Privé

roast saddle of welsh lamb, with walnuts, herbs and white cocoa beans - 8.5/10

it's been quite awhile since i wrote about proper restaurants. like i mentioned before, i haven't really been going to really nice places much. in part because i tend to get sick of expensive pretentious food all the time and also in part cause i'm trying to save money. eating at nice restaurants all the time is a definite way to go broke. it's almost as bad as speculating in an overvalued stock markets like cinderella at the ball. not the way you wanna go.

but there are times when you should spend. special occasions like when you complete the latest edition of resident evil or when you finally manage to win your friends in an arm wrestling competition all call for a celebration. and of course not to mention your anniversary.

so it was our 2 year "get together anniversary". don't ask me when the exact date is cause i can't really remember. all i know is that it was "magically" implanted into the calendar on my blackberry with an XOXO and a heart shaped icon. goodness knows i didn't put it there.

12 oz/340g usda prime angus ribeye steak - 9/10

so given that cupid himself (yes, that is indeed what d said) had marked the date, i knew i would totally get a kick in the nuts if i didn't do anything. so fast forward to the date, and i knew that i had to be the slave and look for somewhere "nice" to eat (interestingly though, i didn't have to search very hard because a not so subtle *hint came from d just the day before). Privé (pronouced pri-veh) is apparently a new "hot" restaurant at keppel bay. it's just along the waterfront where all the rich people (or not so rich people who spend all their net worth buying boats to look rich) park all their nice yatchs. it's a really romantic place (not from personal opinion) to take a walk down at night with your s/o and just chill and enjoy the view and cool breeze.

Privé is divided into 3 main sections. you have the restaurant (which we went to), the waterfront bar (which has a gorgeous view), and the bakery cafe (which smells so damn good). the restaurant is at the deeper end, and it boasts michelin star chef wayne nish. in order to get there, you have to pass by the bakery and the bar. the aromas that drifted as we passed by the bakery beckoned us, and i nearly gave up on the restaurant as i unconsciously walked closer into the bakery. of course i was awakened back to reality by a really hard smack on my head upon my suggestion of doing just that. apparently the bakery has really good desserts; so for all you dessert fans out there, do give it a shot and let me know!

sautéed bobby veal loin with french shallots, sultanas and gnocchi - 7.5/10

we finally made it to the restaurant, and a big door greeted us into a brightly lit open room, layed out with just bare tables and walls. bare in a sense that there wasn't much decor or anything. but it was definitely lavishly bare. what greeted you was a sense of opulence, a nice, richly fine restaurant that was bare not because it needed to be, but because it wanted to be.

the waitstaff were nice and attentive without being overly annoying. they presented us with a large menu that was decently varied. not the best, but i've seen worse. then again sometimes the best restaurants don't really have much of a menu (the worst restaurants too though). nonetheless, we got through it pretty quickly and d ordered the veal loin, while i had (surprise surprise) the ribeye steak. we also ordered the roast lamb to share, along with sides of ragout mushrooms and bone marrows. yes, i do agree that bone marrows are kind of a strange choice, but i never really had them, and just the day before i saw on AFC this chef making a bone marrow sandwich which looked really good, so i was inspired to eat it (i wasn't too enthusiastic about the outcome though).

so the food came soon enough. i sliced into the lamb first. mmm.. my knife cut right through the lamb like it was firm butter. just fantastic. i loved how smooth it's texture was, which had a totally mild taste to it without much gamey taste. it was just mildly chewy, similar to that of your thanksgiving honey baked ham, but it had a better, less salty taste to it. done very well. i didn't fancy the walnuts and white cocoa beans very much but the lamb itself definitely suited my taste.

i cut into my ribeye next. done perfectly medium as ordered, with a pink shade in the center, charred nicely on the outside to give it a nice flavor. i salted it a little more and tasted it. the meat was very good. great marbling and wonderful texture. the secret to a good steak always starts with the best cuts of beef. that's why great steaks are so expensive. it's not something you can just cook. without the right piece of meat, no amount of culinary skill can make it good.

the ribeye here was one of the better ones i had outside of morton's. honestly, if you're a steak lover, you have to go to morton's. the problem is though, once you go there, steaks anywhere else, even at good establishments, mostly taste sub-par. the quality of the meats at morton's is just incredible. i always get either prime rib or rib eye there. and it's definitely something you can share because alot of people do that since the portions are really big. but other than morton's, i really enjoyed the steak here.

ragout of organic mushrooms with dried cepes in veal jus

next up was the veal loin. very tender to the touch, it gave a slightly chewy, tasty texture that not all might appreciate. it was done medium, and i think for veal, medium might be a tad to rare. but that's my personal taste. to me veal becomes too chewy and raw if not done enough. don't be mistaken, the first few bites were good. but coming to the end of it, i felt as though i was chewing on a raw piece of meat or some rubber.

