light erm from a rather large chanderlier which i like (coz it was black) and the rest came from flickering tea lights. i can't say it's cosy because the ceiling's pretty high. there was some sort of emptiness in fact maybe coz they arranged a big table for the big group. anyhow, the ambience was quite nice and soothing, very comfortable. i love the chairs too! provided good support, upholstered with soft leather (if i didnt remember wrongly) and very bouncy too!


i had to go to the ladies coz had a bit too much beer. Was told the restrooms were in the other arched door way covered by red velvet curtains. drawing the curtains presented me with another dining area which i very much prefer. about 1/3 the size of the main dining area, it managed to squeeze in quite a few seats! this is what i call cosy! walking pass the area i went down a few cement steps and reached the kitchen area. Man.. was it hot and stuffy! directly opposite the kitchen was two long cemented tables and seats. damn cool i like, but i think it's for staff. from there, it was only a short walk to the restroom.


i love the restroom! hah! old as it is - think aluminum doors with hooks to lock the door but they are painted a classy matte black, shiny white tiles and partial aluminum flooring. what is not old about the loo is that there is a very happening shower head (for shower?) and very ample space! NICE!!


what appealed to me was also the wash basin. instead of normal taps, the owner replaced it with a uber huge shower head! it's bigger than my head for sure. so fun washing my hands underneath it! hehe :) there were money plants (i think) to add some natural greenery to the area. silly as it sounds, i was so excited i asked him to check out the restroom too :p! haha


we ordered the Nero di seppia - Squid ink spaghetti and i think seafood carbonara linguini. the SIS was delish, i leave you to check out the comments of this dish at the Hungry Go Where website.


i love the texture of the spaghetti, it's the best i have ever eaten so far. springy, has the just right softness, got a good feel when chewed and perfectly smooth when swallowed. i can eat two plates of this or any dish with this amazing spaghetti. didn't try the carbonara coz didn't think it will be fair to eat anything else after eating the SIS. i am only intrigued by what's the reddish/orangey oil spots though. could it be that they blended sun dried tomatoes soaked in olive oil and thus the slight sourish taste to the sauce? next time i will ask.


we went for tiramisu for dessert. lucky us, it was freshly made that day! Keith (if i am not wrong) told us that they keep the tiramisu max for 3 days and if not sold they will throw away and make new ones.


my conclusion? i like but not heart coz no alcohol... but the strong coffee more than made up for the zlich liquor. so strong until i cannot sleep last night and thus causing me to yawn and yawn like siao today. the fresh cream on top was light, fluffy totally melt in my mouth. mmmm.. but the funny thing about the tiramisu was the top layer of sponge cake quite difficult to 'break' apart leh. i don't mean it's hard, it's just doesn't 'break' away willingly from the main piece. the middle layer just keeps dripping coffee!! overall ok but not fantastic for me.


service was excellent, friendly, very knowledgeable and also very prompt. i don't think they are waiters waiters kind. must be high level management mingling with the customers asking for their opinions about the dishes. there were no airs and what impressed me when i asked them about their 3 selected dishes which are part of this 100 signature dish award, Keith (if i am not wrong, yet again) introduced us to two of the 3 dishes (coz the 3rd dish was SIS).


Nevermind that i didnt remember what he was talking about other than 1 being a veal dish in some herby sauce, the other being lamb shanks cooked dunno how, i was impressed by the way he made sure he made eye contact with both of us when explaining. Usually you don't get this from a normal waiter. so i think he must be one of the bosses if not at least management level person. the other two who served us were equally impressive. should the restaurant really takes off to newer heights one day, i hope they inculcate such a culture and service level to their staff. Customers will definitely appreciate it!


i definitely will go back again and bring my camera then. hmm.. i just wonder when will be the next time be though...

