Foodie-ah

La Barca

2012-01-22T03:49:00.001+08:00

It's normal for food bloggers to come across unfortunate encounters". This is sadly the case with La Barca. I was excited to try this place, since it's located near me, and also because the Chef is heavily advertised for his Michelin Star, which he gained in Italy in 2009 in his restaurant in Siena, Tuscany. I was therefore eager to try his cooking, hoping it would match some of the superb Tuscan cuisine I had on my last trip over there, especially in Siena.

I must say the place is quite a hidden find, tucked away in the Goodman Arts Centre. Once you get there, the interior is very pleasantly spacious and elegant. There was a $35 lunch menu which included starter of mozzarella and tomato Caprese, Paccheri with broccoli sauce, and apple tarte as dessert. I didn't chose this option since it was not that compelling, so we both ordered a la carte.

The Roasted Capsicum Flan with Fresh Tomato Sauce was nothing incredibly exciting. The presentation was quite sloppy, and the texture quite stodgy and polenta-like. It did taste of peppers, but I thought overall it was lacking in something. It was basically like eating a pepper-flavoured polenta. This was the best dish of the lunch, and we only went downhill from here.

My Raw White Fish Fillet served with a Tomato Flan and Basil Pesto looked so similar to the other starter, that I was initially confused about which one was which, as it looked like both of us ordered the same dish. The two flans looked exactly the same and had the same texture, except mine tasted of tomato. I was puzzled trying to pair the flan with the fish, since they really didn't match. But the most dramatic aspect of this sterter was the fish itself. As I attempted to eat it I could smell it. And even worse, as I ate it, it was mushy and it lacked of taste. There was nothing to "cut" the fishiness of the fillet (such as vinegar, lemon juice or mustard). The condiment was in fact just oil and "basil oil" - yes, the old friend basil oil, back from the 80's. The last time I had seen this old school condiment was when I ate at yet another "unfortunate encounter": Bontá. It's sad that those remote memories re-emerged during the meal.

I was still hopeful that my gnocchi would turn out nicely. After all, how can you get wrong something as simple as gnocchi? Now I know the answer to the question. You can screw up the texture of the gnocchi, and of course, the sauce! And in this case I found them both a disappointment. The gnocchi were mushy and had no bite (they were sort of "dead"). Even compared to my own Gnocchi alla salsiccia, draw your own conclusion. And I am not a Michelin star chef. The sauce was basically some local fresh tomatoes, chopped and sauteéd for a few minutes, with a bit of salt. No flavour nor texture whatsoever were identifiable in this dish. I left it and returned it almost intact.

Finally, the meat: Grilled Pork Fillet with Wild Fennel and Vegetables in Tomato Sauce. I thought meat is something a Michelin starred chef should definitely get right. Once again, no flavour, and unpleasant "porky" taste throughout. Basically, although the meat itself was cooked well, it lacked of herbs and seasoning to bring out the flavour.

The $123 bill was something to be pretty upset about, thinking that if I had cooked any of these dishes, I would have considered them a miss, and also that I know of a few good Italian restaurants in Singapore where I could eat like a king at the same cost. It's never joyful to feel ripped off. Good luck to "La Barca", but I believe the days that you can get away with expensive, sloppy Italian cooking in Singapore are gone.

La Barca
Website: http://www.labarca-sg.com/about-us.php

Open Door Policy

2011-11-26T15:09:00.001+08:00

Open Door Policy is the latest happening place in Tiong Bahru. More specifically, Yong Siak Street is flourishing with quirky, dynamic and interesting new places such as 40 hands café, a fashionable bookstore and a furniture and art shop. There is a good reason why this is happening in this specific street, which roots down to its unique character.

It is actually the 40 hands owner who has a share in this restaurant, where he guarantees that speciality coffees are served. The quirky setup certainly keeps diners entertained, with the kitchen bringing action into the narrow dining room, natural light filtering from the glass ceiling at the back, the rustic materials such as brick walls, steel and rusted chairs. Such exciting combinations make the place feel "real" and alive, for once away from the polished, aseptic setups that have been out of fashion abroad for quite some time and are also becoming dated on this island.

Chef Ryan Clift from Tippling Club also has a stake in this restaurant as the food concept supervisor. Unlike the Tippling Club which is more experimental, the menu here is very simple and earthy, the kind of food which you would enjoy for a Saturday or Sunday lunch. And it was in fact during a Saturday lunch that I visited the place and tried a couple of their dishes.

The Flamed tuna carpaccio with radish and yuzu salad (S$19) came topped with abundant "radish noodles" in a tangy yuzu sauce. The tuna medallions were lightly seasoned and seared all around them for flavour. I liked the fact that the slices of tuna were thick enough to appreciate the texture of the fish.

The Grilled carrot salad with snow peas, orange walnuts and cardamom dressing (S$16) was a bit of a pleasant surprise. A bed of fresh rocket salad unveiled a warm carrot pureé, which also served as the sauce for the whole salad. Shreds of carrot and walnuts added a bit of crunch. This was really a bit of a welcome twist to what I would have expected from the description.

Unfortunately, the Pork belly with parsnip puree, braised quinoa and celery (S$29) looked better than it tasted. I must say that the amount of meat was incredibly generous, in fact too generous perhaps, for a cut of meat which is so extremely sinful. In this case, less is more. The lack of sauce to complement the meat was where this dish fell short, as the parsnip puré was just not enough to help it come together. On the other hand, both the quinoa and parsnip chips were excellently done.

I enjoyed the Roasted salmon with panzanella salad although the salmon was surprisingly quite raw (they claim it's 80% cooked, but it seemed more like 60%). This was perfectly fine with me, since I like my fish raw, but some customers might return it, if unaware at the time of ordering it. The panzanella dressing was a fantastic combination, and the crispy fried basil leaves were beautiful and aromatic.

We were too full to try the desserts, or perhaps there was nothing on the menu that was tempting enough. I was intrigued by the fact that "Amaro Montenegro" was available in the list of spirits. It is my favourite "amaro", a very Italian drink virtually unknmown abroad. It goes to show that this place really tries to offer something different! Overall, the place offered a good dining experience both in terms of setting and food. Don't expect anything out of the ordinary, but you will get some modern, earthy, no frills food at affordable prices in a cool setting in an up and coming district. I would go back try this again soon.

Open Door Policy
Website: http://www.odpsingapore.com/

Pain á l'ancienne

2011-11-24T18:45:00.001+08:00

Unfortunately, availability of good bread is extremely scarce in Singapore, or should we say non existent. This is of course an issue that is not just limited to this island, due to accelerated times for industrial and mass production, but at least in places like Italy or France, you can find good bread if you know where to shop.
Walking into a Bread Talk or a Cedele branch doesn't quite give you the same sensory emotions as you would get from a proper bakery. The smells and colors aren't quite the same, and in any case you won't find bread with the traditional flavours and textures that can only be achieved through the natural, long leavening times of the classic recipes.

Pain a l'ancienne is perhaps my favourite bread I have produced so far. I love its colour, texture and flavour. The golden brown cracking crust, the white airy crumb, the sweetness that is released as you chew it. I like having this straight out of the oven (after a 15 minutes resting period), soaked in quality olive oil. It doesn't need much more to keep you eating it!

I would like to share my recipe, which is a mix of the baguette recipe I found in my bread book, and some tips from the master baker.
Following, the ingredients for about 4 loaves:

Poolish:
Bread Flour   120g
Water         120ml
Dry Yeast     0.1g (a pinch)
Dough:
Bread Flour   244g
Water         120ml
Dry yeast     1g
Salt          7g

Two days in advance (I usually start Friday night for bread that I bake on Sunday morning), mix the flour and water (in which you will dissolve the yeast first) for the poolish in a small plastic container that you can hermetically seal. Also, mix the flour and water for the main dough (244g flour and 120ml water), knead until fully incorporated, shape into a ball, wrap it in cling film, and store in a separate tightly sealed plastic container. Put both containers it in a wine cellar at about 12-14C, and let ferment for about 18-24 hours. The poolish should look very bubbly and airy through the plastic container.

The next evening:

Pull out the two doughs from the fridge 30 minutes in advance, and prepare the remaining yeast, which you will have dissolved into a tiny amount of water, and the salt.
Put the stiff dough in the mixer at the lowest speed, then add the water and yeast mixture, then gradually, spoon by spoon, the poolish. Let the stiff dough incorporate the added poolish, perhaps helping it a bit using a spatula, then add more of it, until it's all incorporated.
Add the salt, then bring the mixer to a higher speed and knead for another 5 minutes.
Put the dough into a large plastic container, and let it ferment at ambient temperature (30C) for 1 hour.
Take the dough out of the container on a lightly floured surface, then stretch it and fold it onto itself. Place it back into the container for another hour.
Take the dough out again (it should have doubled in size), then divide it into 4 equal pieces, possibly elongated. Flatten them out, then let them rest for 5 minutes. Note that you will need to dust this dough with flour, since it's quite lose.
Now shape the baguettes by folding the flattened squares, like in this video. Do the folding twice. Note that the dough in this recipe is a bit more lose than the one in the video. If you are not comfortable with the shaping, you can just fold the dough once and elongate it and roll it a bit. You will still get good bread.
Place all the loaves onto a large piece of baking paper, then enclose them into a large plastic box for raising. It's important that you keep them enclosed so that they don't dry out during the raising process. I place them into a wine cellar overnight, and they will be ready the next morning. Alternatively, if in a rush, they will be ready if you let them ferment at ambient temperature for 2 to 2-1/2 hours.

The next morning, take the box out of the cellar 60 minutes in advance, and switch on the oven at 270C. I highly recommend you have a baking stone (I purchased a lava stone from Hup Kiong cut to exactly the size of my oven, and it works wonders). Make sure that the stone is fully heated, and that will take at least 40 minutes of pre-heating at maximum temperature before you insert the bread. I also insert a pan full of boiling water about 10 minutes before inserting the bread, to ensure appropriate steaming in the oven.
Before inserting the bread in the oven score the loaves and spray them with a very fine water spray. insert them in the oven, and bake until ready (time varies, depending on the oven). You will know when they are ready, as the color of the crust speaks for itself.
Once out of the oven, try to be poatient and let the bread rest for 15-30 minutes before cracking it open!

Jaan lunch 2011

2011-11-06T01:35:00.000+08:00

It has been a while since I haven't visited Jaan... in fact I didn't get a chance to dine there since Chef André left. Recently, Chef Julien Royer took charge of the kitchen moving from his previous job at the St. Regis Hotel. While the food at the Brasserie "Les Saveurs" was more classic French, at Jaan Julien has been given more freedom to present his own creations, while sourcing products from his selection of world class producers.Having beautiful memories of the great food that Chef André used to serve at Jaan when he first started, I was very excited to try their new food style for lunch.

The dining room hasn't changed, which is a good thing for me, since I believe it's one of the most tastefully furnished fine dining restaurants in Singapore. The menu includes an introduction of the Chef's background and his mission statement. I like it as it's really a no-frills introduction, simple and concise. He believes in tradition, combined with creativity and fresh ingredients from the best producers.

Right after ordering the food, we were served an impressively presented thin bread with a "lentils hummus", the Chef's personal interpretation, made from Saint-Flour lentils and chestnuts. The presentation was both modern and artisanal at the same time, with a combination of stone and wooden utensils. Minimalist and warm.

All the small bites that were served with the bread were beautifully presented and were absolutely delicious. The hummus was slightly sweet for me, as I prefer to start my meal with more savoury flavours.

It was with great surprise that we discovered shortly after the amuse-bouche was yet to be served: a cep sabayon with fresh walnuts and lovage. It came served in a double-walled glass and it looked like a dense mousse.

When the waiter poured an infusion of boiling wild mushroom tea right in front of us, the magic happened and the dish transformed into a mushroom cappuccino. Flavoursome, hot, creamy, sophisticated and yet simple. I must say that with these two unexpected courses, the Chef already built a great momentum to the dining experience, and we were eager to find out what would be next.

The Landes Foie Gras and Rabbit ballotine was a core of Foie Gras, rolled into rabbit breast meat, then again coated with a thin layer of lardo di colonnata to retain the moisture. Decorations of gingered butternut, hazelnut and pickled onions added dimensions of flavour and texture that could be combined with the protein.

The other starter was pure indulgence: a large raviolo, stuffed with soft, oozing egg yolk, and topped with cheese and truffle, on top of a dense mushroom sauce. Once again, very elegantly presented, pleasant and balanced to the palate. The fresh hazelnuts added an extra seasonal touch to the dish, which unfortunately in Singapore we tend to forget and neglect.

The main dish was an assorted serving of the most rich or flavoursome cuts pork: cheek, belly, short rib, pig's trotter. Unsurprisingly, the belly was the best, with those rich layers of fat and the unmissable crispy skin, followed by the cheek which was tender and coated in a rich glaze. I liked the distinct charred flavour of the short rib, which was quite lean and dry on its surface, but a delicacy that I couldn't resist from grabbing with my fingers and devour like a caveman. The pig's trotter was deep fried into a small ball in classic French style, which has never been my favourite way of having this delicacy, however this was the leanest I had so far and was overall quite pleasant. It is stating the obvious, but any pork lover would have to order this.

The second main dish was fish, for a change: an Atlantic cod with baby squid, Chanterelles mushrooms and summer beans. The fish was well cooked, moist and flaky. The beans were cut into strips and gave a bit of a light crunch to a dish that was otherwise mainly composed of soft textures. While most of the flavours on the dish were quite mild, they were compensated by the pieces of baby squid which were very savoury.

The main dishes were certainly not disappointing, and the momentum was still up there. Then another surprise course appeared in front of us. We were served a palate cleanser, which was essentially a blueberry pannacotta, topped with a 2-temperatures foam.
As one of the desserts, we tried the cheeses. There was a great cheese selection, with a couple of outstanding soft cheeses. I can't recall the name, but there was a special soft cheese that really had a buttery texture and intense taste I never encountered before in both French and Italian cheeses. The cheeses were accompanied by a selection of crackers and homemade jams, including delicious candied ginger which I wiped all out.

My dessert was a "Choconuts": a Jivara mousse with peanuts and Macadamia ice cream. Clearly, one for nuts fans like me. The eccentric presentation, almost out of a futurist sculpture, somehow suggested I should start from the left (the ice cream), and then progress from the soft textures slowly onto the biscuit and chocolate wafer. Solid caramel, nutty, chocolate flavours dominated this quirky dessert.

...but that was not it! Final surprise, the petit fours. This presentation looked warm and cozy, yet again with a humorous, quirky touch: CaramBar candies! This rosemary based combination of sweet bites included chocolate coated marshmallows, truffles, buttery biscuits, and finally ice cream chocolate coated lollipops. In particular, I liked the rosemary infused melt in your mouth truffles and bouncy homemade marshmallows. I am always an enthusiast for fresh herbs in desserts and cocktails!

In summary, this was an incredibly satisfying meal, full of surprises, excitement, a beauty for the eyes and the palate. In particular, I was amazed by its value for money. There aren't many places in Singapore where you can enjoy what effectively is a 7 course fine dining lunch (3 courses, + pre-amuse bouche, amuse bouche, palate cleanser and petit fours) for just S$52++ per person! On top of the great food, service is always excellent at Jaan, with competent, discreet and attentive staff, and the bright, spacious, breathtaking dining room is certainly a plus for any diner.

Jaan
Website: http://www.jaan.com.sg
Reservations and Enquiries: Steven Drewery at Mobile: +65 9199 9008 / Tel: +65 6837 3322

Casa Tartufo

2011-11-05T16:58:00.002+08:00

I took the opportunity to visit Casa Tartufo for lunch during the last "Restaurant week". Just to clarify the theme of the restaurant, "Casa Tartufo" literally translates to "Truffle House" in Italian. Unexpectedly, the restaurant is located within an old shopping centre in Orchard Road. The interior is quite elegant and well decorated, with a distinct Italian feel.
I started with a beef carpaccio. Needless to say, it was served with a truffle sauce, as well as Parmesan shavings, all on top of a bed of lettuce. Overall the meat tasted fresh and the truffle sauce was a good combination, as it didn't have that unpleasant sour taste that you can find in some carpaccios. I wasn't too keen on the lettuce, which didn't integrate well both in terms of texture and flavour (it tends to neutralise the already subtle flavour of the beef and the sauce).
The focaccia bread that was served with the starter had an interesting texture, quite dense and airy, with a light crunchy crust.
There was nothing wrong with the pasta with prawns and zucchini, but yet something was lacking, and it failed to give me that desirable feeling of happiness that I can enjoy from a good pasta. I left aside the deep fried decorative vegetables on top, which were a tad weird and didn't really mingle with the rest.
The truffle ice cream on crumble and chocolate sauce was quite interesting at the beginning, although the truffle scent was too intense after a few spoonfuls. Good idea, but I would lighten up the dose of truffle oil.
I noticed that during the restaurant week the food served with the deals offered tends to be a little more "rushed" than on regular days. Yet, this was my first visit at Casa Tartufo, so I can only judge from what I had. I wasn't that impressed especially with the combinations of ingredients, but it might be that a regular meal at Casa Tartufo will score better. I would be interested to hear of others experiences.

Casa Tartufo
Website: http://www.casatartufo.com/

The Moluccas Room

2011-09-30T01:38:00.000+08:00

I was invited to try this newly opened restaurant located along "The Shoppes" at Marina Bay Sands. The restaurant concept is modern Indonesian food, which so far hasn't really been done in Singapore. The Indonesian born Chef has been trained in French cooking and has been working in renowned restaurants in Australia, including Tetsuya. Her vision is to redefine Indonesian cuisine maintaining the traditional flavours, but selecting the best ingredients and utilising French and modern cooking techniques to bring Indonesian cuisine to a whole new level.

The restaurant enjoys a spacious, elegant and contemporary dining room, with plenty of natural light filtering through the venetian blinds around its perimeter. The view over the bay makes it a perfect place for an evening dinner, but it's also a relaxing sight over lunch. The deco is simple and modern, with materials such as stone and wood, and a few Indonesian motifs to recall the theme of the menu.

While waiting for the food, we were served an amuse bouche together with some Indonesian chips and the Chef's signature selection of Sambal. Apart from the garlic sambal I enjoyed the rest, in particular the less mashed one, with roughly chopped chillies, ginger and shallots.

For starters we had a selection of sate. Each one was served with its own sauce, although they didn't actually need extra sauce as they were perfectly flavoured. The Sate Padang Lidah Sapi ($27 for five skewers) was the biggest surprise. I have been familiar with beef tongue since I was a child, as it's commonly eaten in Italy. Having it as Sate was a bit of a novelty. It didn't actually feel like eating tongue and I wouldn't have guessed it if I hadn't been told, but the tender and succulent texture of this skewer was one of the highlights of the lunch. The charcoal grilled Angus Beef ($25) and Sakura Chicken ($22) skewers were also outstanding, although the beef tongue is really what I would come back for.

To clean the palate, we were served a Soto Ayam Lamongan ($15), a spiced chicken soup with shredded chicken. The flavours were clean and delicate, and half way through it I enhanced the flavour by adding a touch of squeezed lime which gave it a tad of sharpness.