on the side, we had the mushrooms, which i found were a delightful accompaniment, and the bone marrow. the mushrooms where fresh and definitely had that whole "fresh from the farms organic" feel to them. the bone marrow, on the other hand, was a first for me and something i found semi unusual. it had a nice, mild taste to it but the gelatinous texture was something i was not used to. overall it was quite abit of food and it took awhile (for her at least) to get through it.

molten center chocolate souffle

we got to the end of the meal and we decided "hell, lets just finish of a sinful meal with some sweet, calorie-filled goodness". we ordered the chocolate souffle. i was expecting alot from it, considering he did have a michelin star, but i was disappointed. the chocolate souffle turned out too soft, which lacked the richness that a good souffle should have not only on the outside, but inside also. the molten center was not hot enough and definitely not flavorful enough. so i took 2 bites of it and gave all the empty calories to d, who is the sugar queen (no points for guessing who her sugar daddy is, pun absolutely intended).

all in all, i think Privé is one of the better fine dining establishments i've been to. the food is top notch, and all the ingredients used are very fresh and authentic. they don't try to cover up the freshness with all sorts of fancy sauces and toppings, but rather try to stay true to form with sauces only meant to bring out the best of the natural flavors, letting you sample what real good, wholesome food is about.

http://www.prive.com.sg/Prive%20Menu_1604.pdf

Santouka - Ramen @ Central Mall

santouka charsiew ramen - 8.5/10

honestly it has been awhile since did any food posts, and i must admit i have no reason for doing so. but thinking about it, i haven't really had much new good food recently. it's been awhile since the adventurous (and tasting food is as wild as i get) foodie in me found some place nice.

one thing i've been eating alot recently is santaoka ramen. In my continual never ending quest for singapore’s best ramen, I just had to try this place. For one, it’s rated 6 chopstix by makansutra. Now for those of you who are familiar with the bible of street food, 6 chopstix is one mean feat. It apparently signifies culinary excellence. I’ve had stuff with 4 chopstix and even 5 which I didn’t really like, but I don’t recall having ever tasted anything with 6 chopstix that I didn’t at least enjoy significantly. So that being said, I needed to try this place. Plus some of my blog readers (who I hope still read considering I’ve been MIA) have pointed out that I wasn’t being a fair ramen judge if I didn’t go try santouka. So, for the sake of impartial judgement (at least that's what i tell d when i bring her for ramen the 100th time in a row), I had to try this place out.

So I called santouka just to check that they were open at about 2pm on a weekend afternoon. It’s always a good idea to call and check to see if any restaurant is still open. After all, you wouldn’t want to go somewhere, expecting some yumyum and then get totally disappointed due to an anticlimactic turn of events. And it’s happened to me more than once, so nowadays I usually call before I go. Plus I’m just plain kiasu. Must be benjamin graham. Damn that margin of safety.

So I hoped into the batmobile and zoomed down to central. For those of you who know central, they have an amazingly winding carpark which is about 6-7 storeys high. If you think taka was bad, wait till you try this. Plus they don’t have the “200m more to go" sign which they recently implemented in taka. For those of you who nauseate easily, you might wanna consider taking a break halfway in the middle. but don’t forget to pull your handbrake!

So anyway I’m at central and I climb down the escalator, briefly passing “marutama ramen” and scoffing at the same time. Hearing it’s name just makes me wanna hurl (insert gross vomitting noises here). For those of you who’ve read my previous posts, I absolutely abhor marutama. They simply bring a bad name to ramen. Ok, I know a lot of you like it. Blah blah blah. But you CANNOT use chicken soup for ramen! It’s just culinary blasphemy. it's the equivalent of saying kate beckinsale is just "ok pretty". or that hugh jackman is "pretty hunky". hugh jackman is NOT pretty hunky. hugh jackman is the freaking hunkiest thing to walk this earth. ok wait... i think that last sentence didn't reflect too well on me.

Anyway I go down to the 2^nd floor and try to look for it. being the klutz that i am, i must have gone around the mall a couple times before i found it. For those of you going, you have to walk pass GRAINS restaurant. It’s an empty, sad looking Chinese restaurant with waitresses standing around inviting you to eat there, like a cheap hooker on the streets, motioning for you to taste the forbidden fruit (or food in this case). So just ignore them and walk straight pass. you’ll see a tiny shop at the corner, a small little ramen shop.

The menu is made up mainly of ramen. You got the regular ramen, and you have the charsiew ramen (which is basically the regular ramen with extra charsiew). you can get it in shio (salt) or shoyu (soy sauce) flavor. just for the record, i always get shio. shio is the super popular original flavor or ramen. the natural salt allows you to truly taste the richness of the stock, instead of masking it with the flavor of soy sauce. the regular ramen is about 12 bucks I think and the charsiew ramen is about 18 bucks. They even have premium fatty charsiew ramen.