Leave Day 1 - 2nd half - Din @ Naive

so dinner at Naive did happen and boy was i glad i finally went there. It was a plus coz i was happy to share the meal with Dad and Mum. I'm glad the day's decision went on well all the way.


what struck me about Naive was it's signage when it first 'established' its presence in Katong. it caught my attention one day when i was on the way to work in bus no. 16 and was intrigued by what this new place in katong is for. so i searched the web and couldn't find any info. I thought it was a graphic design firm coz it didnt look very foodie. so another day i walked pass, i realised it was selling food. i thought it was either coz the food sucks as such no one talked about it or, it's too new and people are unaware about it.


anyway, it's quite hard to miss it especially since they put up a big banner citing 'WE ARE OPEN'. the colour of the banner is red and the words white. against a background which i thought was almost white and i realised it isn't really the case coz they painted the building in stripes and shades of different greens and creams. i love the colours very calm and soothing just like the food.

the pleasant interior, zenish and chic

naive art! very cool, attracted my attention too!

so i shall cut the crap and go down on the food. i ordered 5 dishes for the three of us. 6 if you include the olive rice.


the first thing which arrived was a small mortar of white and black sesame seeds with a wooden pestle. this was termed the 'BLOSS' ceremony - Blessing of the Sesame Seeds. Mum did the grinding and she seemed to enjoy it lots. i say, it's a damn unique start to having food. kinda like a prayer, but instead of words, it was an action performed. makes it so much more symbolic!


i did my research in HGW and found out that if you mentioned HGW prior to ordering you get a 1 for 1 main course. means you pay the price of 1 main but you get 2 instead. So i ordered 'Enchanted Forest' and 'We Em-brace'. it was really worth it and of course you pay the price of the more expensive item.


what hit me about these two dishes, the monkey head mushrooms used to cook these dishes have zlich taste of mushroom. i didn't even think that i was eating mushroom.


The cubes in 'Enchanted Forest' tasted like chicken breast meat to me. they added broccoli (love it that it's still crunchy and fresh), wolfberry and fa cai. there's a bit of 'tang gui' too! i'm not sure what the sauce is made of, but it's better than oyster sauce man! As for the cubes of mushrooms, there was a bit of coating of corn flour if i am not wrong and it was stir fried first before the sauce was added. this coating enhanced the taste of the mushroom and it was good!


for 'We Em-brace' it has a bit of soup. this time the mushroom tasted a bit like fried fish to me. it's not exactly the melt in your mouth kind but a bit chewy. i can't really describe the taste, maybe it's a little more like frog leg? hmm.. the dish came with chinese cabbage and wolfberries too.


i also ordered 3 side dishes. I am a sucker for lotus root with peanuts, so i had to get 'Peaceful Plant'! And it was delish! question in my mind was, gee.. without meat, how did the liquid which came along with the lotus roots and peanuts taste so wonderful! it tasted like lotus root pork rib soup but even better. it has a slight minute tinge of spiciness which was really pleasant and made it even more appetizing! I couldn't stop drinking the soup and i don't know how long they cooked this dish. somehow, the lotus root didn't turn soggy and it was still damn crunchy but also soaked up the essence of the soup and the peanuts too! i am also a sucker for food which requires chewing and not those nuah types. oh one thing though, i had a rude suprise when i bit on a piece of spice i can't remember the name though.

i love my baos lots!!

the other side was the 'Black and White'. It was braised mushroom in cinnamon sauce served with steam buns (2) and guess what, it actually tasted like KONG BA BAO without the kong ba (fatty meat) but it was good enough and tasty even. who would know that such combination could also be so darn heavenly!! whoooo!


we had the battered organic oyster mushroom too. the batter i'd say is damn shiok! it has a savory tinge to it. very fragrant and light. eaten together with the accompanied sauce which i am pretty sure there's passion fruit in the mixture, it's a wonderful combination and a definite must try. Eat it when it's hot too!


our rice was called 'Oliver Twist' and initially expected it to be an overpowering taste of olive, but OMG! It damn fragrant. didn't even taste the olive at all. in it i think they added finely chopped mushrooms too! i think i can eat two bowls of this rice if i didnt order so many dishes!!

the drinks menu which was not on the website.

the next thing i must recommend is this drink 'Sour Power'. I love sourish stuff too! This drink is good. it came presented in 3 layers. the bottom most is the sour plum mixture or whatever you call it. then came a layer of lemon and the top most is the bubbly, it's probably soda water. it's damn nice and damn big. drink until you full ah! So it's pretty worth it actually!


i'd recommend this place to everyone. got to try it and be surprised! in total i spent $68 hmm, may sound expensive for vegetarian dish, but i think it to be ok. i think monkey head mushrooms are not cheap right?

meoW and be partially Whisk-ed

initial movie plan changed to dinner. some requirements for last night's dinner.