Udang Blado Padang ($35) was a fried king prawn with sambal and cherry tomatoes on top of a grilled aubergine. I found this slightly under salted so the flavours didn't really strike my senses as hoped.

I was a lot more excited about the Ayam Sakura Tangkap Aceh Selada Mangga ($19), a green mango salad served with deep fried chicken and herbs. The chicken was crispy on the surface and juicy inside, but the crunchy herbs really added another dimension to it. A well executed classic!

Here comes what in my opinion was the best dish of all, the Ikan Bakar Jimbaran ($35). This fillet of sea bass was cooked sous-vide and brushed with a dark, slightly sweet, intensely flavoured sambal sauce. The roasted cherry tomatoes and pickled cucumber slices completed the range of flavours, freshening up the dish. The thick cut of sea bass was tender and succulent, and there was no unwanted "fishiness" to it. I would highly recommend trying this to any fish lovers!

Next, another surprise from the Chef: Angus Steak Rendang ($35). Instead of the classic beef Rendang, this dish combined a French steak with this well known classic. You can actually ask for the steak to be done to your preference, and it will come cooked to perfection, tossed in a rich Rendang sauce. While I personally prefer a braised cut to go with this kind of sauce, all of my dining mates enjoyed this dish the most for innovation and flavour.

The last savoury dish of the meal was a Confit Sakura Ayam Tuturaga ($33), a confit of succulent chicken cooked in its own fat (all rigorously free range!), served in a sharp curry sauce. This was certainly a beautifully executed combination of French cooking techniques, which brought out the Indonesian flavours while maintaining the natural juiciness of the meat. This would be another one of my recommendations.

Frankly speaking, I am not a big fan of Indonesian desserts, but the dessert is where the Chef could really make use of her French cooking skills to cater to a more international palate, while bringing Indonesian flavours into the equation. The dessert platter came with two creme brulee and one ice cream. I started off with the Gula Melaka ice cream. Perhaps because I like this kind of sugar and I am happy to eat it on its own, this flavour was absolute perfection for me. The wonderful rounded sugary flavour, with mild tones of caramel and licorice, was true heaven. For obvious reasons, I equally enjoyed the Gula Melaka Creme Brulee, which was less intense and less sweet than the ice cream, with the bonus of a light, crispy shell on top of it. I wasn't too keen on the Sri Kaya Creme Brulee ($17), coconut based with pandanus flavour, since it had that "Indonesian dessert flavour" that I usually tend to avoid, but you would surely like it if you are accustomed to that taste.

Chef Alicia Tivey introduced herself and explained some of the techniques and thinking that went into her dishes. It's always wonderful to hear from inspired Chefs who have such dedication and believe in creating an experience for the customer.
The Moluccas Room might come across as slightly expensive for an Indonesian restaurant if you simply compare it to other restaurants of the same cuisine, but that wouldn't be a fair comparison. Besides considerations on the location and service, you must acknowledge that the ingredients used are of the finest quality, all selected by the Chef, just as you would find in a fine dining French restaurant. Therefore, this cuisine is positioned at that level both in terms of food quality and price. If you are looking for regular Indonesian food, then this might not be the place to go, but if you are looking for a South-East Asian fine dining experience then this restaurant is really a rare find, and it is guaranteed to deliver to its promise.

The Moluccas Room
Address: The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, 2 Bayfront Avenue, L1-81
Tel: 6688 7367 (10am – 10pm)
Website: www.themoluccasroom.com
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Jewels Artisan Chocolate - Mooncakes 2011

2011-08-30T23:19:00.009+08:00

Following up from my favourite mooncakes from last year, this year I got another box of Jewels mooncakes. Out of the ones I tried, Jewels snowskin mooncakes are the only ones that compete with the ones from the Raffles (and that's not by chance, since it's the same hands behind them), except I actually prefer the Jewels selection of flavours.

Luckily, the flavours haven't really changed from last year, since their selection has been largely appreciated, except from a new signature flavour: the Korean Black Garlic. Chef Then Chui Foong has been playing with this ingredient in combination with chocolate for quite some time now. In particular, I thought that her Korean black garlic ice cream was innovative and delicious. I bet she has been waiting for months for the mooncakes season, to come up with her ultimate black garlic creation. The fermented clove of black garlic placed in the middle of the mooncake releases a deep, licorice like flavour with a smooth tone of acidity. It is quite a unique taste with a tinge of garlic flavour, but extremely tamed, without the pungent, aggressive aspects of regular garlic. A must try!

My second favourite remains the salted caramel truffle. I like the combination of the gentle saltiness of Palm Island sea salt with the crunchy winter melon seeds.

The dark chocolate crunchy pearl mooncakes are quite familiar to many, since they are also sold by the Raffles Hotel. This mooncake will be appreciated by those who love chocolate, mint, and a bit of crunch. Really something quite different from the other classic truffle mooncakes, the mint-chocolate combination reminds me of the classic "After Eight" thin chocolates!

Besides the Espresso truffle flavour, there is also a Champagne truffle mooncake on the menu, which is the all time favourite for most and Jewel's one is outstanding. After all, I am such a big fan of their Perle Noir chocolate, which is basically made from the same Champagne truffle you would find inside the mooncake, surrounded by crunchy pearls!

I got bitten so many times by sloppy snowskin mooncakes that nowadays I can hardly trust buying them from random places, and Jewels remains on top of my list.

Website: http://www.jewels.com.sg/

Bucatini al cinghiale e burrata

2011-08-28T19:34:00.002+08:00

Excited about the long awaited burrata I received yesterday, I thought of repeating something similar to the pasta I improvised some time ago and I liked so much to still remember over it a year later. I didn't go shopping in the morning, so I decided to make do with whatever I had in the fridge from last week. I still had some wild boar salami leftover from my last trip in Tuscany, so I thought of putting it to good use.

These are the ingredients I dug out of my fridge to make this pasta:

A slice of smoked guanciale
3 slices of Tuscan wild boar salami
3 tinned plum tomatoes
Half a piece of celery
Half a carrot
3 spring onions (white part only)
Many sprigs of fresh thyme
1 small burrata
100ml chicken stock
Red wine
Sugar and salt to taste

The preparation is very simple. Dice the guanciale and the wild boar salami (of course, you can use normal pork salami as wild boar cannot easily be found in Singapore).

Chop very finely the carrot spring onions (I used spring onions as that's what I had in the fridge, but onions or leeks will be equally good), and celery.

I was pretty excited to open the box of this mini burrata, produced in Puglia by Centro Latte Stasi.

I love this moment, cutting through the outer "sack" of the burrata, watching the cream leaking out first, followed by oozing clots of burrata. beautiful. Of course, I couldn't resist from having some of this before finishing my pasta. I wouldn't put all of it on the bucatini anyway.

Start off by frying the guanciale in olive oil, and once well browned, add the carrots, celery and spring onions.

Add a splash of red wine (a third of a glass) and quickly let evaporate on high heat. Once well evaporated, add the chicken stock, and simmer over medium heat.

Once the chicken stock is half absorbed, add about 3 whole canned plum tomatoes and chop them directly in the sauce while stirring. Keep reducing over low heat and add salt and a small pinch of sugar should the tomato be excessively sour. Keep adjusting as you go.

In the meantime, boil some water in a large pot, salt it and add the bucatini. They usually take 10-12 minutes to cook. Continue to cook the sauce, and after about 8 minutes from adding the tomatoes, add a few sprigs of thyme and if necessary top up the sauce with some of the boiling water from the pasta pot in order to prevent it from drying out. Let the thyme release its flavour into the sauce over low heat.

Drain the bucatini once ready, then toss into the sauce pan and serve into serving bowls. Top up with some fresh burrata cheese, grated black pepper, and a drizzle of real extra virgin olive oil (proper strong, full flavour. I used a Sicilian one here, which is sold at Gattopardo). Garnish with fresh thyme.

I was captured by the intense flavour of this pasta, which will definitely be a repeat. The gaminess from the wild boar was balanced by the chunks of creamy burrata, and the thyme flavour added a touch of freshness to the whole dish. And once again, I ate too much...

L'Atelier de Robuchon

2011-08-22T01:00:00.002+08:00

This is one restaurant that recently opened in Resort World Sentosa and is little known in Singapore outside of the foodies circle, primarily due to its segregated location. Odd enough, the Singapore branch of this renowned fine dining chain of restaurants, is not even mentioned on the official website (as of the date of publishing of this post).

Without a doubt, as you walk through the door you are overwhelmed by the sophistication of the ambiance. An unique combination of black and strong red dominates the restaurant throughout. The lighting is extremely dim, but well thought spotlights point in all the right places (most importantly, right on your on plate!) to create a very suggestive ambiance.

The vivid colors displayed in front of the kitchen are the result of a display of stacks of fresh produce such as carrots, apples or tomatoes. Behind, the busy and dynamic kitchen is fully in view for the diners, who sit around a semi-circular counter. The open kitchen-bar concept is fundamental to the attractiveness and the success of this restaurant. Watching the Chefs at work is entertaining for the diners impatient to know what's going to be next on their plate.

As we sat down, we were served a beautiful basket of assorted fresh bread and while munching on it, we took our time to decide what to order from the menu. They offer a selection of about 20 "small dishes", 8 appetizers and 7 mains. The waiter recommended about 4 small dishes each, but we had about 3 to share and a main each and that was definitely filling enough for us.

They started off with an amuse bouche of foie gras mousse and Parmesan. Decadent, sophisticated, delicious.

I was really impressed by the Grilled seasonal vegetable with a touch of wasabi (S$29). I would have never thought a vegetarian dish could be so addictive, to the point that I would order it again on my next visit.

Even more impressive, I shall say unforgettable, this Yellowtail tuna tartar with spicy tomato sauce(S$29).

I am looking forward to visit L'Atelier again to get to taste once more their Milk fed pig, roasted on the spit with braised green cabbage and fresh ginger (S$45). This is their signature dish, and it's amazing how this succulent, juicy pork is perfectly complemented by the flavour of ginger.

The Foie gras filled free-range quail with mashed potatoes (S$53) was also well executed. A quail stuffed with foie gras, accompanies by very butter rich mashed potatoes. I enjoyed the dish, although after trying the pork, this was eclipsed by it.

I didn't get too excited by the Lamb fillet served with spiced eggplant (S$45). The seasoning reminded me of Mexican food (there was a dominant cumin flavour), and the dish just wasn't as exciting as everything else we had.

I have much better things to say about the Marinated anchovies with eggplant confit (S$27). Beautifully presented, the highlight of this dish was that the fresh sardines (don't think of the tinned stuff!) revealed that "sea" flavour which is characteristic of anchovies, sardines and mackerel. This is not a flavour that is commonly found in Singapore, since it's typical of fish from the Mediterranean.

The dessert we chose was chocolate based: Caribbean, hazelnut dacquoise, thin Orizaba chocolate leaves (S$23). An enjoyable, indulgent composition of ice cream, chocolate thins, and a rich chocolate ganache.

In conclusion, l'Atelier de Robuchon was a fantastic experience, which perhaps doesn't come cheap, but when compared to other similar restaurants marketed at a similar level, is worth every penny.

L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon
Website: RWSentosa - L'Atelier de Robuchon

Anar

2011-08-14T15:31:00.000+08:00

Lebanese remains one of my favourites cuisines, and I have not been having much of it ever since I moved to Singapore. I have been missing the days of eating Lebanese daily, when I used to work on the King's Road in London, lunching at "Al Dar II", one of my favourite Lebanese Cafe's. Their sandwiches are some of the best you can have in London. Back to Singapore, ever since Sanobar closed, there hasn't really been much choice for middle eastern food. During my stay in Sentosa, I thought of trying Anar, a new Arabic restaurant located in Sentosa Resorts World.

The building, like all of the new builds on the island, has clearly been thought with the exact concept in mind. The inside is fully decorated in Arabic style, and it looks spacious and sumptuous. High ceilings, plenty of space in between tables, large chairs, beautifully intricate carpets and textiles all round.

And I must say that at Anar, they really started on the right gear by serving some freshly made bread. The tandoor oven is located right in the dining room, so you can watch the Chef at work.

The bread was absolutely fragrant, hot and crispy, with sesame seeds sprinkled on top. It really reminds you of a pizza without condiments, and after all, the middle east is where Italian pizza came from in the first place, it is where all the best flat breads originated! We were not yet served the dips, and we had already devoured a whole basket of this delicacy bread, so we ordered an extra basket for just S$2.00.

I can't really put any Arab restaurant to test without trying their dips. My favoutites are Hommous and Moutabal. Anar serves a hommous with minced beef (S$14.00). This was without a doubt the best hommous I had in Singapore, and it strongly reminded me of what I used to have back in London. A world apart from those amateurish hommous with either a strong garlic taste, or too much sesame paste, this was absolutely smooth and well balanced. A delicacy for the palate, topped by tasty olive oil.

The moutabal (S$12.00) was no less. The smokiness of the aubergines was just right, and it was incredibly light and fluffy, still retaining some grainy texture. I could have had a whole platter of this on my own! I wish I could do this myself, exactly like I had at Anar, and I was so inspired I will definitely give it a try.

As Italian as I am, I love parsley, and this herb is something we have in common with the Arabic culinary culture. Tabouleh (S$9.00) is the ideal dish for parsley lovers like me. This mountain of finely chopped parsley with diced tomatoes, delicately seasoned with lemon juice was a fresher complement to the bread than the other two dips.

Finally, the lamb. I opted for the rack (S$45) rather than the minced lamb, and I asked for it to be served without rice, as I already had an industrial quantity of bread. The saffron seasoning was so generous you could taste the beauty of this spice throughout these juicy ribs. This was really a no frills lamb at its best, and with those roasted onions and tomatoes, it reminded me of the Iranian food I used to have near earl's Court, back in London.

The total bill was S$153.00, which is not cheap, but not too unreasonable for RWS. It is unfortunate that we don't have more informal Lebanese cafes that serve this sort of food in Singapore, and after all sporadic attempts such as Sanobar have not succeeded. I will try Kazbar next, in the hope for a similar level of food at a cheaper price, but in the meantime it's reassuring to know that such food can be found somewhere near this island.

Anar
Link: http://www.rwsentosa.com/language/en-US/ShoppingDining/Dining/DiningAnarRestaurant
Phone: +65 6884 6989

André

2011-08-12T02:20:00.001+08:00

This was perhaps the most awaited restaurant in Singapore, and the first few months after its opening have been so booked up that it was hard to get a table if not very long in advance. It has now been sufficient time to make a booking without too much hassle, and I finally got to try the food, although just for lunch. The 5 course lunch menu is priced $128++ per person, which makes it more accessible than the dinner offering if you just want to have a taste of the food.

The setting is minimalistic and sober, just like the presentation of André's dishes. We were accompanied to our table, located on the upper floor. The lower floor seemed to be closed for lunchtime. The dining room is spacious, divided into two areas, one of which overlooks the courtyard and the olive tree that stands out in the middle of it.

The menu was printed onto semi-opaque sheets, which were placed on the table like mini table cloths. We were served an amouse bouche of crispies flavoured with onion and porcini mushrooms. It felt like having a "French onion soup" crystallized onto these crispy textures. An interesting start.

The starter was a "decomposed salad" of tomatoes and smoked salmon. Everything on the plate was of good quality, although this dish failed to impress me. It was a refreshing starter, but it lacked of that extra something to make sense of it all. Perhaps that something was meant to be the basil flower sorbet, but I didn't quite get it.

Next was a sharp and clean kaffir lime consommé with a pan seared scallop, cured fish and mini baby leek ravioli. Everything was really mignon in this dish, visually exciting, but despite the homeopathic portions you could clearly taste all the different components and they all worked really well in combination.

Next, the foie gras mousse with black truffle. It seemed like every dish that we were served was more exciting, in a crescendo of flavour. I am not a huge foie gras fan, not that I don't like it, but because it tends to become a bit monotonous. Whenever a menu wants to look expensive, it seems that it must include pan fried foie gras paired with some fruit or jam. But this dish was really something different. The pairing of two delicacies such as foie gras and truffle, striking the right balance between the two aromas, lightening up the richness of the foie gras in a custard-like texture. This little bowl was packed with seductive flavour.

I was at that point eager to get onto the main course, as the meal kept getting more interesting at every subsequent dish. And I must say that the short ribs didn't fail to exceed my expectations. The sous-vide short rib was incredibly tender, juicy, rich of thin layers of fat, and incredibly flavoursome. Eating that just makes me wonder "why doesn't mine taste like this?". But the polenta bianca with wild mushrooms was not any less impressive. It was rich and packed with mushroom aromas, a bit runny, unlike classic polenta. I found this really inspiring, and I think I will soon open a pack of polenta bianca which I have been keeping in storage for the last 3 months or so. This is a dish I would come back for, and I would be happy to have it exactly the same.

I was always impressed by André's desserts when he used to work at Jaan. Thje indication on the menu that we would end up with a concert of chocolate got me excited. I couldn't reconcile what was on the plate with the description on the menu: "Tarte au chocolat" with milk pudding and ice cream "Milk marmalade". However, this was exactly the kind of dessert I was hoping for! The chocolate ball was only tepid outside, but once squashed, it oozed out a beautifully warm chocolate ganache. I enjoyed biting into that squishy textured shell while warm, rich chocolate kept oozing out! I loved the pairing of ice cream with crunchy cocoa nibble-like sand. I am never impressed by light sponges, which are so popular in modern desserts, but I did like the caramel jelly that came on top of it.

André didn't fail to meet expectations, and although meals at his restaurant don't come cheap, you are guaranteed one of the best dining experiences you can possibly have in Singapore. Every detail is taken care of with real passion, from the very moment you approach the restaurant: visual, comfort, service, and of course, food.

André
Website: http://restaurantandre.com

Pici al guanciale

2011-08-02T02:45:00.002+08:00

Nostalgic of the flavours of Tuscany, I was inspired by perhaps the most memorable dish of my last vacation there. I have previously reviewed Osteria Le Logge, and their amazing spaghetti with guanciale. Conscious of the fact that reproducing such flavours without the exact ingredients would be impossible, I aimed at creating a simple pasta dish with a classic Tuscan flavour.

I combined three types of onions: leek and shallots to sweeten the sauce and fresh chives to give it a bit of a zest (the thin, western type, not the Chinese chives). I combined those with some guanciale and Tuscan pecorino cheese to give the sauce body and flavour, and some local kai lan to add some green aspect to the dish and give it that tad of bitterness.

I still had a pack of pici that I bought in Tuscany, so instead of making them myself, I used the pre-packaged ones, missing some of the fun. I still prefer handmade pici, as I like them irregular in shape and thickness. This is a rustic pasta, and it's not supposed to be perfect!

I sliced the leek in fairly thick slices, then the shallots in thin strips and finally the chopped the chives very finely. I roughly cut the guanciale in 1-2 cm pieces, and detached the leaves from the kai lan, discarding the stems.

After frying the guanciale for a couple of minutes in extra virgin olive oil, I added the shallots and leek and browned them. I then removed the leek and set it aside, to maintain it slightly undercooked and also to use it for later decoration on top of the pasta. I added about 100ml of chicken stock and reduced it with the rest of the ingredients, while the pici were boiling in salted water.