In addition, they sell this ikura (salmon roe) on rice thingy which d really likes. Talk about greedy, she eats both the ikura rice AND the ramen. Now that’s my kinda girl.

So the ramen comes out. It doesn’t come with the usual half egg so you’ll have to order it on the side. It comes with a slice of pink and white Japanese fishcake, bamboo shots and char siew. nothing fantastic, but as always, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

The soup is nice and salty. Slightly oily and very tasty. somehow though, it lacks a little bit of depth. I’m not saying it’s not flavorful, but it’s not the absolute best. Pretty good nonetheless though. you can tell the stock has been simmering for a long time. The regular charsiew is firm and lean to the taste. for those of you who don't like fatty meats, you will like this. i for one, personally don't like my pork fatty. oh there's nothing i love more than a fatty steak, but somehow fatty pork doesn't really spank my monkey.

The fatty charsiew, ordered separately, doesn’t look fatty at all but is very center with a lot of intramuscular fat. It melts in your mouth. kinda akin to wagyu or any other highly marbled beef, like rib eye.

The egg is cooked very soft. It’s hard boiled but even the white is tender to the touch. The yolk is semi-molten. The taste is great for those who like their eggs done this way. d never eats the soft eggs cause it makes her nauseaus. yay. more food for me. The bamboo shoots are more natural then the regular one’s you get and quite similar to that of menya shinchan. So it’s pretty good. The noodles are nice and pretty al dente. So this may be a good or bad, depending on your preference.

They have really good gyoza too for those who like it. Small and nicely pan fried with pork and chives inside. A must to go with your ramen. petite in size and wonderfully delicious.

Overall, I kinda like the ramen here. I’ve been back quite a few times and the food is very consistent. I would rate it a 2^nd as compared to menya shinchan, but it definitely is a nice change of pace. It’s very popular and I really can see why. The ambience is nice and clean, and the food is good. But somehow, it never gives me the “wow” that menya shinchan has. Interestingly enough, it’s rated higher than menya (menya has 5 chopstix) in makansutra. Maybe it’s a good thing. Less crowds over there for me.

ramen adventure continued - miharu and tampopo

miharu's salty pork bone ramen - 8/10

it was a saturday night and i was craving more good ramen. i'd already been to menya a dozen times. i kind of wanted to try other ramen places. i really wanted to find the best ramen in singapore, but it was getting tough. my research pointed me in a couple more directions, but i read mixed reviews about them. there is no place in singapore that has a unanimously positive review of any ramen restaurant here. i guess it's hard because food is such a personal thing. some people would say that not all people have good taste. but i'm not one of those people. i think it doesn't matter what others think, as long as it spanks your monkey. so i decided that i would try to find my own favorite.

a little more research thus left me with two more places to try. Miharu, at the Gallery Hotel, and Tampopo, at Liang Court. it's extremely unusual how all the good ramen places tend to congregate at the robertson quay area. Amongst all the reviews that i read, these two were the most promising. they were both supposed to be pretty authentic, and both had alot of positive comments. i couldn't pick which place i wanted to go to for dinner. it was tough. they both sounded pretty good. one had special noodles and the other had special ingredients.

so i just decided to go to both.

d and i headed off to miharu first. gallery hotel is actually pretty close to Menya Shinchan, except that you have to drive deeper in instead of turning into the carpark. menya shinchan, as most of you will know, is already my absolute favorite ramen. great broth, wonderful noodles in different thickness and hardness available, and pretty good gyoza too. so i wasn't really expecting much from this trip. i just needed to know in my own head that the others weren't as good.

ramen from tampopo - 6/10

we were kinda racing against time because both places closed at 10 and it was already 8 plus by the time we left home. so i didn't have much time to try both outlets. i sped down in my car and a couple of illegal u-turns later, i reached miharu. it's a little shop on the outside part of gallery hotel. they have a couple of restaurants, and a couple jap ones too so make sure you get the right one when you come here. i ordered the standard pork bone soup one. (there is only one white colored salty pork bone based soup), and got some gyoza along the way. one thing that i hated were the tables. the tables are really small, and there is no way you're going to fit two guys on one side of it. it's a standard 4 person table, but the only 4 people that are going to fit in it are 4 tiny girls. either that or some skinny ass dudes. and the chairs don't fit inside properly either.

anyway, the food came soon enough. now for the taste test. the soup. WOW, the soup was good. nice and very rich, and the good part, there are no fatty bits in it! unlike menya shinchan. so you don't feel like you just ate a whole bowl of lard. it comes with corn, bamboo shoots, charsiew and egg.