1) would be good if the location is in town
2) non japanese
3) somewhere to relax and chill


resourceful as i am, this kinda stubbed me. hmm.. where shall we go to have din and meet the above requirements? so i searched HGW, my foodie wikipedia equivalent. seems like no where fits the criteria. in the midst of training session and then heading for a short break to buy sandwich from 'Simply Sandwich' and a miserable scoop of earl grey with fig ice cream from cedele (which incidentally was darn good but F ex!) i remembered Whisk.


having head down to Wisma on 2 suay attempts of trying to get my phone repaired, i remembered this place and i suggested to Cece. Read reviews and it seemed like a decent place. Tried to make rsvp via phone and was declined. Response given by the person was that they had many group reservations and thus rsvp was closed for the day but walk ins are still all right. i further tried my luck citing that it's only for 2 persons. the person on the other line asked what time i was looking at and i told him about 6 to 7pm, he mentioned that it should be ok.


so when i reached there at about 710pm, the place was pretty empty save for one long table being filled. i was given a table beside where the condiments were stocked, wasn't very impressed. at first i thought the tables inside were filled, subsequently as i see more 2 persons patrons being ushered in, i was quite so not happy. anyway, the service was pretty good. the waiters and waiteress were ready to serve me despite me having to say we were not ready to order countless times. they were always smiling.

the menu which gave me a 'headache' in deciding what to order..

i had a hard time deciding. i wanted to have the 'mystery' soup of the day which was clam chowder but looking at the photo, the clams looked rather pathetic. i wanted to try the mikiko's pasta which came with beef, poached egg and some sauce, but i also wanted to have the chicken and corn with poached egg soup. then i wanted to have the rosie's chicken and even thought about the pork ribs. i had such a hard time deciding coz i didn't want to have repeat ingredients in my meal!

chicken & corn soup with poached egg.. and the two uber crunchy toasts which i really liked!

Ultimately, i decided to have izio's aglio alio or something. it was actually prawn pasta and the chicken and corn soup. Cece ordered Timmy's fish and chips.


soup arrived pretty soon and came with two uber crispy toasts! Really excellent! I love the crunch and went really well with the soup. the chicken slices were generous as well as the corn. i couldn't decide how i should eat the poached egg, though finally, it helped that after too much scooping of the soup, the egg 'broke' and the yolk oozed out. turned out, that was how it should be eaten. the egg yolk enhanced the taste of the soup and it felt so comforting. hee hee. best of all, the poached egg was perfectly done. no harden parts on the yolk and the egg white was slippery smooth. it was excellent!


unfortunately, before i could finish my soup, they served Izio shortly after. Poor Izio was left to cool but fortunately, i could still see steam when i mixed in the cheese and chilli flakes. the spaghetti was normal, but the sauce was wonderful. it tasted like i was eating vongole spaghetti except that i can see prawns instead of clams. hehe. sadly, the prawns werent up to standard. i believe they used frozen prawns coz i could taste that it is glassy (dunno if you know what i mean), overly crunchy and bland compared to fresh prawns. i wonder if that's the reason the price was only $13.90 for a prawn spaghetti coz market price i think is about $16.90 if i am not wrong?

here's izio.. if the chilli were padi, it'd prolly be better. but i love the fresh garlic slices!