Once the pici were ready, I tossed the kai lan leaves and half of the chives into the sauce, added the pici and sauteed them all together for about 30 seconds.

I then arranged the pici into solid olive wood bowls, and topped them with the leeks, the remaining chives, some grated pecorino cheese, freshly ground pink, white and black pepper, and a drizzle of Tuscan extra virgin olive oil.

The quality Tuscan olive oil brought together this dish with its earthy, green flavours. I want Tuscany, all over again.

Brasserie Wolf - Revisited

2011-08-01T20:58:00.002+08:00

Brasserie wolf has been getting more attention recently, since they have recently changed their Chef, so I decided to pay them a visit together with some fellow foodies. We went for a Saturday lunch, just to have a taste of their food style.

The lunch set menu gives you a choice of 3 appetisers and 3 mains, and it's priced at $39.90 with dessert, or $31.90 without. Some of the menu choices looked promising, and among the 4 of us we managed more or less to get a taster of the full range of dishes.

The homemade rabbit and chicken terrine was tasty, and I would rate it as the best dish we had in the whole meal.

Less impressive was the white asparagus velouté.

I quite liked the pan fried Malabar, which was served with a smooth, creamy sauce, and some ikura as a decoration.

The Wagyu beef rump was a bit of a disaster. If that was Wagyu, then it must have been some very special Wagyu. The meat chunks were lean, dry and chewy. Even the sauce failed to savage the dish. All 4 of us were quite disappointed.

My Chestnut cream spaghetti was not bad, although it didn't look like spaghetti. The chestnut pureé tasted great, except it was spoiled by the cheap taste of the chocolate sauce. Had the sauce been a real chocolate sauce, this dessert would have been fantastic.

Overall there were hits and misses and I was not impressed by Brasserie Wolf. They did get certain things right, but they just couldn't pull the meal together to the level of quality which you can find at many other similar restaurants in the same price range in Singapore.

Brasserie Wolf
Website: http://www.esmirada.com/brasserie-wolf/brasserie-wolf.html

Mozza dough recipe

2011-08-01T00:45:00.001+08:00

I blogged in the past about Mozza, the new pizza phenomenon. I love their pizza with that phenomenal crunchy crust, despite it's not Italian pizza. There are endless debates such as this one, on whether Mozza's product is actually pizza. I think this is pretty simple to clarify: Mozza is Mozza pizza. It is not Neapolitan pizza, and it's not Pizza Hut either. Even in Italy, we have different styles of pizza, which are quite apart from Neapolitan pizza, but we still call them pizza.

Getting to the more meaty part of the story, I like the dough that Nancy Silverton has created. Without a doubt, she has come up with an innovative, unique crust. Mario Batali, on the other hand, has complemented that with some American-Italian toppings. My favourite of all is the one with slow roasted tomatoes and burrata cheese, which I made replacing burrata with ricotta (se picture above) due to unavailability of burrata.

As into bread making as I am, it is only logical that I wanted to try to reproduce this delicacy, and so I did. The real problem was that a proper recipe cannot be found. After searching through the net multiple times, I came to the conclusion that there is only one recipe published (2 posts with the same recipe: Pizza School, and Scuola di pizza), and it just doesn't work. I tried that recipe and it was nowhere near what you would have at Mozza. So I did further research, and watched numerous videos by Peter Reinhart on the quest for the perfect pizza. About 3 or 4 of them are dedicated to Mozza, and although there is no mentioning of the recipe which is of course a very well protected secret, I worked it out myself by combining bits of information from the Mozza pizza school, and the process used by the factory to produce Mozza's dough.

I must say that the end result is closer than I imagined I could get to, factoring in the fact that we use different flour. My recipe isn't the most simple and it takes some time to execute, but then again if you want a perfect result, you have to go through the pain!
This dough contains a small amount of rye flour and wheat germ, which contribute to its distinct taste.

The following doses will produce 3 crusts:

POOLISH:

125g Bread Flour (in Singapore, I used Prima bread flour)
125ml Water
1 tiny pinch of dried yeast (about 0.5 grams)

FINAL DOUGH:

250g bread flour
150ml Water
3g Brown rye flour
3g Wheat Germ (this can be found in organic products shops)
7g Kosher salt

Start with making a poolish (pre-ferment) by combining the bread flour, water and dried yeast. Once well incorporated (mixing the ingredients for a minute or so should suffice), cover the bowl with cling film, tighten it with a rubber band, and let it rest at 15C for about 12-16 hours. You will know when the ferment is ready once you see lots of bubbles on the surface. It will be over-ripened if you will notice signs of the dough receding within the bowl. I kept my dough in a wine cellar, which maintained a constant temperature. Depending on the amount of yeast and environment temperature, your poolish might take longer or shorter to mature, so you will need to check it until you can tell it's ready, and before it over-ripens.

In a bowl, mix 150ml water together with all the flours, but do not add the salt. Once roughly combined, incorporate the poolish into the mixture, and knead using a dough mixer until gluten is almost fully developed. Then add the salt, dissolved into a very small amount of water (10ml will be sufficient) and continue to mix until you reach full gluten development. Use the windowpane technique to check.

Once completed, pull the dough out of the mixer and place it into a bowl. Let it rest for 15 -30 minutes, and it will be ready for shaping. Divide it into three chunks, and shape each one by dusting it into a very small amount of flour (just as much as you need for it not to stick to your fingers), and shape it into a ball by pulling the sides and folding them underneath it then pushing them into it. This operation must be repeated 5-6 times, and it is important to trap bubbles of air into your dough ball, so that you will get a nicely bloated crust once you bake your pizza.

Put the dough balls into a container and tightly seal to prevent air from drying the surface. Place the dough balls in a cold area of your refrigerator and let them rest overnight. 12 to 24 hours later, pull the dough balls out of the fridge and let them rest outside for about 1 to 2 hours. Now they are ready for use. Shape them into a pizza by following the technique shown in this Mozza video. I recommend you finally place the stretched pizza on baking paper and put it into the oven with the paper, or else you will be likely to mess it up unless you have the right tools. In the video below, I filmed the shaping part and the condiment technique for the fennel and spring onions pizza. My video might help you see how this recipe's dough is supposed to behave during the stretching phase.

When it comes to the topping, needless to say that the combinations are unlimited. I made the first one with one of the Mozza classic toppings: cream, onions and spring onions, fennel, and mozzarella (I omitted the sausage as I didn't have one handy).

The second was my favourite Mozza's topping, the slow roasted tomatoes and burrata one. I roasted the tomatoes for about 6 hours at 90C with some salt, thyme and oregano sprinkled on top.

I prepared a base tomato sauce to dress the pizza so that the slow roasted tomatoes could be placed on top of it. To prepare the sauce, I heated some olive oil, added a tin of chopped Italian tomatoes, then cooked them for about 5 minutes with some salt, pepper and fresh basil.

Finally, the cooking stage. The huge advantage of Mozza's pizza is that, unlike the classic Neapolitan pizza, it doesn't require an incredibly hot oven, and works well with longer cooking times. If your oven can reach about 250C, then you can cook this. Of course, you must have a refractive stone in order to have a crispy bottom like the one below (I purchased a lava stone from Hup Kiong cut to exactly the size of my oven, and it works wonders). Make sure that the stone is fully heated, and that will take at least 30 minutes of pre-heating at maximum temperature before you insert the pizza.

Now it's time to sit in front of your oven and watch the crust slowly blow and brown until ready!

La focaccia di Recco

2011-07-22T01:14:00.000+08:00

Once you've tried it, you won't forget it. I had my first focaccia di Recco at Manuelina, in Recco. Ever since, I wished to have the chance to eat this delicacy back home, in Singapore, but I just couldn't get hold of the cheese. Leaving aside the fact that in Recco they use a special cheese called prescinseua, which would be completely impossible to find in Singapore, you can obtain superb results with crescenza or stracchino. I made an order of crescenza from Giorgio Ferrari, and 2 weeks later I finally got it. And here I am, now making the so awaited Focaccia di Recco. I must say that it came out as good as I remembered it, and although it came close to Manuelina, it was definitely miles better than the one I had at "Pizzeria al Ponte" in Recco.

This is my recipe:

500 gr. Manitoba flour
250 ml. water
100 ml. extra virgin olive oil
8 gr. salt

Stir water, olive oil and salt, then gradually incorporate the flour. Knead for 5 minutes or until smooth, then divide into 4 round balls (this will make 2 focaccias for the first round) and wrap them tightly into cling film. Set aside for 2 to 3 hours at room temperature, or 2 hours in the fridge and one out at room temperature.

Now the dough is ready for stretching. Remove the cling film, pat some flour around the dough and flatten it by pushing it with your fingers, until you obtain a flat "pizza" like shape. Do not stretch it or pull it at this point. Now lift the dough, and let it stretch naturally with its own weight, supporting it with your fists (like in the picture above). Keep stretching it, until you lave a large section in the middle that is paper-thin and transparent.

Now the sheet is ready for laying on the tray. I used a non-stick pizza tray I bought in Cold Storage.

Slowly fit it onto the tray, then cut the crescenza cheese into small pieces and scatter them around the perimeter and in the middle. I used about 100gr of crescenza for each focaccia. Repeat the same stretching exercise on a second piece of dough, then lay it on top of the other, and make the two stick around the edges.

Pinch the upper layer with your hands, making holes more or less where you placed the cheese, to allow the trapped air to escape during the baking process.

Finally, with the help of a rolling pin, cut the focaccia around the edges, and recollect the residual dough into a ball. It can be reused after resting for 2-3 hours in cling film to prevent it from drying out.

Drizzle with a cap of extra vergine olive oil and some freshly ground black pepper, and it's ready to bake. The focaccia will need to cook in a very hot oven (250C and above), on a hot stone that you will have placed far in advance to ensure maximum heat from below and a perfect crispy base. I used a Ferrari Pizza Oven which gives perfect results.

I must say the 2 weeks wait for the crescenza was well worth waiting for!

Ravioli di Peposo all' olio e Pecorino

2011-06-20T23:28:00.003+08:00

During my last vacation in Tuscany, while staying at the Olive Oil resort Villa Campestri, I had the fortune to try these ravioli, combined with one of their gourmet olive oils. Once back to Singapore, nostalgia from the trip pushed me to combine my memories of Tuscany with some of the tools I brought back from the trip.

I already blogged about Peposo, which I had at Teatro dei Medici, near Villa Campestri. First of all, I started by making this dish the day before. For 24 medium ravioli, this is what I used:

400 g beef for braising, cut into 2cm chunks (use a cut that is tough, cheap and flavourful)
4 sprigs of rosemary
4 sprigs of sage
A handful of black peppercorns
A bulb of garlic
500 ml of Chianti wine (or any other similar red wine)
A leek (optional, but I had one in the fridge, so I used it)

Sear the meat in a casserole until browned, then remove it from the heat, embed the sage, rosemary and black peppercorns, add the whole bulb of garlic, sprinkle with a couple of pinches of salt and pour the wine until the meat is completely covered. Put it in the oven at 150C covered with a lid and leave it there for 2 to 3 hours, until the meat is totally tender. Check it every hour to ensure that the meat is still covered by the wine. Finally, uncover it and let it continue until there is only about half a centimeter of juice left at the bottom of the casserole. Remove from the heat, let it cool and store in the fridge overnight if necessary.

Make some pasta dough, as I described in one of my older posts, then flatten some into 1mm thick sheets. I used a ravioliera to make them consistent, but you can do this without it. Lay the first sheet of dough, place equal portions of meat at equal distance, then overlay the second sheet. Make the two sheets stick by pressing them with a rolling pin, then using your fingers, ensuring that no air remains trapped in between. Finally, cut across the edges with an undulated dough or pizza cutter.

Finally, for the sauce, you need some prime quality olive oil (not the sort that you buy in the supermarket!!). I used a premium Spanish olive oil: Castillo de Canena. Alternatively, you can order premium olive oil directly from the olive oil resort here.
You will also need some Sardinian Pecorino, which in Singapore can be bought from Giorgio Ferrari.
Finally, I recommend the use of mixed peppercorns (pink, white and black) for a rounder flavour.

Simply boil the ravioli for 3 minutes, drain, then plate with grated Pecorino cheese, a cap of olive oil, and plenty of freshly grated peppercorns. Garnish with a sprig of sage, rosemary or thyme. This concoction of quality ingredients brought my palate straight back to Tuscany!

Manuelina

2011-05-30T23:20:00.001+08:00

Focaccia di Recco was a must try for my vacation in Liguria. It's one of those specialities that I heard about for very long and never got round to try, since you can only have it in Recco. Liguria is very famous for its Focaccia Genovese, which I blogged about in a couple of previous posts, and you might think of Focaccia di Recco as a variation of that.
Wrong. Focaccia di Recco is totally different. In actual fact, you shouldn't even think of it as a focaccia, besides the fact that they are both flat breads.

We were visiting Cinque Terre, with its long, steep walks and breathtaking views of tiny villages miraculously built onto the rocks. Recco is only a few miles distance from there, and we decided to try Focaccia at Manuelina, which besides being the most reputable place to try this focaccia, is also a great restaurant with one fork on the Gambero Rosso guide.

The restaurant is located just off the exit from the motorway, and it was extremely easy to find. Right at the entrance, there was a large brass emblem stating "Authentic Focaccia di Recco", to officialise the fact that there you can have the "real thing". There are in fact many places in Recco and its surrounding where you can have this type of focaccia, but of incomparable quality, to the point that you could call it a fake focaccia :) This is one of those incredibly simple dishes, so simple that it's very difficult to make properly.

The restaurant has a beautiful dining room, warm and classic, and displays the most impeccable service that we encountered during our trip in Italy. As we sat down at our table, we were served a complimentary glass of prosecco, and a few slices of crispy bread. There were many interesting options on the menu, but without a doubt, the set menu was a must try, for 58 EUR per person.

When they came with the appetiser, a real focaccia di Recco, we were terrified. The focaccia came on a trolley, laid on a wooden board, and it was probably 50-60cm in diameter, or in any case of a size that would have been sufficient for two people to eat and be fully satisfied. I initially thought we were going to be given a couple of slices and share the rest with other diners, but well... no, it was all for us!
It is hard to describe the beauty of this focaccia, golden and crispy, with craters of bubbling fresh cheese that erupts from the inside. As our waiter Emilio started to cut across it, the noise confirmed the first impression, of a flat bread that's paper-thin and crispy throughout.

We were served three slices each, and the rest of the focaccia was left next to us, to continue to tempt us as we tasted the initial portion. This was without a doubt one of the best breads we had in our lifetime, but we were most inclined to think that it was the best. It was heavenly. The delicate crispiness, the softness and flavour of the cheese flowing from the inside. Unprecedented.
It was with great regret that after eating the initial portion, and having an additional couple of slices, we had to leave a good quarter of the focaccia back to the waiter not to waste the rest of 5-course meal that was going to be served.

The 'Polpo, brunoise di verdure e prescinseua su vellutata di melanzane' was an octopus salad with chopped vegetables and prescinseua cheese (the same one that is used for the focaccia) on an aubergine pureé. The flavours were subtle and the sauce nicely brought them together.

Less impressive was the 'Carpaccio di ricciola affumicato con pepe rosa e sale affumicato'. A carpaccio of amberjack, with pink peppercorns and smoked salt. The portion was huge and the fish was great, but the intense acidity of the sauce killed the delicate, tender fish. Finding the balance in salt and acidity on fish carpaccio is not simple, and it's not the first time I come across this problem.

The meal was re-lifted by the 'Taglierini alle triglie di scoglio', which was a tagliolini with red mullet. The pasta had a good bite, and the flavour of red mullet was very distinct in the sauce. Well executed.

The 'Corzetti dei Fieschi all'ortolana' was a Corzetti pasta dish with a vegetables sauce. Steering away from the classic recipes, this was a more delicate and refined but tasty sauce.

The best of all dishes (leaving the focaccia aside) was this 'Pescatricie in sfoglia di melanzane su vellutata di pomodoro'. The rich meat of Monkfish was wrapped in tasty grilled aubergines, on a bed of mild tomato velvety sauce. This was our favourite overall, with an indisputably Italian combination of ingredients, and all the right flavours.

The second main dish was a 'Fagottino di branzino in pasta Fillo con farcia di scampi'. Essentially a seabass with minced scampi, wrapped in filo pastry. This was also very good, and most notably the flavour of the scampi really added an extra kick to a seabass which has great texture, but is normally very plain tastewise. Despite how good it was, I was unable to finish this dish since every portion of this tasting menu was a full portion, in true Italian style. Unfortunately (or fortunately, perhaps), I am not used to eating at this rate, and I felt rather overwhelmed by the amount of food. The fought of having a dessert at that point was dreadful, and our waiter advised to wait 15 minutes or so, to recover.

So we did, and went ahead with the desserts. Very good overall and quite classic, with a creamy/chocolaty dessert, and an orange creme bruleé.
Unless you have a very capable stomach you will struggle a bit with the full set menu, and in that case I would recommend ordering a la carte. We managed in the end without too much wastage, but the food is so good that every bit left uneaten feels like a real pity.

Manuelina is a must-visit if you are in the area: great Ligurian food, exceptional service and cozy setting made it a very pleasant evening for us. The focaccia is unmissable. There is a focacceria next door, where you can buy and eat exactly the same focaccia if you are not game for a full meal. However, the food at the restaurant is well worth the full experience.

Manuelina
Website: http://www.manuelina.eu/ristorante/

La Bottega

2011-05-22T19:00:00.000+08:00

In the search for rustic local food while staying in Chianti, Tuscany, we came across this popular Osteria, rated one prawn on the Gambero Rosso guide. Located in Radda in Chianti, one of the tiny villages of the area, right at the end of a very curvy and narrow road, is this jewel of an Osteria with a large terrace dominating the Chianti valley.

The Barucci family, owners of the Osteria, continue the tradition by serving classic Tuscan dishes, making use of their own garden grown vegetables. There is plenty to chose from on the menu, but the portions are very filling, so be cautious not to over order! We had 5 dishes for 2 people washed with plenty of Chianti wine, and for a total of 47 EUR it was a bargain.

The classic unsalted Tuscan bread is served with Parmigiano Reggiano and olive oil. Generous spoonfuls of the cheese help adding flavour to the naturally insipid bread.

The radicchio e pecorino con aceto balsamico was a very large portion, too large for one or even two people, so unfortunately I had to leave some on the side. This is just what it says on the label: radicchio, chunks of medium aged pecorino, and a balsamic dressing.

Grilled vegetables are a classic antipasto throughout Italy. Here, they serve Melanzane grigliate al profumo di menta, which is grilled aubergines with mint. The large slices were nicely covered in dried herbs and spices, and paired nicely with the bread.

I couldn't resist from ordering Pici once again. It is a type of pasta that is not commonly found outside of Tuscany, so every opportunity should be exploited. This was a truly rustic version, when compared to the ones I had at Walter redaelli, and I felt really quite full by the end of it.

The main dishes were the forte of this place, and the reason why, I believe, it deserves a prawn on the guide. The Coniglio al tartufo was absolutely amazing. Slices of rabbit topped by a creamy truffle sauce, with slices of black truffle right on top. At 9.50 EUR, you can't really argue!