the corn was a nice add. it gives the noodles some crunch when eaten together with it. the charsiew came in a lean and thick slice. good if you don't like fatty meats. the egg yolk was slightly too hard for the usual half boiled egg in ramen, but nonetheless still good. but what was interesting here was the noodles. they use sapporo noodles, which are supposed to be a japanese favourite. they are yellow and springy. it looks slightly like instant noodles but tastes different. it reminds me of a place i used to go to in indo called tai chan, which had fantastic shoyu ramen. anyway, i was quite impressed by this place. it's probably a good try, especially if you haven't had sapporo noodles before.

so i finished up, paid, and got on to the next destination. liang court wasn't too far away i we drove down and managed to reach there soon enough. the specialty of tampopo is supposed to be the black big, or better known as kurobuta pork, aka berkshire pig. yeah, if you're a fan of warren too then you know what i'm thinking. anyway, i ordered the kurobuta pork ramen (pork bone based) and the regular pork bone ramen. the only difference between the two was in the ingredients. the soup and noodles were the same. it turned out to be a disappointment though.

the soup was disappointing. salty, but not rich enough. so you have this overly salty soup, probably laden with MSG, and yet you didn't get the richness or flavor that you want in a ramen. really makes you rethink about them saying that they boiled the soup for 2 days. it comes with a pink colored fish roe that you stir into the soup. the regular ramen comes with egg and black fungus. no bamboo shoots. the noodles seemed handmade, and it came with a big piece of fatty charsiew. the noodles were bland, and the other ingredients were less that spectacular.

with the other black pig ramen, all you got was pork and noodles. it was barren. the pork was good, but sliced wayy too thin for my liking. but i guess you can't expect so much pork because the ramen only costs 14 bucks or so. tampopo was definitely not in my to try list for ramen.

overall, i thought miharu was an good try. i would return again, but only if i got bored of menya. the noodles were nice for a change, but definitely not for a mainstay in my book. overall i preferred menya, but i would rank miharu a close second. i guess it just proves that you shouldn't be cheating on your true love.

i am BIG

so it seems that singapore has been supersizing it. i don't know what has gotten into these chains, but they sure are piling it on. first you got carls jr, the huge burgers in which you can add an unlimited number of patties for 4 bucks each. now that is badass. i don't know about you, but a triple patty with cheese (and have you tried the waffle fries by the way) really hits the spot. my little (ok not so little) bro insists that 4 is optimum. ain't nothing like 5,000 calories to really make your day, eh? then there was mickey D's coming up with the mega series. first the mega mac and mega mcspicy, then the mega sausage mcmuffin with eggs. and now, the even have the mega prosperity burger! i love the mega mac and the mega sausage mcmuffin. especially the latter. double sausage patties is so good. for those of you who haven't, go try it.

funny thing is, i used to love the mcspicy, but it sucks now. for some reason, all the chicken patties taste different. they aren't as meaty and juicy anymore. in fact, it seems like they're replacing the meat with (gasp!) flour. holy cheap cost cutting strategies batman!

yeah, and i've tried the chicken several times. BOTH the double ones and the regular ones. and they don't taste as good as before. something fishy is going on here.

then now you got the BK stackers stuff too. i haven't tried it yet, but i'm sure it'll be pretty good.

why am i bringing this up? i don't know. i never thought super sizing stuff was such a good idea. well i like lots of food, but in general, it's not really healthy for the general public. i know, i know, you're thinking since when did i care about health? who gives a damn anyway. but then again, it is important. if you keep eating crap all the time, one day you're going to either get diebetes, or hypertension, or heart disease and you're not going to be able to eat the foods you love. well i guess you could. my uncle has had 3 heart bypasses and still eats crap everyday. talk about food lover.

i guess asians for most part don't seem to have the genes for getting fat. the general population as least. look at all the skinny girls at mcdonalds. i used to wonder how these chicks could eat so much crap and never get fat. then i discovered the solution. the singaporean skinny girl diet plan. it's a simple 2 part plan. here you go. are you ready?

1) starve all day

2) eat a tiny bit of crap for dinner (1-2 slices of pizza)

this way, you get to eat yummy oily foods and stay fabulously skinny. who would have thought?

funny thing is, i was at carls the other day, and a significant portion of them were fat. i guess maybe, just maybe, they were eating a tad bit too much?

but why am i even bringing this up. i guess partly it's cause i used to be a FFB. (former fat boy). yeah. so things like this are sensitive to me. i have no qualms about people who eat crap and can still stay healthy and not get out of shape. but for those of you who can't, be careful. otherwise sooner or later you'll end up looking like the fat purple dude from the cartoon. and the dudes below.

-mega mcfatties

enough said. more food adventures coming up.