Cece's f&c took us by surprised. the serving was big in that there were loads of fries and 5 slices of battered fish. the fish was pretty soft and fresh. the batter was just right. it's not too thick nor oily but very crispy and savoury. we could have actually shared the dish.

and here's the huge serving of F&C!!!

we skipped dessert coz i wanted to head to isetan supermart to get lazy gourmet coq au vin. we decided that net time we'd return and share the pork ribs as well as other stuff.


yep, we will return and hopefully get further whisked away!! :D

something

so i said i was going to blog about something and this something if you had clicked on the hyperlink will lead you to this webpage call Lazy Gourmet.


how aptly named. Lazy Gourmet is Le Amis take on instant food with a gourmet touch. at prices ranging from $6.95 for soup to $14.95 for mains, it's almost as if you are eating at restaurant prices but at the comfort of your own home.

comes in a nicely packaged box. very pro.

the frozen pack

they were pretty considerated providing the holes for i guess to poke two chopsticks through so that you can take it out of the pot?

i decided to buy some when i tried their coq au vin even though i only tried a small spoonful. what made me wanted to buy was the button mushroom used for the fresh ones and not canned, the sauce had the alcohol flavor which was very prominent and the chicken though a tad tough was quite yummy.


as i said, the suay sin was with me and because i wanted to choose the coq au vin box which was most frozen, i ended up taking the beef bourguignon without knowing and only found out when i reached home. i also bought the Chipolata and Meatballs in White Bean Stew. supposedly a winter comfort food, it was my rainy sunday indulgence for dinner.


Quote from the website: 'Home-made pork meatballs and pork Chipolata sausages are combined with a hearty stew of white beans, which are slow-cooked with tender vegetables.'


There are 2 meatballs, 1 sausage, plenty of white beans and loads of roughly chopped bacon. the entire meal was delish. just remember to cook the stuff long enough to ensure a nice warm meal is served. the meatball was so so coz i think i make better meatballs that the one i ate. the sausage was good with its taut skin which bursts when bitten lets the meat juice ooze out nicely. the white beans were not over cooked and i could still get a bit of texture when i bite it. the bacon bits were a nice surprise.


basically, lazy gourmet meals can be cooked 3 ways. if you can wait, you can thaw the sack and then empty the contents in the pot and start boiling or cooking. if you are like me who is lazy, you can just put the whole package of things into a pot of boiling water and boil for 15 to 20 mins. alternatively, i think you can also microwave it.

methods of cooking

my chosen method of heating up the meal

the sausage

the meatball

the overall.. :p

so within mins, you'd have a gourmet meal to chow down to! with a price of $14.95 i guess it's pretty ok when at times if you wanna pamper yourself but just too lazy to dress up and go downtown or out for something nice.


i am so going to get the coq au vin next time!!! Argh!!! and i will upload the food pics next. something is wrong with blogger yet again...

weds dinner indulgence

check out the size of the claws!!

i was hungry last night and asked my mum to help me packed back some food. she asked me what i wanted, i couldn't decide. i finally decided to settle my crab craving. i asked for white pepper crab. unfortunately, the stall's not open and so i settled for the crab tang hoon (glass vermicelli). Crab's sweet, juicy with very firm flesh and uber yummy. Can't say the same for the tang hoon as usual, it's bland to the max. i wonder why the stall doesn't add more flavor to the stock in cooking the tang hoon, it would have been superb...

the very bland tang hoon with too much chopped garlic...

wanton mee - unveiled

finally i get down to taking some photos of my current favourite wanton mee. apparently the stall which my dad bought it from is pretty 'tao' (meaning arrogant in hokkien) he said that sometimes they so pissed him off that he refuse to buy from them.


he said the stall owner can have roasted duck hanging on the racks and refuse to cut the duck up to sell to patrons who wants to eat duck rice. the owner apparently will gauge whether if he cuts up the duck, will he be able to sell the whole duck by the time the stall closes. so, if he cannot finish cutting up the duck, he will refuse to sell duck rice for the day. i wonder if this will persists when times are bad though..


anyway, on to the wanton mee. hmm since i am no good food blogger and have several occasions of bad grammer as well as english, i'd keep it simple. there are a couple of reasons why i like the WTM from this stall.