Finally, the Cinghiale in umido con olive still remains one of the significant culinary memories I brought back from Tuscany. This stewed wild boar with black olives had such an intense meat flavour, you would never get from pork. This must be the first time I really appreciated wild boar meat. This is what Tuscany is about.

La Bottega
Website: http://www.labottegadivolpaia.it/

Walter Redaelli

2011-05-22T15:53:00.000+08:00

One of the memorable meals during my trip to Tuscany is the one at Walter Redaelli. I found this restaurant on the Gambero Rosso guide, which rates it with a score of 73, although it didn't award it a fork. From my experience of all the restaurants I tried out of this guide during my vacation, I would say with confidence that Walter would surely deserve a fork.

The first bonus is the location of the restaurant, which is placed within a renovated farmhouse, on the edge of a hill, giving a spectacular view of Valdichiana. The building is made of the unique bricks that seem to characterise the whole village of Bettolle, which is about a kilometer from the restaurant. The brickwork can also be appreciated in the arches and ceilings within the restaurant. The combination of the scenic countryside view and the rustic architecture gave me more than ever a complete feel of being in Tuscany.

While browsing through the menu, we were served a basket different varieties of homemade bread. This included the classic Tuscan unsalted bread, a couple of types of rolls, some focaccia and grissini. These were all fresh, and well accompanied with some locally produced olive oil of the highest standard, branded with the restaurant name itself.

I stimulated my appetite with a Cinta senese marinata su misticanza con mele, noci e sedano. This was basically a porchetta made with the local pork (so called Cinta Senese), with a salad of celery, walnuts and black olives, and topped by a few chunks of lightly cooked, warm apple. The delicacy of this dish was outstanding, with every flavour on the plate gently emerging without dominating the rest.

Impressed with the starter, I was eager to try the pasta. I ordered a Pici con guanciale, asparagi, fave e pecorino. Pici is a typical local pasta made of flour and water (egg is generally not added, hence, the white colour) and hand rolled into fairly thick and irregular sort of spaghetti. It is indeed that unevenness that makes this type of pasta taste so rustic. This recipe was of course a refined version than the Pici that you would have in a normal trattoria, but all the flavours were there, with the guanciale and pecorino playing the main role while asparagus and broad beans provided texture and variety to an otherwise common combination.

One of the mains we had was the Costolette di agnello con mandorle, liquirizia e patate gratinate. The lamb was tender and cooked medium rare, but what really animated this dish was the licorice sauce. I never thought of licorice as an ingredient for meat sauces, but it did work perfectly. Such an inspiring combination, that I will probably try this at home, some day.

The tagliata di vitellone al dragoncello con purea di cannellini e insalata verde was also well executed, with tender juicy veal accompanied by a fabulous pureé made from Cannellini beans. This is another inspiring element, so much that I bought some Cannellini while in Tuscany and brought them with me to Singapore to try this out.

We had a selection of quality, hard Pecorino cheeses and a couple of soft goat cheeses, all served with Italian mostarda and honey.

The least impressive of all courses was the dessert, which is often the case with Italian restaurants. It was a sort of soufflé with a cappuccino sauce on top. Quite nice, although not outstanding enough to make me finish it, after such a fulfilling meal.

The total bill including wine was 76 EUR for two people, which makes this restaurant incredibly attractive considering the quality and amount of food, cozy setting and service overall.

Walter Redaelli
Website: http://www.ristoranteredaelli.it/

Teatro dei Medici

2011-05-22T05:21:00.000+08:00

It's worth mentioning a small restaurant that was recommended to us by the owner of our accommodation while we were staying near Vicchio, in Mugello. This is a modest restaurant that serves no frills, traditional food from the area. It was not particularly easy to find, due to the fact that there is no access to the parking area directly from the main road, so we ended up parking 50 meters away and walked to the restaurant.

The interior was spacious but rustic, with various Tuscan style antiques laid around the entrance hall. The main dining room follows a more classic renaissance style and is more grand, as the name of the restaurant suggests.

The most notable dish was the Tortelli di patate con ragú: potatoes filled ravioli in a tomato based ragu sauce. This is a typical peasant dish from Mugello, which represents an exception for a region that is most famous for its soups. This is what every diner shouldn't miss!

Less distinguished was the grilled free range chicken with rosemary. Well executed with quality ingredients, but not something you could have in identical flavours elsewhere, including Singapore.

I was far more impressed by the Peposo Imprunetino. The name of the dish derives from pepper, which is plenty in this dish, and Impruneta, which is where the dish is originally from. Impruneta is famous for producing bricks and terracotta ware. It is actually in the bricks furnace that this dish was originally invented. They used to put all the ingredients into the pot, leave it in a corner of the furnace for 5 hours or so, and the dish was ready. The predominant flavours were without a doubt the reduced Chianti wine and the black pepper. The flavours are extremely intense, and it's best eaten with accompanying bread.

There were certainly some interesting regional dishes to try at Teatro dei Medici, although they are only a few out of a big list. I would still recommend stopping over for a peasant lunch, if you happen to be in Mugello.

Teatro dei Medici
Website: http://www.teatrodeimedici.it/

Osteria Le Logge

2011-05-22T04:39:00.000+08:00

While visiting Siena, we stopped for lunch at one of the recommendations on the Gambero Rosso guide. Osteria Le Logge is rated one fork on the guide, and I was a bit skeptical, given that the restaurant is located only 50 meters away from Piazza del Campo. In a city that is so centered on tourism such as Siena, it is extremely hard to find a good restaurant, let alone in the immediate surroundings of its main attraction. One encouraging note was the open kitchen, which is completely visible directly from the street. You can watch the Chefs at work from the outside of the restaurant and at the time we got there, we could see a couple of them peeling kilos of ripe tomatoes with extreme dedication.

I started off with Polpo al vapore con salsa Ponzu, olio al prezzemolo e patate. This dish was the most delicate I had during my trip to Italy, but it tasted more Japanese than Italian. As I savoured it, the subtle dashi flavour immediately brought me back to the experiences of Kaiseki during my trips to Japan.

The Pasta alla chitarra con profumo di pino, astice e patate was pretty good, seasoned with a delicate lobster broth and small chunks of potatoes. What I liked the most of this pasta was its very firm texture.

Now the most amazing of all, and without a doubt one of the top pastas I have eaten in my whole life. The Spaghetti Faella con Guanciale "Parisi", cipolla e pecorino was an incredibly simple spaghetti dish, seasoned with various types of onion (red, yellow, white, leeek and chives), an extremely good guanciale (from Paolo Parisi). It is hard to describe how simply tasteful and delicate this was, but clearly the quality of the ingredients is key to the success of such a dish. This is what made me come back to this restaurant the next day, and it was the only "repeat" of my trip to Italy.

The Piccione arrosto con spezie dell'Osteria e coulis di frutta was another hit. The crispy coating gave variety of texture and flavour to the dish, while the fruity coulis added the tang required to break the 'gamyness' of it all.

The Insalata di lingua con salsa antica e pomodori cuore marinati in birra e cipolla was a very light salad with quality fresh vegetables, very thin slices of cow's tongue and little chunks of its cooking gelatin. A well executed, enjoyable salad.

We were too full and decided to share a single dessert: the Mousse di mascarpone com crema al caffé, gelato di amaretto e albicocche confit was divine. A dome of mascarpone mousse was sitting next to a gelato made from amaretto biscuits, on a bed of coffee sauce. The apricot confit, together with a couple of mint leaves, were a nice touch to break the richness of the flavours.

The summary is that if you happen to visit Siena this is without a doubt a must try restaurant, and considering that it's so easy to find, I don't see why not. The place tends to get busy, especially at weekends, so a booking hopefully one day in advance would be advisable to secure a table.

Osteria Le Logge
Website: http://www.giannibrunelli.it

I Croxetti

2011-05-21T04:11:00.003+08:00

I have been dreaming of making Croxetti pasta ever since I saw it illustrated on an Italian cooking book. I never heard about Croxetti (or Corzetti) before reading that recipe, since this is a regional dish of Liguria and cannot be found outside of it. This is why I couldn't get hold of the mold required to make them, despite my previous attempts, which also involved my mother looking for them in Italy.

My trip to Liguria was an unmissable opportunity to taste the dish and find the tool required to make it. I was under the impression that these molds could be commonly found anywhere in the region, but as I asked people, I discovered that actually this dish is rarer than I thought, and there is only one carpenter left, named Pietro Picetti, who is still dedicated to maintaining the tradition. I managed to find out his location and headed off looking for him in the small town of Varese Ligure. Without a specific address, I was given a description of the site of his workshop, and with my fingers crossed, hoping that the man would be there at the time of my visit, I drove to the town determined to find him.

With great relief, as I spotted the entrance to his workshop, the door was open, displaying a large Italian welcome sign. I opened the conversation informing him that I am based in Singapore and I went all the way to Varese Ligure to buy some of his croxetti molds. He wasn't surprised at all. He humbly explained that he has a constant flow of visitors from all over the world, in particular Japan, who travel from far away to this small town to get their hands on his work. He showed me the orders from American and Japanese culinary schools, and told me how once he was handed over a business card by one of his Japanese visitors, only to realise a few days later that he was actually the ambassador of Japan.

We then spent some time designing my personalised mold, and he showed me the original wooden molds from his great grandfather, who used to be in exactly the same trade (see picture below). Some of them are cracked, others have been slightly damaged by termites, and you can sense that these pieces are over a hundred years old. His designs are still based on the original designs from his great grandfather: wheatears, stars, crosses, olive leaves, and of course the initials of the owners, or the names of the restaurants.

Besides ordering a custom made mold, I also bought a couple of ready made ones. One in beech, and the other one in walnut. The first has two different star symbols on each side. This is a reproduction of the original mold passed to him by his great grandfather. The second one represents a sun surrounded by wheatears.

I was amazed by the beautiful designs, and the richness of detail. Just looking at them brought thoughts of the middle ages, the powerful families and their attachment to their own emblems, to the extent that they used to engrave them even into their food. Such intricate patterns, once printed into the dough, make its surface uneven, enhancing its ability to absorb pasta sauce. In Liguria, croxetti are traditionally eaten with a pine nuts sauce, pesto, or a tomato sauce. The recipes for the dough and the sauces are handed over by the man to all his customers, as he is keen to spread and maintain the tradition of the original sauces.

All molds are autographed by their creator on the cutting side - it states "Pietro Picetti made this in Varese Ligure". The experience of buying an utensil directly from the artisan made me reflect on the value of what we buy. Nowadays we are all so used to shop around, find what we like, on a shelf and buy it. I must admit that buying from the artisan evokes completely different emotions. You are not just given an utensil, but also the history of it, and the passion that went into it. The value of what you buy becomes priceless, since it is not just a commercial item - it has been uniquely crafted by an artisan.

These wooden molds serve the purpose of cutting and shaping the croxetti. The bottom of each mold is very sharp, and is used to cut out a circle of dough from a 2.5 mm sheet. The circle is then placed inbetween the two pieces of wood, and compressed so that the drawings remain engraved into both sides of it - just like a coin.

Pietro also recommended a place where I could stop for lunch and have the traditional Croxetti from Varese Ligure. The restaurant is within a hotel called "Albergo Amici", located a 5 minutes walk from Pietro's workshop. I had a portion of delicious Croxetti with pine nuts sauce. I loved the texture of this pasta, very firm and rustic, paired with a flavorful nutty and herby sauce. It goes without saying that every single medallion I ate was imprinted with a drawing made by Pietro specifically for that restaurant.

A video of Pietro Picetti on the topic can be found on YouTube.

Kitchen Tools from Italy

2011-05-20T20:15:00.001+08:00

Finally I am back from my 2 weeks trip to Italy. The trip was an enriching experience through the lands of Toscana and Liguria, and it gave me the opportunity to discover even more of my native land: the colors, beauty, flavours and traditions of the countryside.
Sightseeing in tiny villages, I came back with a few tools that I purchased from their little shops.

Visiting Toscana and Liguria, the lands of olive oil, it felt natural to buy some olive wood utensils, such as this bread tray. This is ideal to let my focaccias and loaves rest just after baking, letting plenty of air circulate below the bread.
I found it rather unusual that while I was visiting two of these utensils shops in Pienza, in both shops I came across some foreigners who were looking for spatulas for cooking. Both were looking for metal spatulas. I have difficulties understanding why somebody would want to buy a metal spatula in Italy, in a town where the speciality is beautifully carved wooden tools... :)

I love the beautiful veins of the wood that show on these olive wood bowls. These are all one piece, carved out of a log. All these utensils have been treated with oil, so that they won't absorb any more liquid during their use.

I have been looking for terracotta pots for the longest time, but unfortunately they are hard to find in Singapore. I bought this set of pots that are originally from Siena (Vulcania brand) and can be used not only for serving food, but also for cooking. This is a very classic Italian design, which brings back memories from when I was a kid.

I love ravioli, but what discourages me from making them regularly is the amount of work required to assemble them one by one. Making the filling and the dough is not a big deal, but cutting the sheets and sticking them together with the filling does take some time, if you intend to make a few dozens of them. I didn't need to think twice when I bought this ravioli making mould to make that process a breeze. The good thing is that the mould is designed for large ravioli, just the way I like them. I am looking forward to try this out!

One of the things I will never forget is visiting my grandmother in Abruzzo and having her "pasta alla chitarra", very rich in egg yolks, and dressed with her tomato sauce, made of her own home grown tomatoes. I still remember her using this tool, which is rather hard to find outside of Italy. It wasn't the cheapest buy, but worthwhile having, as it felt like buying a piece of tradition. The tool can be used both sides, to make thin tagliolini, or wider fettuccine.

This tool is called chitarra, which in Italian means guitar. The reason is pretty straightforward, given that it's a set of strings mounted onto a wooden frame, just like the well known music instrument. Once you lay the thin sheet of dough, a gentle roll over it is sufficient to cut it into perfectly regular tagliolini, which will have that characteristic square section.
I am back, enriched with experiences and 3 extra kilos around my waist, so I will wait a little before making the most out of these tools. Nevertheless, it's all extremely tempting!

Fougasse Provençale

2011-04-26T09:07:00.004+08:00

In my quest for bread making, I fell in love with Fougasse Provençale. It's rustic, it's flavourful, it's crusty, it looks beautiful, it can be paired with tasty ingredients. It has everything I like about bread!

I tried this recipes a couple of times, and although the first attempt was already pretty good, it got better and better. At my third attempt, it came out so well that it was devoured in no time by my guests. In a way, it put the rest of the meal to shy :(

I decided to make 2 different fougasses, one with anchovies and capers, and one with sun dried tomatoes. Following, the recipe I used, which I derived from the great book "Bread", by Jeffrey Hamelman. I do all my kneading by hand as I don't have a kitchen aid, but also because there is a certain fulfillment in handling the dough and feeling it develop between your hands. It's messy, especially with wet doughs such as this one, but once you practice it a few times, it's easy enough to do. If you use a robot you will have to adjust the recipe for that.

Ingredients for the Pâte Frementée:

Bread Flour (I used Prima)....160g
Water.........................100ml
Salt..........................3g
Dry Yeast.....................a small pinch (1g)

Start by making a pâte feementée a couple of days in advance. This is a small amount of dough, which you can ferment slowly in the fridge, in order to give flavour to the bread. Mix flour and salt into a bowl, and tepid water and yeast in a glass, then combine and knead for a while, until smooth.
Keep it in a large bowl, covered by a cling film (I usually rubber-band the film around the bowl, to keep it tight). Leave at ambient temperature for a couple of hour or so, until it starts to rise, then put it in the fridge at about 3-5 degrees overnight.
The next day, remove from the fridge, and let the dough raise slightly (about 50-60% increase in volume).

Ingredients for the main dough:

Bread Flour (I used Prima)....390g
Whole-wheat flour.............70g
Water.........................320ml
Salt..........................6g
Dry Yeast.....................6g
Extra virgin olive oil........30g
Anchovies.....................50g
Sun dried tomatoes............6-7 tomatoes

Now it's time to make the main dough. Follow a similar process as before. Mix both the flours and salt in a bowl. In a separate container, mix tepid water with the yeast and the olive oil. Combine the two and start folding in the dough, until it reaches a certain consistency and the flour is almost all incorporated.
You can then add the pâte fermentée chopped into little chunks. Keep mixing and then kneading with your hands. Since the dough is so wet, don't even try to keep your hands neat. I actually get them both dirty. I lift the whole dough with my hands, and keeping them both horizontal, I roll the dough in between them, rolling one around the other at the right momentum, so that the dough doesn't fall. It will take probably 5-10 minutes of kneading this way before you reach the right level of stretchiness. At that point, you can spend another 10 minutes scraping the dough off your hands with a spatula, collecting it all into a large bowl.
Let it rest for about an hour or so, then give it a stretch & fold and put it in the fridge to let it rest for another 12 hours.

Pull the dough out of the fridge, and let it rest at ambient temperature and raise until it double its original size. Pull it out of the bowl onto a floured surface and flatten it with a rolling pin into a round shape. If it's too nervous, let it rest for 10 minutes and then stretch it again.
Dry the anchovies from the olive oil, using some kitchen paper to absorb it. Alternatively, if the anchovies were preserved in salt, wash them first from the excess salt and then dry them with kitchen paper. Arrange them onto half of the flattened dough, all parallel, in the same direction. Add a few capers here and there. Fold the other half of the dough on top of the anchovies, make it stick, and then flatten the dough again into the final, desired shape.
Using a pizza cutter, make incisions on the flat dough, cutting across the anchovies or sun dried tomatoes. Finally, stretch the dough to enhance the incisions, sprinkle some semolina flour on top, cover with a cloth and let it raise for an hour.
Now the dough is ready for baking. I like to have my fougasse with a nice golden crust, so I suggest that you spread a thin layer of extra virgin olive oil on top of it using a very soft brush (I bought mine at Sia Huat). Sprinkle again with some semolina, some crushed peppercorns, and some salt flakes. I used Murray river salt flakes, which you can buy from some Cold Storage branches.
Bake the bread in a fully heated oven at 230C for about 20 minutes. It is imperative that the dough is placed on a hot tray or preferably on a hot baking stone. Transferring this onto the hot surface is not easy due to its stickiness. I use a pizza peel, but alternatively you can put yours onto some floured baking paper and then slide it directly onto the surface.
Spray some water into the oven just before inserting the dough, directly on the sides, and repeat the operation a few seconds after the baking starts.
Once the crust is nice and golden, the bread is ready. Remove it from the oven, and let it rest on a grill (don't put it in direct contact with a solid surface, to prevent the steam from making the crust soggy.

Optionally, you might want to brush additional extra virgin olive oil while the bread is cooling. You must refrain from cutting and eating the bread while still hot, since its fragrance greatly improves 30 minutes to an hour after baking.
It is indeed a lot of work, but the result is incredibly rewarding!

Nanxiang Steamed Bun Restaurant

2011-03-27T23:08:00.002+08:00

I was extremely excited to try yet another dumplings and noodles restaurant which recently opened some new branches, following the success of their first opening at Bugis Junction. I tried the giant soup dumpling with crab roe when I visited Shanghai, and I was eager to try that in Singapore, as well as their steamed buns with crab meat.

I visited their branch located at the 4th floor of City Square Mall. The deco is very well done, with a combination of both modern and classic touches. The walls made up of baskets stand out, as well as the circular motifs around the tables that face the windows.

The Shanghai pan fried dumplings ($5.00) looked a lot better on the menu than they did on the plate. The filling is tasty and releases juice once you bite into the dumpling. The skin was quite disappointing, as it tasted like the typical frozen gyoza you have in most cheap Japanese restaurants. On top of that, the crispy side was too soft and soggy for my liking.

The dish I enjoyed the most was the Crabmeat and pork steamed buns ($9.00). Used to the usual xiaolongbao with pork, this was a refreshing variation to the classic pork filling. I liked the crab texture and delicate flavour of the seafood stock.

One of their signature dishes is without a doubt this Shanghai specialty: the King Sized Nanxiang Crab Roe Steamed Soup bun (6.80). In this case, the bun really just serves the function of holding the steaming hot soup rich with bits of crab roe, which you can pull up by sucking on the straw.

Maybe I'm pretty picky when it comes to zhajiang mien ($7.80), but this was one of the worst I had in Singapore. Most noticeably, what is served is not what's pictured in the menu. The picture shows the tytpical zhajiang mien, with its dense sauce on top. The noodles I was served just had some dry braised pork on top, with some liquid sauce sitting at the bottom. The worst part was that it tasted like what you would be served in a food court. Nothing like the rich and complex flavour of a proper zhajiang mien as it really lacked of a few dimensions.

The same could be said for these beans ($9.80). The worst I had in Singapore, and they also lacked of a tad of salty, or a tad of meaty, or sweet, but anyway something to lift the dish, which had a strong flavour of uncooked beans. It is actually hard to get it so wrong. Quite disappointing.

Out of the dishes I tried, the only good ones were the steamed buns and the signature king dumpling. Everything else was what I would define food court standard, and not worth the cost, especially when you consider that the main direct competitor, Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao is far better and cheaper. Unless you are a fan of crabmeat dumplings, I really see no reason to visit this restaurant. Silk Road or Crystal Jade La Mian Xiao Long Bao will give you far more for your money.

Pizzeria Mozza

2011-03-04T00:09:00.002+08:00

Osteria Mozza originated in Los Angeles, and was created by three Chefs: Mario Batali, Joe Bastianich and Nancy Silverton, who is the mastermind behind the wonderful dough used to make their pizzas.

The beautiful interior, which overlooks the inside of the Marina Bay Sands shopping area, is cozy and softly lit. The wooden fired oven stands out behind the busy, dough-manipulating chefs.

I wasn't particularly impressed by the porchetta, which tasted too much of dry herbs and sausage, and lacked of that classic porchetta flavour. The skin was hard rather than crispy and not as pleasant to eat as you would hope.

The pizza with oven roasted tomatoes, burrata and oregano was by far the best. With a truly simple, fresh and distinct Italian flavour, this pizza stood out from the rest. The straight flavour really brings out the deliciousness of the dough. I will definitely go back for this!

The pizza with fennel sausage, cream and scallions was quite good, although the fennel seeds were too predominand and the sausage was not the classic Italian sausage I would have hoped for. What is common to all the pizzas is the special "Mozza" dough they use. The pizza base is extremely thin and crispy, while the crust is very thick, fat, crispy outside and soft and airy within. The border of the pizza is lightly brushed with olive oil, which gives it that shine and crispness that is unique to Mozza.

The tomato, mozzarella, Parma ham and rocket is an all time classic. The ingrediends were all of good quality, although this was not the best I have eaten of this kind. A more generous dose of mozzarella would have helped bringing this together.

I only had a side dish and three pizzas on this occasion, but I will without a doubt visit Mozza for more. I am already planning to have the slow rtoasted tomatoes and burrata pizza, but then I will also try something new. I would also love to try their mozzarella bar, which is located in a separate area of the restaurant.

Mozza
Location: 10 Bayfront Avenue - 018956
Tel: +65 6688 8868

Pancetta & Guanciale

2011-02-01T02:03:00.002+08:00

I must say... what a pity that these two beauties are not available in Singapore! I have been missing them for so long, and finally I managed to put my hands on them on a trip to New York.
Pancetta and guanciale are two fundamental ingredients for Italian cooking. There are a number of sauces and dishes that cannot be accomplished without these beautiful pieces of meat.

Pancetta (the round one in this picture), as the name suggests, is cured pork belly. It can be eaten as a cold cut with bread, but mostly it is used for cooking, diced in small or larger pieces.
Guanciale (the left one in the picture) is cured pork cheek. It is even fatter than pancetta, and used to start off wonderful sauces such as Amatriciana, Carbonara or Bolognese. Sometimes pancetta is used in place of guanciale to cook these dishes due to availability, however guanciale is even tastier than pancetta and has a different type of fat. Harder when raw, and once cooked you will notice that the fat of guanciale becomes transparent, while the pancetta fat remains white and solid.

In conclusion, if you like any of the sauces mentioned in this post (these are the most popular dishes, but of course there are other ones), try to put your hands on guanciale if you get a chance to travel abroad. And if you are unsure how to use it, bring me a piece of it, and I will be happy to show you ;)

Kki

2011-01-31T01:57:00.000+08:00

After about 4-5 attempts to eat at this so talked about cake shop, I finally managed to find it open and they did have cakes! Was the frustration of visiting them multiple times to have one of their cakes worth it?

The shop is nicely decorated, and includes a small retail area which sells "modern antiques" such as 25 year old Polaroid cameras, classic telephones, typewriters and various figurines. The merchandise is very colorful and extremely attractive for youngsters to browse. The number of available seats inside the shop is quite limited, so it might be hard to get a seat during peak hours. I was lucky enough to get a seat outside and I ordered two cakes: the Little Red Riding Hood and the cheese soufflé.

This 70% dark chocolate cake tasted as good as it looked. A rich chocolate mousse surrounded a not too sweet raspberry geleé core, while a crunchy based gave a bit of texture to an otherwise all-soft dessert. Good and enjoyable combination overall, but only if you like soft, moussy stuff.
The cheese soufflé was heaven on earth. It really reminded me of the heavenly cheesecakes I had in Hokkaido during my last visit to Japan. This moist has an incredibly light and airy texture and a mild flavour to match. I haven't seen this served anywhere else in Singapore, and it's a must try.

The bottom line is that at Kki you can have amongst the best cakes in Singapore, but as good as it might sound, due to inconsistency in stock and opening hours, it's a bit of a hit an miss that demands a lot of patience and endurance. If you have what it takes, you will be rewarded.

Kki

7 Ann Siang Hill
Singapore 069791
Tel: 6225 6650
Closed on Mondays

Linguine ai filetti di aguglia

2011-01-30T21:26:00.000+08:00

On rainy days such as today, I really can't figure myself going out shopping for ingredients, and I'd rather try to make do with what I have at home. I haven't been cooking fish for quite some time, so I decided to finally cook a sanma (Aguglia in Italian), which I vacuum packed and froze some time ago.

I have been keeping a pack of sun dried tomatoes which I bought in Italy over a year ago, since I never found the inspiration to prepare them. Today, having limited ingredients for the seasoning, I decided to bring them back to life. To do that, I brought some water with a dash of vinegar to the boil and kept the tomatoes in the boiling water for about 10 minutes.

I then let the tomatoes rest on an absorbent surface and squeezed any excess water out of them. I vacuum packed and froze most of the batch, and kept about 4 of them aside to cook this pasta for 2.
Ingredients for two people:

1 sanma (aguglia)
4-5 sun dried tomatoes, as softened directed
1 clove of garlic
1 carrot
1 onion
Some herbs (parsley, oregano or coriander)
A bunch of basil leaves
Salt and pepper

Remove head and tail from the sanma, remove the innards and discard them, debone it and put bones, head, tail, the carrot, onion and herbs into a skillet and bring it to a slow simmer. Keep this simmering for over 20 minutes to create the base for your pasta.

In the meantime, wash your basil leaves and blanch them for 10 seconds in a large pot of boiling water. Remove them from the pot and immediately soak them into ice water. Gently squeeze all excess water, then put into a container together with the sun dried tomatoes, and half a garlic clove, finely chopped. Top with a drizzle of olive oil, then gently mash with an immersion blender until you obtain a paste that is not too fine.

Add some freshly ground pepper to your paste, and there should be no need to add salt since generally sun dried tomatoes are already very salty. Bring a large pot of water to the boil, ready for your pasta, do not salt the water and add the linguini (which should usually take about 10-11 minutes to cook). Wash your fish fillets, pat dry them and sprinkle them with salt. Lightly pan fry them on a large frying pan on both sides in abundant olive oil, then remove them and set them aside.

Deglaze the pan with half a glass of white wine. Once the wine evaporates, you should obtain a thick sauce as shown in the picture below. Now your pasta should be almost ready to be removed from the water. Make sure that you drain it 2 minutes before it's ready.

Add some of the simmering stock to your frying pan, put in the pasta and lightly salt (do not fully salt the pasta, to counter-balance the salty paste that you will combine later) and simmer until the stock is absorbed and your pasta is al dente. When the pasta is ready, remove it from the fire and rapidly stir-in some of the basil-tomato paste.

Arrange on serving plates, topped up with your sanma fillets (filetti di aguglia), and some freshly ground peppercorns. Enjoy the powerful aromas of basil and sun dried tomatoes!

Bergs

2011-01-29T21:08:00.002+08:00

Recently, I have noticed a proliferation of new burger joints in Singapore. It seems like up until about 4-5 years ago, all we had was Carl's Jr and Relish and all of a sudden, following that "Everything with fries", "Fat Boyz" and "Bergs". Most interestingly, the latter markets itself as a gourmet burger joint. While I have eaten various times at their branch in Changi Business Park, for this review I decided to visit the Far East Square branch.

Out of the three, this branch is definitely the best both in terms of location, setting and decor. It's spacious and airy, and it provides sheltered outdoor benches.

Coming to the burgers, they are served in two sizes, small and "bergs" size. Prices are approximately below $10 for the smalls, and in the $14 region for the large burgers. In my previous visits, I tried their chicken burgers, "The Berg" and "Miss Piggy", and loved them all. This time I wanted to try something different, so I ordered "Crikey Too": a combination of bacon, beef pattie, beetroot, pineapple, Edam cheese, lettuce, onions and tomato.

The pattie was already tested on the other burgers, so it didn't disappoint me, but I loved this burger with the added flavour from the beetroot and pineapple. Some might find it slightly sweet, but it's overall very juicy and flavorsome.

Just to try a different "base", I also ordered a "Kiwi Stud", which is a lamb burger with Masala spices, lettuce and tomato. I didn't appreciate this burger as much as all the others due to the strong spices, and the pattie felt drier than its chicken and beef equivalents. I will continue to stick to chicken and beef in my future visits.

I think Bergs offers tremendous quality for its competitive prices. All their burgers are well thought, well assembled and presented, and have simple, distinct flavours, making them true gourmet burgers.
I also like their setup, except the fact that they do not provide trays to their customers and since the tables are made of spaced out wooden beams, all the juices dripping from the burgers end up decorating your trousers. This is not very well thought, I must say.
Despite that, I will be excited to eat at Bergs again and I would recommend it. Just watch your lap!

Bergs
Website: http://www.bergsburgers.com/

Nicolas

2011-01-01T20:29:00.000+08:00

I have been planning to try Nicolas for over a year now, and for one reason or another my visit kept being postponed. This is a very reputable restaurant which is doing extremely well, so after a few failed last minute attempts to get a reservation, I finally managed to get a seat for lunch. Nicolas has been recommended by many, and they all had good things to say about the food, so I was extremely curious to try. Located within a shop house in Keong Saik road, the restaurant is fairly small and only has a few tables in the main dining room. A long kitchen counter occupies one side of it, where the Chefs can be observed quietly focused on the food preparation.
We were politely welcomed and escorted to our dining table at the far end, and Nicolas himself gave us an overview of the specials of the day.

The set menu started off with raw Hokkaido scallops. These were fresh, firm but juicy just as I like. I am actually questioning whether they really are from Hokkaido, since every Hokkaido scallop I had in the past was not to my taste. Even when I went to Hokkaido and had the scallops at the fish market straight out of the shell, the texture is totally unlike these scallops. In any case, whether they are from Hokkaido or not, these were absolutely wonderful. The thin slice of cured ham on the side was also outstanding, adding a little salty contrast against the sweetness of the scallops.

The second starter was a red prawn, accompanied by its bisque and ravioli. All three were a pleasure to the palate. I am usually not too keen on eating prawns, as they tend to be dry and tasteless (especially here in Asia), but this prawn really felt like what prawns should be about. The lardo di colonnata wrapped around it formed a tasty layer of fat which brought out the flavour of the prawn. The bisque was a foamy, creamy prawn flavoured soup and I could subtly taste the roasting of the shells. The ravioli had a thin, almost wanton like skin, wrapped around chunks of prawn.

The hen egg was lightly steamed and flavoured with truffle oil. I liked the soft little triangles of pork which decorated the dish.

Excellent the rack of lamb, served with its own juices. The meat was medium rare throughout, lightly crisped on the surface, accompanied by a subtly smoked red carrot pureé. The daily special was a rather rare venison, succulently tender and served on a bed of tasty barley risotto. I loved the texture of the barley much more than I would enjoy rice. The cooking juices brought together the flavour of the lamb and the risotto.

I must say that Nicolas fully lives up to its reputation of a restaurant where both service and food are done at their best. At S$68++, this lunch was well worth its price, and I am looking forward to try their dinner menu soon. Nicolas' food is sophisticated French that intentionally does not push the boundaries of creativity (as some of the nouvelle cuisine can do) in order to remain truthful to the tradition, while lightening and refining flavours for the modern, cultured palate.

Nicolas Le Restaurant
31 Keong Saik Road
Singapore 089138

Tel: +65 62242404
Fax: +65 62229123
Website: http://www.restaurantnicolas.com

Taiarelli baccalá e noci

2010-12-31T21:14:00.001+08:00

It's always exciting to get hold of new ingredients and find the inspiration to make new dishes with them. I managed to buy a slab of baccalá (Italian dried salted cod), and decided to make a pasta out of it. Out of this large piece of fish, I decided to make a couple of different olive oil based pastas and one tomato based. This is the first recipe, and I will prepare and publish the other two sometime in 2011. In this dish, the taste of baccalá blends with the onions, while the nuts and breadcrumbs add some texture. I used "Taiarelli di trito" as it's my favourite pasta, but this recipe can equally work with spaghetti, linguini or bucatini.

For this recipe I used the following ingredients:

A chunk of baccalá
3-4 garlic cloves, squashed
1 onion
A few cherry tomatoes
1 chilli padi, chopped
4-5 walnuts and a few pistachios
A handful of breadcrumbs
Half a glass of white wine
Olive oil
Some grated orange peel (optional)

One or two days in advance, submerge the chunk of baccalá in cold water and place it in the fridge overnight (2 days is even better). Remove the baccalá from the water (discard the water), wash it and place it into a small skillet, covered in water, bring it to a slow simmer for about 20 minutes.
In the meantime, finely chop the onion and slowly sweat it on a frying pan. Add some of the water from the simmering cod if necessary, to protract the cooking time. When the onion is nicely soft (about 20 minutes) make a cream by blending it together with a few spoonfuls of cod water using an immersion blender. Toast the breadcrumbs on a perfectly clean frying pan (without any oil), until lightly browned, and set aside for later. Chop the walnuts and pistachios with a knife, some coarse and some fine. Make a small incision into each of the cherry tomatoes.

Remove the cod from the simmering water, then break it into flakes and set aside. On a large frying pan, pour generous olive oil and bring it to the heat. Add the squashed garlic, brown and remove. Add the cod flakes together with the chopped chilli, lightly fry them, then deglaze with the white wine. Finally, add the nuts and the cherry tomatoes until they pop. Remove from the heat.
When the pasta is almost cooked, drain it and add it to the frying pan together with the rest of the ingredients, back on the heat. Reduce the sauce with some of the water from the simmered cod, add a couple of spoonfuls of the onion cream, lightly sauteé and serve in portions, topped by a couple of the cherry tomatoes, the breadcrumbs and some orange zest to taste.

Otto - Pasta dinner #2

2010-12-29T01:36:00.005+08:00

This is my second review of Otto, which I tried for the first time earlier this year during a group pasta tasting. I must say I was not impressed by the pasta dishes I had back then, so this time I stayed away from all those which perhaps are not a match for my taste, except for one. I had 4 pastas in total, a good sample out of their complete pasta menu, which includes 8 pastas in total.

The Paccheri di Gragnano, con Ragout di Cernia, pomodorini Pachino ($28) e origano was actually a generous portion of paccheri, filled with chunks of grouper on a bed of a light fish stock based sauce, lightly sprinkled with spices and herbs and topped with Pachino tomatoes (a superb Sicilian variety of cherry tomatoes). The dish worked well, since the sauce was light enough to let the Pachino tomatoes speak for themselves. I would recommend this pasta to those who like light, fresh, subtly flavoured, sauces.

The Pappardelle al vino rosso con ragout di faraona e pancetta croccante ($24) was a more robust flavoured rustic pasta. The sauce was a ragout of guinea fowl tossed with some cream and sprinkled with tasty browned bacon chunks. The pappardelle had a nice bite and the crispy bacon added crunch and taste to the creamy sauce. I didn't prefer this pasta since I am never for creamy sauces. To my taste, this would have been better without cream, simply with a jus reduction. Flavour and texture were all there and the cream just kind of masked and confused the flavours.

The tagliolini al nero di seppia con gamberi e pesto delicato ($28) was a rather classic pasta, pairing homemade squid ink tagliolini with a generous amount of prawns and lightly sauteed tomato chunks. I would rate this second best out of the four. The flavours were well blended and the sauce had a good density which made it easily adhere to the tagliolini. I would prefer the tagliolini to be firmer in texture, but this rarely happens with homemade pasta.

Finally, I ordered one pasta which I already had during my previous visit: the spaghetti ai ricci di mare e bottarga di Carloforte (sea urchin spaghetti with grey mullet roe, $30). I didn't like this pasta then, and I am still unconvinced by it. It lacks of the freshness that I would hope to taste from a seafood based pasta, and the taste is somehow unnaturally sweet. Also, I wonder what brand of spaghetti was used; the bite/texture gave me the impression of a low quality grain (only the spaghetti had this issue, the other pastas were all top notch).

I would say that Otto is one of the few Italian restaurants in Singapore that serve decent pasta, but for a hefty price tag. With pasta dishes ranging from $24 to $38 dollars, which is in the top price range in Singapore, Otto has to compete with other restaurants that serve equal if not superior quality at more reasonable prices. On the other hand, the attentive and discreet service and soft, comfortably sophisticated ambiance make up for some of the extra cost, making Otto suitable for dating couples.

Christmas Dinner @ Gattopardo

2010-12-27T09:44:00.004+08:00

After cooking for friends on Christmas Eve and lunch, it was finally time to be served and enjoy a beautifully prepared Christmas dinner at Gattopardo. I was particularly interested in this menu because every single dish is a match for my taste, and stewed eel has always been one of my favourites. This happens rarely with set menus, as I normally like a couple of dishes and compromise on others that I wouldn't chose to eat otherwise.