Wanton mee from marine parade

the presentation

usually won't see this kind of nice presentation even when order WTM in plastic boxes. some are either too watery or the cook just churn out the dish with the usual ingredients and that's that. but this one, look how pretty the arrangement of the ingredients are. i am hungry before i even eat it.


the roast pork

it's not entirely lean nor entirely fatty. the cook has used the right type of meat for the char siew. with some parts slightly charred, it adds great flavour! plus some burst of fats and mix with the lean meat, i feel i am in heaven!


the pickled green chilli

it's sourish, savoury and never too sweet. additionally, it still retains a certain level of spicyness as well as good degree of crunch. eat it together with the QQ noodles, damn shiok!


the vege

vibrantly green and uber fresh and cut precisely in exact lengths. truly impecible! the serving of the vege is also pretty generous!


the noodles

texture is excellent. as mentioned, it's very Q and bouncy. it's not powdery and the sauce makes it tasty.

the Q and chewy noodles

up close and makes me hungry!

as much as it sounds almost perfect, i have my grouses about the mee. though there are 3 if not 2 wantons in the dish, the minced meat in the wanton is rather pathetic. too little to even taste the meat and can mostly just taste the wanton skin. also, i wish they have a better chilli paste or i think actually they did. i had it the first time, but they never put the chilli paste to the mee subsequently.


anyhowz, it's quite amazing such an amount of effort is put into putting this simple dish together! i wonder if this is why they have that level of arrogance. hmm.. now i so want to it eat tomorrow! hahah

lunch unlimited

i think this is not good. i seem to be on an obsessive food tracking mission. must be due to reading too many foodie blogs. this must really stop else no matter how many times i go up and down the slope of bukit timah NR, i'd not get any healthier. i foresee another at least 5 days (though not consecutive) of food eating craze during the festive period so i better keep myself healthy and not use that funny reason that since i'm going to eat the next few days might as well eat away. hmm.. so not good if my thoughts go that way.

interior of the restaurant

anyway, had lunch @ 7atenine in the esplanade. hmm.. read about it at this person's blog and she liked it lots. so i thought we could order anything in the menu which consists of many dishes. when we reached there, we were wrong. lunch starts at 12pm and i suggest if you really want to eat as many dishes to make your $37++ worth it, go at 12pm. lunch lasts till 2.30pm though stated on the website it's till 3pm. don't go during weekdays if you do not have the luxury of having long lunches. coz your $$$ will so not be worth it.


so the 'rule' of the lunch was that the chef will dish out whatever dishes he feels like from the menu, so you wont know. when i heard that i was like worried (think supperclub) that i have made a wrong choice. in any case, we decided to stay on. there's also unlimited serving of soft drinks, juices (lime/orange/cranberry) as well as coffeee and tea. you can order any beverage according to your mood. ie, if you drank cranberry, you can switch to lime and get coffee too so it's quite cool! the coffee is fragrant and smells fantastic! tastes wonderful and i drank two cups. hee.

my cranberry juice

ok, on to the food. we reached at 12ish close to 1pm and had 1.5hrs to try as many dishes as possible.

melon with parmaham

first dish we had was the melon with parmaham. the melon was served thinly shaved slices and the parmaham was mush up in a clump. i think i still prefer the usual way of serving, one thick slice of melon with parmaham wrapped around. eating it the way it was presented, the parmaham was salty. the melon was too thin to blend with the saltiness of the ham. it was unfortunate and i was kinda disappointed.

tomato salad

japanese cherry tomatoes with wild herbs and spanish extra virgin olive oil dressing

that's what's described in the menu. so i dunno issit kio tio that there were pine nuts inside. the nuts are nicely roasted, the cherry tomatoes were plump, juicy and sweet. blends well with the pine nuts and the balsamic vinegar sauce was good too.

raw salmon with shallots and dunno what sauce

this was so so. salmon wasn't chilled enough so it was rather room temperature feel when i put it into my mouth. would have preferred yellow fin tataki instead.

rice corquette

looks sushi-ish, just that the outside is covered with bread crumbs and the seaweed is inside and there's an little bit of egg and you eat it with the wild herb salsa sauce on the side. not bad, just not that into hot sushi rice fried.

grilled corn and wasabi salad

i like this dish. the grilled corn has a nice and slightly burnt taste which sits nicely in my mouth. the bbq potato was so so, we thought it was something else. the wasabi taste was mild. when i told there was wasabi, i was a bit surprised. when i think back, i remember that almost hidden taste. this is good.