I must say that it is hard in Singapore to find such a selection: a combination of regional dishes with a touch of modern to lighten up the flavours and make the food more suited for a multiple course meal. Every single dish was brilliantly executed and had something to say.

Amouse Bouche: Mackerel fillet with caramelised onions. A great start of the meal, this Sicilian style amouse bouche combined the sweetness of caramelised onion, with the saltiness of a small fillet of mackerel.

Carpaccio di ricciola con caviale Oscietra e erba cipollina (Amberjack carpaccio with Oscietra caviar and chives). This was incredibly good. This dish looks simple, and yet many restaurants don't get it right. They either make it too plain, or too sour, or just not very interesting. This carpaccio had the right balance between oil, salt, and sour. Sicilian salt flakes still in crystalline form animated the dish, busting bubbles of flavour as they dissolved into the palate.

Brodetto chiarificato di vongole veraci e porri (Light vongole broth and leeks). The base was a classic Italian "brodo" which brought back memories of when I used to live in Italy. These flavours were very nostalgic, since I haven't had this Italian classic for many, many years. On top of the base stock, there was a delicate but distinct taste of clams.

Tortelloni della vigilia (Homemade tortelli filled with red prawn, tarragon butter and saffron pepper cheese). This was an outstanding combination of textures, enriched by a smooth buttery sauce with deep, well rounded herb flavours. The cheese was just sufficient to give an extra kick to the dish, without overwhelming it.

Capitone piccante in umido e polenta di fave secche con finocchio selvatico (Spicy Italian large stewed eel, dry fava beans and wild fennel). Whenever I go back to Italy to visit my family, my mother knows that if eels are in season, I really appreciate plenty of "anguilla in umido", which is a thinner type of eel as compared to the one served in Gattopardo, slowly cooked in tomato sauce. This dish was a mouthful of goodness. First time I had polenta made from broadbeans, but I must say it was excellent: less grainy than the corn polenta, and lighter to the palate. On top of the polenta was a layer of tender and succulent eel, flavoured by a topping of slowly braised onions and a couple of reduced cherry tomatoes. It is only a shame that instead of a couple of bites of this, I could have eaten a whole plate.

Sinfonia di cioccolato e castagne (Chestnut and sabayon cream, chocolate flkourless sponge, cherry compote). Chocolate flavours emerged from the layers of sponge, lightened by chestnut-textured layers. The Amarene (Cherry compote) added a Christmas touch to this beautifully presented dessert.

I must say that I am never disappointed eating at Gattopardo. This meal gets me even more excited to try their New Year's eve menu in less than a week! Looking forward to dishes such as the Lasagna aperta con Branzino su salsa di Zucca e riduzione di Nerello (Open lasagna with seabass, yellow pumpkin and Nerello wine reduction), the Zuppetta piccante di Scorfano (Sicilian spicy scorpion fish soup), and the Quaglie ripiene al fegato d'oca (Roasted and stuffed quail with Foie Gras and spicy pork)!

Sky on 57

2010-12-24T03:06:00.001+08:00

Justin Queck's new restaurant is located on Sky Park, on top of the Marina Bay Sands, and opened just a couple of weeks ago. Well aware of the fact that new restaurants don't perform to their best from day one and need some time to warm up, I thought of paying them a visit to check out the view as well as the food.

The location is indeed breathtaking, and the interior is bright and extremely spacious, as you would expect from a restaurant in such a premium location. The overall theme is a sober classic modern. I opted for the set lunch menu, priced at S$48++ for 3 courses. You are requested to select a dessert, so starter, soup and main is not an allowed option.

The prawn bisque was ok, although definitely not one of the best I've had in Singapore. It's fairly hard to go terribly wrong with this dish, but I thought the surface of the soup was quite dried out, as if the dish had been standing somewhere for quite a while, waiting to be served. Not ideal.

My starter was poached eggs with mushrooms, pan fried foie gras and truffle oil. Nothing so exciting that I would order again, but decently put together.

The cod dish was a bit too bland. I didn't think that the sauce really worked with the cod, and the fish itself was perfectly cooked but didn't have any flavour.

The beef was tender enough, served with a nice demi-glas sauce which gave it some flavour. The braised tendons were very gelatinous and would be appreciated by many, although I am not that keen. Another dish that didn't excite me, although technically there was nothing wrong with it.

Out of all the food I had, I would say the the dessert was the only dish that had a soul, or something to say. The signature apple tart was beautiful, crispy and delicate. I would have this again.

The food was executed by the book but lacked in personality and tasted like standard hotel food, not something you would go out of your way to taste. The worst part was the service. I must say I have never had such poor service in a restaurant of this caliber. There was total lack of communication amongst service staff, and most of them have not yet been adequately trained. We asked for the bread multiple times to different waiters. When finally one took the initiative to put a basket of bread on our table, our waitress snatched the basket from us at the point that we were grabbing the first piece of bread and seeing our surprised faces she told us "he doesn't know" (meaning the other waiter doesn't understand the system). She then went away with the basket one meter away from us, grabbed a pair of tangs and came back to us to ask which piece of bread we wanted... there would have been more polite ways to achieve the same result!

Lots of waiters running everywhere, a lot of movement and little result. That is the impression you get when you sit at your table and watch the show. Being understanding, I am aware that it's difficult to get good service staff in Singapore, and this restaurant has only just opened. Said that, I would have expected a little more from the food.

Focaccia Genovese revisited

2010-12-14T02:03:00.000+08:00

Last week I posted a recipe to make Focaccia Genovese, and this week I made it again with the intent to try a different, much stronger type of flour given to me by a friend. The stronger flour made the kneading process tougher, as the dough was even stickier and harder to manage.

This time I made two trays of it, one with mini plum tomatoes and Rosemary, and the other one with red onions and Rosemary. I blanched and peeled the cherry tomatoes, then oven dried them for an hour or so to enhance the flavour.

I cooked the plum tomatoes focaccia at a slightly higher temperature than usual (245C), which resulted in a thicker, crispier surface. An interesting result, although next time I will stick to 230C and I will wet the oven dried tomatoes to prevent them from slight burns.

The color contrast of red onions looks beautiful on bread both before and after baking. While red onions look better than white ones, their sweetness doesn't particularly suit this type of bread. I will go back to regular white onions going forward, since they have a more distinct onion taste.

I could without a doubt tell the difference between the two flours (Prima bread flour and my friend's strong Italian flour). I personally prefer the strong flour, which resulted in a more airy and spongy dough, with bigger bubbles through the section. Unfortunately I am not sure where you can source strong flour in Singapore, but a visit at the more exotic culinary shops might be worthwile.

72 hours beef short ribs

2010-12-14T01:20:00.004+08:00

This is one sous-vide recipe that you will have read or heard about, as the 72 hours cooking time really stands out. You don't normally hear of meat being cooked for so long, as traditional cooking techniques are not suited to stretch over 3 days while retaining flavours and textures. So I decided to finally start the journey of this never-ending and inevitably well planned cooking process. As for any recipe, there are different versions at different temperatures, and I decided to cook mine at 57C for the first 48 hours, raising the temperature to 75.5C for the last 24 hours.

I seasoned the meat with a sprinkle of pepper and generous salt, then vacuum packed it together with a herb sachet containing rosemary, sage, thyme and a clove of garlic sliced into two. I then put the bags into the water bath for a continuous 72 hours. I recommend that no matter what, but especially if you are in Singapore, when you cook sous-vide over such long periods using an immersion circulator, you observe the following:

Cover the container either with its own lid or some cling film
Make sure that the packs are well into the water. They will eventually develop some air and tend to emerge, and you might have to put some weight over them to keep them into place
Place a fan behind the circulator to ensure that it won't overheat. The last thing you want is your circulator to stop while unattended in the middle of the process, as you will have to throw away all the meat and start again.
Ensure that the bags are double sealed, since the bones can be sharp and may potentially damage the envelope. If necessary, you might consider double vacuuming within a second envelope.

After 3 days of wait, I was eager to extract the bags from the water bath and unveil the beauty of these slabs of meat. Pictured above, what the ribs looked like after I extracted them from their own envelope and drained the juices (set aside to make the sauce).

Now, time to make the outside crispy, seal the flavours and create a tasty Maillard reaction all around this gourmet cut of meat. I blow-torched the short ribs from every side, making sure that the outer layer of fat crisped up, sweating out some of its oil.

While slicing, the meat fell off the bone and really didn't take much effort to cut through! The slices revealed the fairly thick inner marbling which was already well visible before the cooking (see first photo on top). The meat, despite being perfectly pink as a "medium" would look like if you cooked a steak, actually tasted like a "medium-rare" throughout.

This is without a doubt a result that you would never achieve without sous-vide: the meat was tender, incredibly juicy, and felt almost like raw meat. Marbled with melting fat, crispy outside, but most importantly packed with flavour throughout! In actual fact, it didn't need any sauce since the natural beef flavour was enhanced by the balanced aromas released by the herbs.
This is the kind of result which makes you happy to be cooking sous-vide, and I will be making it more regularly.

The best Dan Dan in Singapore?

2010-12-12T12:21:00.002+08:00

Dan Dan and Zhajiang mien are without a doubt my two favourite noodle dishes in Chinese cuisine, but unfortunately since they originate from the northern part of China, they are not commonly found in Singapore, and when they are available they are often substandard. After tasting Dan Dan noodles in different places, my favourites are Silk Road (Amara Hotel), and Sichuan Dou Hua (Parkroyal hotel). Having to choose between these two, I would prefer the Silk Road Dan Dan, although it's a very close battle. As you may know, there are two types of Dan Dan, dry or soupy, and some places make one version, some places the other. For instance, Lao Beijing serves Dan Dan noodles in soup. I am generally not a big fan of soupy noodles, so I will only be reviewing the dry version.

I have reviewed Silk Road before, so I won't spend any more words on environment and service, which are of pretty good standard.
Dan Dan noodles at Silk Road only cost $6.00. They come in a decent portion with plenty of minced beef a creamy rich sauce, and an extremely pronounced Sichuan peppercorn kind of spiciness which is guaranteed to numb your mouth by the end of it!
What distinguishes the way this dish is prepared at Silk Road is the lightness of the sauce. Other places make the sauce too rough and robust, resulting in a heavy, unsettling flavour. Well, this is where I come for my Dan Dan fix, and at every visit I make sure I also have the dry beef shaved noodles and a portion of Sichuan deep fried chicken with dried chilli (this second one is only recommended if you can eat spicy food), which I reviewed in my previous post.
I can only say that if you like Chinese noodles and you haven't tried Dan Dan before, you might be really missing something!

Osvaldo

2010-12-08T01:08:00.002+08:00

I meant to visit this place for the longest time and never got a chance, since I have been indulging with my favourite spots for the past few months. Disappointingly, this is another restaurant that fears bloggers' opinions and does not allow pictures of the food. Now, I could understand if a fine dining restaurant such as Andre' didn't allow pictures of the food, as they might not like beginners to portrait their food in a suboptimal way and spoil some of its attractive presentation. But for restaurants such as Buko Nero and Osvaldo where presentation is not really the point, I see no excuse, besides the fact that they might be afraid of criticism and they intend to discourage open opinions about their food. This is why, despite the absence of pictures to go with the review, I will not be discouraged to express my views. I will actually post below the only picture I managed to take, before I was told that "no pictures of the food were allowed".

We started with some cold cuts, or affettati (as we call them in Italy) for $25, which were quite good. The platter included things like Parma ham, salami, mortadella, coppa and lardo di colonnata. I would have preferred if the lardo di colonnata had been saltier, as it was a bit too mild for my liking. The focaccia bread which was served with the affettati would have been outstanding if only it had been properly salted, as everyone around the table thought that there was total absence of salt in the bread. That was a real shame because other than that, it would have been perefectly baked. Clearly it was intentionally plain, but none of us could see the point. Apparently there are rumours that the affettati are "homemade". In general I wouldn't be fooled by such rumours, since home making affettati of this caliber is a complex and involving job which cannot be achieved within a Singapore shophouse. The process of curing meat requires special premises at controlled temperature and humidity which cannot be achieved in Singapore, unless you invested significant amounts in the creation of special (spacious) chambers with humidity and temperature controllers, dedicated to curing meats. Even supposing that someone in Singapore had the knowledge to produce anything close to Parma ham, This would be so expensive to do, both in terms of space, investment and processing, that it would make no sense unless you did it oon a large scale. There are some restaurants in Singapore that claim their own production of affettati only because some of the products they offer (such as mortadella, coppa, bresaola, pancetta, guanciale...) cannot be legally imported in Singapore, so they have to be a bit inventive about their legal origin.

We then tasted a pizza with Parma ham and rocket. It was quite good, we had no complaints, although not outstanding (no differentiation factor from many other pizza restaurants in Singapore).

It's now time for pastas, which should be every Italian restaurant's pride. Let's start from the good ones. Osvaldo's filled pastas were above average. We ordered a Pansotti with spinach and ricotta ($25) which were essentially ravioli. They came in a generous serving and had a classic and rich filling. Next, the Agnolotti Piemonte ($25) were in my opinion the best of all pastas we tried: a kind of tortellini, but wrapped in a different shape, with a juicy meat filling, served in a slightly creamy meaty sauce. This is the only dish that I would have again.

The spaghettini with fresh tomatoes and bottarga ($27) was the worst of all. The spaghetti itself had a cheap texture. To be honest, none of the spaghetti I cook at home is never so bad, and I suppose it's due to the poor quality of the pasta they use. The spaghetti looked quite transparent, which is usually an index of poor quality wheat. But the worst part was that instead of using fresh, lightly sauteed tomato cubes, which could have paired elegantly with bottarga, the pasta actually came in a tomato sauce, with bottarga sprinkled all around the plate. It is quite obvious that the combination of tomato sauce and bottarga makes no sense whatsoever, since the tomato overwhelms the Bottarga. As a proof of that, none of us could taste the Italian delicacy. The high price felt like a ripoff, since the most expensive pasta of the evening was essentially cheap spaghetti with basic tomato sauce and a 50 cents sprinkle of bottarga on the side. I make pasta with bottarga myself and I know the costs of the products, so I won't be fooled.

Second worst was the wild boar tagliatelle ($25). You think wild boar, and you imagine dark, robust flavours of long braised shredded meat.... the aromas of the wild. These tagliatelle came served with some minced pork tossed in butter and herbs. The sauce had no flavour of "wild boar", nor a cooking technique to match. Quite a disappointment. Edible overall, but just not what it said on the label.

Not so impressed with the pastas, we jumped to the desserts and had the ice cream spaghetti ($15) and an assorted desserts platter ($29). My favourite was the ice cream spaghetti, which reminded me of my hometown (it's an Italian classic), and was quite respectful of the original recipe besides the missing coconut flakes.

Overall Osvaldo serves decent food, but nothing out of the ordinary once you take into account the price tag. There are other Italian restaurants in Singapore which serve better, cheaper pasta, although perhaps they are not as 'fashionable' places to be seen. I can't think of any good reason why I would want to go back.

Osvaldo
Website: http://www.osvaldo.com.sg/
Tel: +65 6224 0978
Address: 32 Maxwell Road #01-03 Maxwell Chambers

Focaccia Genovese

2010-12-06T01:16:00.007+08:00

Focaccia Genovese is my favourite type of Italian bread: flavourful, soft and crispy. Note that this focaccia is about 2 cm high (it's not the very thick type), and must be crispy on top. Unfortunately, it's one type of bread that must be eaten freshly baked, straight out of the oven, and you can't buy the original "Genovese" here in Singapore. For this reason, I decided to make it myself, and after a bit of research I got to this wonderful recipe by an Italian guy whose grandfather used to own a bakery in Genova: http://vivalafocaccia.com/2009/09/21/la-video-ricetta/

His recipe exceeded expectations, so I will include it here in English since his website and video are both in Italian.

Making focaccia Genovese is a bit involving, since it requires the dough to raise 4 times and you MUST stick to the given timings, so you must be around it and you can't "leave and forget it". On the other hand, the result is amazing and well worth a try!

The ingredients are:
• 200 ml water at room temperature (30C)
• 20 g extra virgin olive oil
• 7 g salt
• 3 g (1 teaspoon) of Malt (or alternatively honey or sugar)
• 340 g of bread flour (I use Prima bread flour)
• 7-8g dry yeast

Put the water, the malt, olive oil, salt and half of the flour into a large bowl. Kneed it well until homogeneous. Completely dissolve the yeast into a bit of water (temperature @ 30C), then pour it into the dough, and kneed until fully incorporated. Then proceed with the rest of the flour and kneed until the dough is smooth and not excessively sticky. Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for about 15 minutes at room temperature (about 30C).

Fold the dough twice by slightly stretching it and then folding the two sides into the middle, once in each direction, first horizontally, then vertically. This is to strengthen it. You should end up with the dough shaped more or less rectangular as your oven tray (although smaller in size)
Pour some olive oil into an oven tray, place the dough onto it, oil it and change side so that both sides are well covered in oil (with the help of your fingers you can brush the oil all around it). Let the dough rest for 40-60 minutes, and it should have doubled in size by then.

Press the dough with your hands onto the tray, flattening it until it covers the whole tray. You should try not to stretch it in order to maintain a regular thickness throughout. You might find that it's quite elastic and that it needs a little bit of work to stabilise and cover the entire tray. Sprinkle abundant salt on top to give flavour to the focaccia and also to prevent the formation of a dried crust. Let the dough rest a 3rd time, for about 30 minutes.

Now it's time to make the classic depressions into the focaccia. Cover the dough with a few tablespoons of tepid water and some olive oil, then with your palms, massage the liquid on top of the dough to mix it and spread it uniformly. Now, with your fingers push into the dough with energy top to bottom, forming depressions as in the picture above. The oil and water should sink into the depressions, forming softer areas that will create the interesting different textures that are typical of focaccia Genovese.

At this point you can top your focaccia with your favourite toppings, such as cherry tomatoes, olives, rosemary or onions. In my recipe, I used sliced onions and rosemary. I would make the onion slices about 3-4mm thick to prevent them from burning.

Let the focaccia raise a 4th time, for about 60-75 minutes. Now it's finally ready for cooking. Put the tray into the oven at about 220-240C for 15-20 minutes. Remove from the oven, lift from the tray and let it slide onto a grate, or any surface that will let the focaccia breathe underneath. This is because if you keep it in close contact with the tray, the steam from underneath will make the base soggy instead of evaporating.

Let the focaccia rest for a couple of minutes, brush with some olive oil on top, slice and serve while still warm. The crust should be salty and crispy, while the inside must be soft and porous.

Red Bream Linguini

2010-12-03T02:08:00.004+08:00

Sunday lunch, time for a pasta for two; the mood this time is "fish and tomato". This is a pretty classic pasta sauce, which surprisingly I haven't blogged about in 3 years of pasta recipes blogging. Linguini is the perfect pairing for this pasta, although you can also use spaghetti.

The idea is to make a mild tomato sauce, enriched with a fish fumet done on the spot. You can of course use other fish, and red mullets (in Italian - triglie) would be ideal for this dish, but I couldn't find them at the market, so I replaced them with red sea breams.

The ingredients for this recipe are:

2 small red sea breams
2 cloves of garlic, squashed
1/2 Chopped onion
Parts of fennel bulb
Parsley
Tinned plum tomatoes, drained
1/2 glass dry white wine
Olive oil

Start by filleting both sides of the fish, then put into a skillet the bones and heads, together with the stems of the fennel bulb, 1/2 onion, and optionally other vegetables that you might have such as mushrooms and celery. Fill up the skillet with cold water, and put it on high heat until it starts to bubble, then turn the heat to very low. Your fumet will need to simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes or so before you can start to use it.

In the meantime, prepare all the other ingredients, by peeling and squashing the garlic and finely chopping half an onion. Chop the parsley and reserve the stems, and drain about 5 plum tomatoes from their juices by putting them on a sieve for some time.

When the fish fumet is ready, cover a frying pan with extra virgin olive oil, and fry onion and garlic until golden, then add some chilli flakes at this point if you would like this dish to be a bit spicy.

Turn the heat to high and pour the half glass of dry white wine, then quickly stir to make the alcohol evaporate rapidly. The evaporation process should not take longer than 30 seconds or so, if the heat is sufficiently high. At this point, add the parsley stems to the pan, pour a ladle or two of the fish fumet, and reduce.

Once reduced to about a third, add the tomatoes and chop them with a spatula until you reach the desired texture. Continue to cook for about 15 mins or so, adding additional fish fumet (which in the meantime continues to simmer in its own skillet) until the liquid is all finished. Reduce the sauce until it reaches the consistency you see in the picture, remove the parsley stems, add chopped parsley then salt as needed. Sprinkle some salt and pepper on the fish fillets, then place them into the sauce, cover the pan, and keep it on low heat for a couple of minutes (depending on the thickness of the fillets this may take longer), until the fillets are cooked throughout.

Boil some water in a large pan, salt it as required, then cook the linguini "al dente". remove them from the pan and drain them, pour them into the large frying pan and mix thoroughly with the sauce, adding some cooking water as needed to loosen up the sauce if required.

Serve on warm plates, and top with some chopped parsley or the leaves of the fennel bulb.

Now that it's time to eat, you won't regret having done all this work!

Buko Nero

2010-11-29T19:51:00.003+08:00

This is one of those rare reviews with no pictures. They are not allowed by restaurant policy, which creates even more of an aura of secrecy around this place.... well, I finally went and I tried this acclaimed restaurant on a Saturday lunch, after a long 1 month wait. I have repeatedly been hearing about this place from various sources and for quite some time, so I was indeed curious to try it out!

The restaurant is located within a shophouse in Tanjong Pagar and it is relatively small, with only a few tables being served within a very cozy and tastefully decorated family-style environment. There are a few displays on the walls which add a bit of character to the place, without making it cluttered. There is a board on the wall which displays the daily specials.

The menu itself is as small as the restaurant, with limited choice. To give you an example, there were only two pastas on the menu: a penne with black pig ragout, and a pasta with prawns and crab meat. There was also a spatzli with Bolognese sauce as a daily special, which could be ordered as part of the set lunch.

I ordered the set lunch and an extra pasta, which included: Caprese salad, penne with black pig ragout, fillet of seabass and dessert. The Caprese salad was exactly what it said on the label, well presented, with quality ingredients. The penne with black pork ragout were a bit away from expectation. The ragout in fact was more of a braised pork with carrot, and the sauce was basically the braising sauce itself together with the braised meat. It wasn't bad, but just not what I would have chosen had I known it. I also tried the spatzle with Bolognese sauce. I thought the spatzle were too soft, and the Bolognese was ok, a bit rich in tomato sauce, and it didn't particularly differentiate itself from what you can get at most restaurants.
The seabass was the best dish of the meal, well cooked and yet juicy, served on a puree' and red peppers sauce. My dining partners also ordered some fried cod dish, which was a little undercooked and tasted too fishy for my liking, but was accompanied by a very good sauce.

Overall the quality of the food is good and above many other Italian restaurants in Singapore, although nothing extraordinary that I would wait for as long as a month, so in that sense it didn't meet expectations. My main criticism is the limited choice, which might end up pushing you to choose based on exclusion of what you don't like, rather than picking what you really want.
If you crave for Italian, there are other restaurants that serve more choice and comparable quality without planning your meal months ahead.

Buko Nero
126 Tanjong Pagar Road, Singapore
Tel: 6324 6225

Coccogelo

2010-11-27T03:20:00.000+08:00

A new gelateria recently opened on East Coast Road, right on the spot where new culinary businesses are flourishing. Within a couple of hundred meters range, I can now count quite a few successful dessert shops: Pave' (which is right next door), Obolo, Gobi, Awfully Chocolate. Other lower end shops also opened recently in the neighborhood, catering to a different crowd.

The most striking thing when you first step into the shop is its unique interior design. It is rather unusual for a gelateria, and yet it's innovative and attractive. The theme of animals, forest and nature is evident: long and wide dark wood tables with log-shaped stools wrapped into thick rope, combined with a mural that covers the whole wall.

Some of the flavours are classic (pistacchio, matcha), some are a bit inventive, such as banana with lemon zest, lychee lemonade sorbetto, Pandan guacamole.

I tried the pistachio and it tasted very natural, although I find that it would have been more complete with a more generous portion of crunchy nuts to top it up.

The design invites customers to go in, buy some ice cream and relax in the spacious setting while having a chat, reading or browsing the Internet. The concept certainly works, and it's paired with a decent product which, although it might not be as artisan as what you can get in some places in Italy, it's still one of the best in Singapore.

Coccogelo
89 East Coast Road
http://www.coccogelo.com/

More on Beef Brisket Sous-Vide

2010-11-14T14:39:00.002+08:00

There are 3 very different sous-vide recipes for the beef brisket, 3 different schools:

48 hours @ 57C
48 hours @ 64C (Thomas Keller's)
24 hours @ 80C

In a previous post, I described my second attempt with Thomas Keller's recipe. While the first attempt was quite good, the second time round the meat came out quite dry, possibly due to the lean cut of meat.

This third time, I decided to try a radically different recipe, the 80C for 24 hours. I am not sure why, but many blogs and articles on the Internet talk about the last two techniques, without explaining what exactly the difference is between the two. Well, the result is totally different. The 24 hours brisket was delicious, with an intensely flavoured juice out of the bag, and it broke to the touch. It was browned throughout, exactly like a traditionally braised beef brisket, except more flavoursome.
The 48 hours @ 64C brisket was pink in the inside, still a little tough, and tended to be dry unless the cut of meat is well marbled throughout.
So in conclusion, if you want a more fine dining sous-vide effect, then go for Thomas Keller's recipe (although I haven't yet been able to perfection this myself). If you are after a more traditional result, then the 80C for 24 hours will give you a great, reliable result.

I haven't yet tried the third option, 57C for 48 hours, but a fellow Singapore blogger posted a great, very detailed article on it: http://wishihadafoodpun.wordpress.com/2010/05/18/home-cooked-sous-vide-brisket-55c-48h/

Dozo

2010-11-14T12:26:00.001+08:00

Dozo is a Japanese fusion restaurant located within Valley Point shopping centre. The setting is semi-pretentious and luxurious, and besides the main dining room, it provides separate rooms for private dining. The colors and deco are more out of a pretentious Chinese restaurant, rather than Japanese: vivid colours, abundance of soft furnishings and fancy wallpapers. The dim lighting creates a pleasant atmosphere. Being in a group of 4, we got our own private dining room, which definitely benefited to the whole experience. I would highly recommend that you go with a group of friends and book a private room in advance.

The food deal is good value for money, pricing a 7 course dinner at 59.80++. You get to chose each course from a selection of about 5 dishes each. I must say that I found it difficult to compose my own meal since there were too many things I wanted to try, and there were quite a few conflicting choices. You can never complain about being spoilt for choice! After ordering the food, we were served a glass of ice cold fruity juice together with the amouse bouche.

I must say we weren't incredibly impressed with the amouse bouche, which included smoked salmon topped with whipped cream, a pan seared scallop, and some foie-gras. I found that the whipped cream was a tad too sweet to be paired with the salmon, and the scallop too dry (probably pre-cooked). One of us also complained about the fact that the fruity drink which was served with the dish was so strong in flavour that the scallop couldn't really be tasted after savouring it.

One of the best dishes I had that evening was also their signature dish. We all ordered the same cold dish, the beef tataki with shaved Parmesan and truffle mayo mosaic. The beef was nicely marbled, soft and thinly sliced. It was wrapped around a crunchy wafer whose drier texture actually enhanced the flavour of the beef. I would have this again.

The steamed fresh bamboo clam, which was served as a side dish, was not as good a choice. The cooking style was more Chinese than Japanese or western, and I just found that the chopped garlic just covered any other flavour. The other side I had, the tempura battered soft shell crab, was up to expectation, served with a nice dipping sauce.

I personally loved the crab bisque cappuccino style. This was served in a coffee cup, and was extremely dense and foamy. The flavour was quite intense, but less striking than the texture.

Coming to the main dishes, the Sake infused grilled unagi on hot stone was very good. Served as described on the menu, the sake was poured onto the eel right at the table, creating a show of steam raising from the hot stone as the alcohol evaporated. The rice that was served with the dish was flavoured with unagi sauce. This was probably the closest to Japanese food that I ate on the night. I had a baked Atlantic cod in basil sauce which didn't quite score it for me, when compared to the other dishes; wrong choice, I wouldn't recommend it.

The beef tenderloin on "Pu-Ye" and granite hot stone was even more outstandingly presented, and with a flavour to match. The beef was tender and juicy, nicely seared and crispy on the outside. This would be my recommended choice for most. The herb-braised lamb shank was also very good, succulent and full of flavour.

Overall, I think Dozo is well worth it, so long as you set your expectations right. Don't expect Japanese food but rather some Japanese style flavours here and there - and don't expect Andre' Chiang. But you can certainly expect pretty good fusion for a very reasonable price, within a comfortably sumptuous setting that differentiates this place from most others.

Dozo
Website: http://www.dozo.com.sg/index.html

48-hours beef brisket

2010-11-10T02:52:00.004+08:00

I always wondered what a 48 hours beef brisket cooked in sous-vide would taste like, and I tried this twice. Ironically, the first attempt was more successful than the first. Let's see why.

I followed the recipe on Thomas Keller's cookbook, so I started from seasoning the meat with salt and pepper, then I seared it on all sides for about 7-8 minutes, until nicely browned.

I then let the meat to rest for a few minutes, cooled it in some zip-lock bags that I immersed in water to speed up the cooling process, and finally placed the meat into the refrigerator to cool it for a few hours.

In the meantime, I prepared some herb sachets by wrapping 3 slices of garlic, and some sprigs of thyme and rosemary. I cut a few millimeters of the corners of the bags to create openings that the liquid could circulate through.

I vacuumed packed the chilled briskets in individual packs, together with the herb sachets.

Finally, I placed them into a water bath at 64C degrees for 48 hours. It is a long process indeed...

As I mentioned earlier, I got different results out of the two times that I attempted this. Since the process was exactly identical, the conclusion is that the meat was quite different. I noticed that the briskets I used for second batch had substantially less marbling and were more uniformly red. I t was quite visible when the meat was raw, and it resulted into a pinker meat with less fat, and therefore drier when cooked.

At the end of the day, this is all common sense which applies to sous-vide as much as it does to other more traditional cooking techniques. It just means I will pay much more attention to the cuts of meat I will be given from now on!

To finish off the dish, I drained the juice from the vacuum bags while the meat was still warm, reduced them to a half and added a teaspoon of cream and one of horseradish to make the sauce. I sliced the briskets, slightly coated them in flour on the pink sides which I briefly pan-roasted. I finally served the slices on a bed of parsnips puree' and radicchio rosso on the side.

Taiarello di trito

2010-11-08T01:35:00.000+08:00

What to do with the ragu' alla bolognese I made last week? I decided to test it on this excellent product, which you can purchase at Huber's Butchery. Pasta Giuseppe Cocco is one of the best brands available in Singapore.

This particular pasta is made from "sfoglia di trito", which is a dough that is higher in bran content. It is particularly indicated for rustic sauces due to its enhanced porosity and raw texture.

It was indeed a great match for the bolognese sauce, topped with a sprinkle of Parmigiano Reggiano. I must say that I was impressed a dry pasta could get so close to what feels almost homemade, and in my opinion actually better than homemade pasta, due to the firmer bite.

Ragu'alla Bolognese

2010-11-02T01:48:00.003+08:00

One of the most popular pasta sauces globally: Ragù alla Bolognese. You can find this wherever you go in the world, either served on some spaghetti (which is a type of pasta that should never be served with this sauce!), or in between layers of lasagne. Sadly though, it is rarely of good quality and mostly prepared with leftovers rather than quality ingredients. This is one of those dishes that take time to prepare, but you can make in large quantities and freeze for later use, so it is well worth the effort, in order to appreciate the beauty of a quality Bolognese sauce.

Ragù is a term deriving from French (ragôut) to indicate sauces based on a combination of meat, vegetables and tomatoes. There is an official recipe for Ragù Bolognese, which has been agreed upon and deposited with the Bologna Chamber of Commerce. More detailed information on the original recipe can be found here. Since this is a blog, I will describe my own recipe, which is pretty similar to the original, with a few variations primarily constrained by availability of the ingredients.

Although the original recipe is only based on beef, nowadays people tend to use 50% beef and 50% pork to "lighten" the sauce. I personally like pork, so I went for the 50-50 mix. I decided to use beef brisket, which is a fairly inexpensive, tasty cut, ideal for prolonged cooking. I mixed the brisket with as much pork, some of which was belly and some of which was shoulder. I didn't buy minced beef/pork, since I like to chose the exact cut I want, and also because hand-shredded meat results into a different texture. I hand-chopped the beef and pork, and then I lightly minced 40% of it using an immersion blender. The result can be seen in the picture above.

I used the following ingredients:

2 tinned plum (Roma) tomatoes
300ml Milk
200ml stock (chicken or beef)
A glass of red wine
200g each of carrot, celery and onion
300g of bacon, some of it smoked
1.3 Kg of meat, 50% beef brisket, 30% pork shoulder, 20% pork belly

One ingredient that is hardly available to the public in Singapore is pancetta. This is not commonly sold in supermarkets/butchers, and even if you could get hold of it, it would probably be too expensive to be fried into a Bolognese sauce. For this reason, I recommend to use some quality bacon instead.
Start by removing the fat from the pork belly, and rendering it in a non-stick pan, without any added oil. When the fat almost completely melted, discard the remaining lumps of fat and skin, and add the chopped bacon. Fry it gently for about 10-15 mins until crispy, then add the finely chopped carrots, onions and celery, to make what in Italy we call soffritto. These need to be sweat slowly for about 15 minutes until soft, then removed from the pan.

Time to add the chopped beef and pork, mixing vigorously to rapidly expose it to the heat throughout. As it will start cooking, the meat will release a lot of juice which you will need to evaporate completely. It is very important that the meat is cooked in isolation from the vegetables, in order to remove all of its liquid content and sear it by causing a Maillard reaction. You should really start smelling the same aromas that steaks release when you pan fry them. This process can take about 30 minutes for 1.3 Kg of meat.

You can clearly see in the two pictures above the difference in texture and color between beef that has just been turned and heated thoroughly and is still juicy, and the one below, which has been dried out and is crispy and tasty. As Gordon says: "no color - no flavour"- and you will hardly get color on the meat if you mix soffritto and meat all together, due to the different cooking times. You can then deglaze the pan on high heat with a glass of red wine, mixing rapidly to detach any bits of meat stuck at the bottom of the pan. When all the alcohol is evaporated, pour the soffritto back into the pan, add the tomatoes and the stock, and let the sauce simmer gently for about 3-4 hours. You will need to regularly check progress, stir the sauce and make sure that it does not dry out, adding water if required, and milk in the quantities indicated towards the end of the cooking process. Add salt if required, when most of the juices are evaporated.

Once the sauce is ready, either serve immediately or freeze for later use. If you decide to freeze it, make sure that you cool it down rapidly by placing the pan with your kitchen sink filled up with water, and changing the water continuously as it heats up. When the sauce is at room temperature (this should happen within 15 minutes or so), place it into freezer bags, seal them, then put them into an ice bath (made of 30% water and the rest of ice) for about 10-15 minutes, until they are very cool, and then place them in the freezer.

A private shoot-out affair

2010-11-02T00:26:00.002+08:00

Private Affairs organised a photography event as part of their 1 year anniversary celebration. The participants submitted their favourite picture to take part in the contest, and 5 were selected out of 38. Those 5 participants gathered at the restaurant last Saturday to shoot pictures of about 15 dishes prepared by Paul, the head Chef at Private Affairs.

Out of all those shots, each of the 5 participants was asked to select one picture to submit to the competition. Mine was the one above. To see the others, you can take a look at the Facebook page of Private Affairs. Following below some other pictures I took on the day of the shooting.

A beautifully presented salad.

Toro.

Dessert.

On Friday night, Private Affairs invited all their most regular customers and partners to visit the restaurant in order to celebrate their first anniversary. The shoot-out award ceremony was part of the event. Some great food was served during the event, including roast chicken and lamb, barbecued scallops and steaks, tasty mini-burgers, oysters and sashimi. Wines and sake were also free-flow.

Finally, the food photography awards. There were some really good pictures taking part in the competition, and I was very pleased to be awarded the 1st price! :)

Above is the Chef (Paul) next to a large print of the winning picture. The print will be hang in the dining room of the restaurant.

Part of the price was this Private Affairs Christmas basket filled up with goodies, including wines, cookies and jams made by the Chef! Other baskets were also distributed to other customers as part of other fun competitions and lucky draws.

The news is that the restaurant will be moving to Raffles Place next April. They decided to cater to the business Crowd in the CBD and leave Joo Chiat. There were some contrasting opinions in the audience when this was announced by Sharon. Some still love the idea of a fine dining place hidden in a Joo Chiat shop house.

I must say that it was great fun to take part in this photo competition, which was very well organised. The anniversary celebration was packed with fun people and good food and it was great to be part of it. I wish Private affairs the best of luck with their second year of activity!

Chefs with Altitude 2010

2010-10-14T02:22:00.002+08:00

This is my second year at "Chefs with Altitude", a yearly celebration sponsored by Swisshotel the Stamford, with Chefs cooking live, music, free flow cocktails, food and desserts!
'Last year I didn't take the camera with me as I didn't want to carry it around with me all night, but this year I decided to make that compromise in the name of blogging, and so here we are...

The location is unbeatable, on the rooftop of the hotel (well, how else would you be able to justify the name of the party!), with a stunning view over Singapore and plenty of space for the Chefs to show off their culinary skills. I must say the party itself was as good as last year if not better, although the absence of Andre Chiang was definitely felt.

In my opinion, this year's highlight were without a doubt the cocktails rather than the food. Richard Gillam (pictured below, on the left) did a fantastic job with three different stunning cocktails. That also resulted into a problem, since I just couldn't stop drinking and trying all three a few times, I very quickly crossed the line...

The crowd was lively and the place was buzzing with people socialising, food and drinks constantly being dished out.