anchovy with some tomato puree sauce with some honey on toasted bread? hmm.. didnt like the anchovy coz it was too fishy. not in the menu, so it was quite unfortunate.

wasabi cod

garlic scented black cod brandade corquette with wasabi dressing.

this is nice, i love it that when they served this dish it was hot. the cod was entirely flaky in fact, i can't even say it's flaky, it's already 'finely shredded' into fine fine lines of flesh pulp and made into what looked like chupa chups lollipops. the wasabi dressing is nice, not overwhelming and light. goes extremely well with the ballies!

tuna salsa tartlette with some salad leaves which had some similar to tao jiuy paste on the leave. the paste is damn salty but would be better if you put the tuna mix into the salad leave and eat it together.

caramelised garlic soup

almond scented cold garlic soup with shallots and black pepper

when i drank this, the taste was familar. it's not a hot soup, and yet not too cold. the cream is heavy coz it tasted oily and i couldnt identify what was the ingredient until we asked the waiter. i didn't finish the soup coz it became too jelat. quite interesting but i'd not want to have it again.

vegetable tempura with ponzu sauce

i think the presentation is interesting. as for the tempura, nothing impressive. this is not in the menu as well. the sauce would be just nice without adding rock salt inside or perhaps my tongue is conditioned to the normal tempura sauce?

seared kobe beef with shitake mushroom and ponzu sauce

the beef was tender, nicely done. love the shitake mushroom. the ponzu sauce in the dripper is nicer here. love this dish.

sizzling wings

jalapeno chilli powder dusted crispy chicken wings with soy-chilli dressing

i like the unique presentation of using the clothes peg for holding the hot wings. but it didnt work for me coz my food keep dropping. slightly salty here for my taste but the meat was damn tender and it's good. there's a side sauce of mayo with some roe if i am not wrong which tasted damn good too. add the lime and it enhances the smell as well as my appetite, if only it's less salty!!

panfried salmon

i commend the chef for cooking the food just right. i love the salmon. it was moist, flakes easily, detaches from the skin perfectly so that i can taste the meat and the skin separately. no dryness until towards the end. the meat was also slighly fatter. with minimal sauce and only sprinkling of rock salt on the skin, i could taste the naturalness of the salmon. i love the creativity of the chef drawing the fish as a presentation for this dish. visual and taste scores!!

lamb shank with mash potato

this one is awesome!! the meat of the lamb is uber tender!!! so tender that it broke easily when we 'tore' it apart. and it was so soft when you bite and juicy and yummy though not melt in the mouth. the mash potato was good, there's something added to it that made it quite fragrant. and i loved it that roasted almond bits were added. glad we asked the waiter to bring out the last savoury dish for us before the dessert.

chocolate brownie

chilli pepper scented cuban chocolate brownie with macadamia nuts and vanilla ice cream

the brownie is different from the usual brownie which is usually thick and filled with chocolate. this one is moist and not chocolate thick. it's good fluffy cake with big macadamia nuts. i love it. the ice cream is not bad too. goes well together.

tequila cake with rum chocolate ice cream

the cake was light and mousse ish but there's no sponge and the bottom if i am not wrong is laid on a bed of bits of nuts and thin think cake. i can't taste the tequila though. not that strong. the rum in the chocolate ice cream was pretty strong though. to me, the ice cream and the cake is separate and don't seem to mix. but not bad. everything's pretty light.


hmmm.. overall, i'm not sure if this whole thing is worth it. quite a few of the dishes served are not in the menu, as such it's difficult to put a dollar value to those dishes. since there were only the two of us, each dish served, we shared. or that's how the whole thing works. though there are some dishes which were given individual portions, most of them were sharing portions. i think it pays to 1) know the chef, he will then give the signature dishes, 2) go at 12pm and you will have more time to try more dishes, 3) drink as much as the free flow drinks as you can, 4) eat fast if you are short of time. we also had the beef sashimi. hmm.. it was a mini portion and i kinda didn't think it was fantastic as i imagined it to be, but the manchego cheese was delish!


i will only go back after a long long time if they still have this and will go early so as to try everything. but we were quite full after the meal. i didn't have dinner thereafter. guess some way or another it was worth it? Hmm... :D