Ebbe Vollmer, the new resident Chef at Jaan, served a sausage with beans. Although there was nothing wrong with the dish, I wasn't particularly impressed since I am not a huge fan of either sausages or beans.

On the other hand, Swiss Chef Irma Dütsch from Equinox restaurant served a pan fried foie gras on caramelised apple with brioche. Well, you can't really complain about free foie gras, although it's not one of those dishes that you can go back asking for more too many times...

Just like last year, it was nice to taste delicacies and watching master Chefs at work while sipping beautiful cocktails.

Overall the party was a success, and I will be looking forward to next year's event. This just reminded me that it's about time I go and try Jaan, now that Chef Ebbe is well settled in!

Private Affairs - Anniversary Menu

2010-10-09T02:39:00.003+08:00

To celebrate their 1st anniversary, Private affairs launched a special offer menu for the month of October, featuring 8 of their best dishes for S$88++.

The amouse bouche was a creme fraiche with apple and walnuts. It's the kind of dish that will be appreciated by dairy products lovers.

The Seared Tuna with red peppers and "sauce vierge" was tender and tasty, and offered a good contrast of sweet and sour. On the other hand, I didn't particularly appreciate the Raw Hokkaido Scallops, perhaps due to the fact that I prefer my scallops all in one piece. I find that once they are sliced into thin slices, they tend to lose their most attractive textural qualities.

The Ocean Trout was accompanied by a garlic soil, a sea lettuce foam and a "salsify puree'". A pleasant melangee of flavours that enhanced the rich, tender and chunky trout meat. I didn't find that the garlic soil added much to the dish, besides its ornamental aspect, so I just left it aside.

I was surprised by the Wagyu Cheek, which was unexpectedly chopped into cubes on a bed of diced vegetables (a sort of cooked vegetables salad). A good combination of flavours, where the crab on top of the meat didn't seem to emerge and was a little wasted.

The Kurobuta Pork Cheek was the best dish of the night. The cheek was cooked sous-vide and texturally unprecedented. This is where flavour, textures and presentation really came together at their best.

After a selection of 3 French cheeses, I was served a Lavender Sorbet topped by a slice of gelatin, which washed my palate quite nicely

The final dessert, an Apple Cake, was the second best dish of the night. I really loved slurping the apple cinnamon spaghetti, but the highlight was the bit in the middle, which was a caramelised hazelnut with some fresh raspberry. The apple Bavarois was excellent both in texture and flavour, and the lemongrass ice cream was a wonderful palate cleanser.

This selection offers an ideal opportunity for those who haven't yet had a chance to try the food at Private Affairs. My only observation is that the Hokkaido scallops could have been replaced with something that I believe Chef Paul is great at: soups with ravioli. That element was kind of missing and I think it would have made the course selection more complete. Nevertheless, I would recommend this great value deal before it's over.

Rhubarb Sous-vide

2010-10-06T01:39:00.003+08:00

When I saw this beautiful rhubarb being sold at FairPrice in Marine Parade, I thought it would be a great opportunity to try it sous-vide. I appreciate the fact that FairPrice is actually making an effort to introduce foreign products that otherwise can hardly be found in Singapore. They are currently promoting rhubarb, celeriac, parsnips, artichokes, endives and a few others.

I have never actually cooked rhubarb before, so this would be my first experience with it. I quickly did some research to find a recipe, and I found this one: 45 minutes at 61C.

As in the recipe, I mixed some natural vanilla pods, about 130g rhubarb and 25g of sugar in a bag and vacuumed it dry. I only cooked it for 30 minutes, since this other recipe suggests cooking it at the same temperature for just 20 minutes, so I decided to average them out.

The result was very tasty, especially with that natural and smooth vanilla flavour lingering in the background. Next time, I would try to cook it for 45 minutes, since I could tell that it would have tasted even better if softened a bit further.

12-Hours sous-vide pork belly

2010-10-05T00:29:00.008+08:00

I finally decided to try a slow cooking dish with the new circulator. This was my first real attempt to cooking meat overnight, and I must say that I was incredibly happy with the result! The meat fell off the bone effortlessly, the skin was crispy and the sauce was rich and tasty. The marsala wine sauce added that Italian touch to the dish. I am starting to really appreciate sous-vide cooking, since once you get into it and it becomes more natural, it's really a "set and forget" affair.

I used pork belly on the bone, and I brined it for a couple of hours in a solution of 1l of water, 80gr salt and 30gr of sugar. It would have been better to brine it overnight, but I didn't have the time and I decided to take that shortcut this time. At least next time, when I will be doing it the proper way, I will know the difference. After brining the pork, I quickly washed and vacuum packed it together with a "herb sachet" containing black peppercorns and thyme.
Herb sachets are used to let the aromas of the herbs circulate within the vacuum pack without entering in direct contact with the meat, therefore avoiding concentration of flavour at specific spots.
I made my herb sachet by wrapping the herbs into a cling film, and then trimming the edges to let the liquid go through the sachet.
I sealed the pork in a vacuum bag together with about 80ml of chicken stock.

Finally, I slow-cooked the pork at 180F (82.2C) for 12 hours, then removed it from the water bath, chilled it and refrigerated. At the time of serving, I opened the pack and set aside the gelatin surrounding the meat (this forms during the slow cooking process followed by refrigeration). I removed the skin from each piece of belly and crisped it on a non-stick pan, skin side down (no added oil necessary) on high-heat. At the same time, on a normal stick metal pan, I browned each piece of pork on a thin film of canola oil. Once browned, I removed the pork and deglazed with a splash of Marsala wine (the Italian touch that does magic with pork!), and once the alcohol evaporated I added the gelatin and another 40ml of chicken stock. I reduced the sauce over 4-5 minutes, then served it with the pork bellies, topped with their own crispy skin.

Grapefruit Campari #2

2010-10-04T23:51:00.000+08:00

Yet another version of my favourite combination: Campari and grapefruit. In this variation, I also used some yuzu marmelade, which you can buy in any cold storage (called "honey citron tea" on the label). This is a tri-citrus drink which combines yuzu, lime and grapefruit: an extremely refreshing combination of sweet, sour and bitter.

Ingredients:
- Pure grapefruit juice
- Campari
- Martini rosso
- Honey citrol tea (Yuzu marmelade)
- Lime

Freeze the grapefruit juice in an ice tray (I used this fancy 'long sticks' shaped tray).
Mix 1 part of campari, 1 part of martini rosso, 1 tbsp of Yuzu marmelade, 1 part of water. Shake with lots of ice in a cocktail shaker, then serve and decorate with the lime and the grapefruit ice cubes.

Lobster Sous-Vide

2010-09-28T02:07:00.003+08:00

Finally, one week after its arrival, I get to put my hands on the long awaited thermocirculator. Since I had friends visiting, I decided to play safe and try something simple. I created a quick and easy recipe pulling elements from various books.

I followed Thomas Keller's directions for the cooking of the lobster tail, except instead of putting the whole thermocirculator into a bath of beurre monte'(that would be a bit too expensive for a one-off!), I made a small portion of beurre monte'and put it into the bag with the lobster tail. I also added some dill from my garden for extra flavour, and cooked the tail for 15 minutes at 59.5C. This resulted in a firm but creamy texture. I then refrigerated the tails as I decided to serve them cold.

For the fennel, I based the timing on Thomas Keller's: 75 minutes at 85C. The only inconvenience was that the circulator pump stopped at about 45-50 minutes, and basically the cooking process became unreliable from then onwards. I then learnt that at such high temperature, the Sous-vide professional can't cope and eventually fails. After several experiments, I came to the conclusion that the only way to make it work reliably (without placing it in an air conditioned environment, which is a bit silly), is to place a decently powerful fan blowing into the device. Well, next time I'll know. The fennel was a bit undercooked as compared to what I did the previous day, but still nice. I then quickly browned it on each side on a frying pan before serving. The other struggle was due to the fact that I don't have a vacuum packer and I have been sealing the bags in water. This technique works perfectly with meats and seafood or anything heavy, but when you deal with vegetables, you definitely end up with air bubbles that blow within the pack once you place it into the hot bath, bringing your carefully sealed vegetables floating on the surface. this is really something you don't want, since the temperature will not be evenly distributed. I am planning to cook more vegetables sous-vide, so I will buy a vacuum packer.

The onions were cooked together with the fennel, and they were also slightly undercooked. They seem to require about the same timing as the fennel for proper cooking.
I made the lobster sauce with 1/2 cup of buttermilk, 2 tablespoons of sour cream, salt and about 15 fresh green peppercorns. I whisked it until emulsified and let it rest in the fridge. I only served the foam on top of each lobster tail.

Lessons learnt from my first sous-vide experiment:

If you are planning to cook vegetables, you will need a vacuum packer, or else you will end up with floating parcels
85C for 75 minutes is a high temperature which tends to overheat my circulator (on sous-vide professional machines). The usage of a fan pointing onto the device resolves the problem. According to Polyscience, my unit is defective and they are now replacing it free of charge!

Overall, I must say that on my first experience with this cooking technique I had a lot of fun. There are hurdles that you need to resolve and learn how to deal with, since this is different than conventional cooking, but this is also what makes it attractive. The thought that once you learn', it is perfectly repeatable, makes me think of the day that I will be able to sit and relax while the meat is braising!

Ootoya

2010-09-25T12:39:00.001+08:00

Located on the 8th floor of Orchard Central, Ootoya proposes a range of simple Japanese classics, just like in Japan. This is in fact a branch of a Japanese Franchise that is well known in its home country.

The first thing you'll notice is that unlike most other businesses in Orchard Central, Ootoya is packed most of the time, with a queue of people waiting outside the shop. That makes you wonder how good it is, considering that the mall isn't busy and other restaurants are struggling.

The restaurant is structured a bit like a traditional Japanese tatami room with a U shaped table following the perimeter, such that guests can go around the table and eat on each side of it. It's a Japanese concept to optimise space and make eating more social.

I only tried a few of the dishes out of a fairly comprehensive menu. The homemade tofu was pretty good, in the sense that it's unique for Singapore. The texture is quite grainy and not as smooth as most of the tofu served on this island, which makes it more interesting, although not nearly as creamy as some of the tofu I had in Japan. The buta-kimchi is a Japanese version of the Korean kimchi-bokum, quite modified for the Japanese palate, with a rounder and sweeter flavour.

The Charcoal Grilled Atka Mackerel is my favourite. The meat appears dry on the surface, but extremely juicy inside, but the best part of it is the grilled skin. The charcoal flavour is so intense that you really can't resist it, especially when you pair it with Japanese rice.

Ootoya is overall good value for money. The queue is annoying, so I always go late (after 9), when I can get a seat straight away. The service is good enough, and the food is well priced and well executed, for a "fast-food" type of restaurant that is more or less on the same price range as Waraku and other similar chains, but delivers incomparably better food.

Ootoya
#08-12 Orchard Central
Tel: +65 6884 8901

Tradition and Innovation

2010-09-22T10:35:00.005+08:00

Staying on the theme of innovation, but onto a food specific topic. Last weekend I bought two new cooking toys:

A Le Creuset cocotte
A Polyscience Sous-Vide Professional

Looking at the two standing in the kitchen, the contrast between them became obvious. A cocotte, no actually, THE Creuset cocotte, the symbol of traditional cooking. Beautifully simple, stylish, in heavy, solid cast iron. What can you cook with it? Traditional French classics, of course: Coq au vin, beef Bourguignon, etc...

On the other end of the spectrum, the leading edge technology of modern gastronomy: a Polyscience Sous-vide immersion thermal circulator. It looks like a network storage solution more than a kitchen accessory. Digitally beautiful, it would disorient your grandmother, and perhaps even your mother. What can you cook with it? You can indeed revisit classics such as coq au vin or beef Bourguignon, but its strength is certainly fine dining and the ability to produce meats and vegetables with unprecedented textures and flavours. Is this going to take over everyone's kitchen within the next 20 years? Perhaps.

The natural question is - what will be the next generation cooking tool, after sous-vide circulators? What will make such a tool look like a thing of the past? Maybe this blog won't live long enough to answer that.

Garganelli with bacon tomato sauce

2010-09-21T02:36:00.015+08:00

This time I decided to prepare a quick and simple tomato sauce, and invest more time on the actual pasta. Since we are on the topic, many believe that homemade pasta is always better than dried pasta. It is actually not how we see it in Italy. The choice of pasta depends on the sauce that you pair with it. Certain sauces go well with fresh pasta, while others would only really work with dried pasta. Bacon and tomato sauce is a classic example that pairs perfectly with fresh pasta, especially when it is riveted or hollow, so that the tasty sauce sticks particularly well. It is very easy to make and can hardly go wrong!

This time I decided to experiment a bit with my digital camera, so I shot a video of the key parts of the preparation process. Hopefully this helps!

The ingredients for the fresh Garganelli are:
- 200gr plain flour (2-4 people)
- 3 eggs
- a pinch of salt
- some olive oil

The ingredients for the sauce:
- Some chopped bacon, preferably smoked
- Chopped onions
- Some red wine
- Finely chopped garlic
- Finely chopped carrots
- Some drained tinned plum tomatoes (drain them from their juice for at least 1 hour)
- Oregano or basil to taste
- Chilli (optional)
- Pecorino cheese (optional)

For the fresh pasta, please follow the instructions as shown on the video. Depending on the size of the eggs, you will need to add additional egg white should the consistency be too hard and dry for kneading comfortably. When the dough is smooth, wrap it in cling film and let it rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour. In the meantime, start preparing the sauce.
Chop bacon, garlic, onions and carrots. On a frying pan, bring some olive oil to the heat and fry the bacon until golden. Remove it, then fry the onions and garlic for a couple of minutes and add the carrots. Continue to fry until soft and well browned, then remove from the pan. Deglaze the pan on high heat with a glass of red wine and reduce to a half. Then add the bacon back into the pan, followed by the chopped onions and carrots. When bubbling, add the plum tomatoes and rapidly chop them while tossing. Add the herbs and salt as necessary, then slowly continue to cook over very low heat.

Remove the dough from the fridge, and bit by bit flatten into sheets. Once a sheet is flattened, cut it into 3x3cm squares, and roll around a chopstick. Gently press and roll the ends of the chopstick onto a sushi bamboo mat to rivet the Garganelli, then place each piece aside. Do not overlap pieces on top of each other, or they will flatten.

In the meantime, the sauce should be ready. Add some water or milk if you need to prolong the cooking time and it gets too dry. Grate some Pecorino cheese, remove the sauce from the heat and mix it into it. Cover and let it rest.
Boil some water in a large saucepan, salt it and put the Garganelli into it. Let them cook for less than 2 minutes, then drain and mix them into an appropriate amount of sauce. Plate and serve hot.

Unappreciated innovation

2010-09-20T02:19:00.037+08:00

I would like to question the recurring theme of Orchard central being a Far East Organisation fiasco due to "bad design". It is no mystery that the shopping mall has not been doing well. It is deserted even at peak times, and its businesses are struggling. Fortunately, many of the restaurants are surviving well, although some have good potential and would deserve to do better.
Next door, 313 was completed shortly after, and yet it enjoys an incredible flow of shoppers buzzing at any time of the day. How can this be explained? What went so terribly wrong?

Here are a couple of references to articles and blog posts on the topic:
Orchard Central Tenants Struggle
Orchard Central - A failure
Orchard Central - Love it or Hate it

The most common complaints on the mall are:

Bad design of access to the car park
Unintuitive layout of the mall itself, which makes it hard to get to what you want
The shops are "unconventional"

It is hard to counter-argue that the long winded car park is unfriendly and challenging to drive through, and they could have definitely done a better job at encouraging parking within the mall. However, the car park alone can't be the reason why Orchard Central is deserted, and I would question the other couple of points.

Singapore is considered a shoppers paradise. Shopping is not just about going to seek and buy a specific item, although sometimes that may well be why you do it. Shopping is supposed to be entertaining and fun. Shopping is about exploring, experiencing something new and stimulating. Most would agree with these statements, and yet when we hear people's opinions about Orchard Central, the complaint is that it is hard to navigate, it is "easy to get lost in the maze". Come on, how hard can it be?

Certainly, it is not as easy as 313, which is designed for hamsters. You don't need to think, you just go up or down the circular levels, pretty much like malls were designed back in the 80's. Yes, you can point and get there, buy and get out at record times and it could be an ideal venue for shopping olympics. That is practical indeed, but also old style and boring. Is this what we are looking for? Just another building with some new shops, out of which 70% exist elsewhere on the island or even Orchard itself? Or are we looking for a bit more stimulation?

I would have thought the latter. The shopping centre of this century should provide a space that goes beyond shopping and services. Those who have been to Japan and have visited Tokyo or Osaka, would be quite familiar with interesting layouts when it comes to shopping areas. The underground network of malls is even more intricate, with a web of arteries connecting different levels of shopping malls and subway stations, flooded by a rapid flow of shoppers. A quick look around is sufficient to conclude that shops do well, from the most common photo printer, to the most unusual gadget shop.

Another thing you might have noticed about Japanese shopping malls is that some of them do not just provide a shopping experience, they also include recreational space, with outdoor garden and terraced areas where the young can gather in a group or find a quiet corner for a bit of privacy. Malls are not purely a place to "fetch consumer items", they are integral part of city navigation and social activities.
The question is why this can't work in Singapore. We are all so eager to shop, and so proud of Singapore as shoppers paradise to entertain visitors. We often complain about how boring, limited and repetitive Singapore is. Should we not be excited when we are gifted with a bit of innovation?

I included some pictures shot tonight at the higher floors of the mall. Art is well incorporated into the concept, and entertainment and social areas are provided top to bottom. The highest floor includes a unique roof garden with a stunning view over the CBD and Marina. Plants and interesting art pieces are scattered around the area, creating an intriguing space for exploration. The breathtaking escalator leading to the top is the longest I have ever seen, and its lighting is a work of art (see video at the end of this post).
If I ever had to show a mall to impress visitors from abroad, this is where I would take them.

So what went wrong? Are we really so rigid and conventional and not ready for a bit of innovation? Are we shutting down creativity? Far East Organisation tried to push the boundaries and they failed. And now we are the ones pointing fingers. Hopefully this won't discourage developers from being inventive and creating malls that go beyond what we already have everywhere else on this island.

What the French really eat

2010-09-12T23:52:00.015+08:00

Patrick Heuberger conducted a cooking presentation at Shermay titled "What the French really eat". He cooked a selection of some of the dishes he serves in his restaurant, Le Bistrot du Sommelier.

The cooking demonstration was extremely smooth, enjoyable and easy to follow. He really made the cooking process look as simple as possible, although behind that simplicity there are years of practice.

I would strongly recommend attending some of Partick's presentations to anyone who is interested in classic French cooking, since watching a master at work can really save you a lot of failed attempts. He also conducts a lesson on basic French cooking techniques, which would be a better starting point for those with little cooking experience.

Out of the recipes presented, I am planning to try the rabbit, the frogs legs and the tongue.

The complete set of recipes was:

Rabbit stew with mustard (Lapin a la Dijonaise)
Oven-roasted lamb rack with olive oil mashed potatoes
Braised ox tongue in horseradish sauce (Langue de boeuf au raifort)
Sauteed frog's legs with garlic and parsley (Cuisses de grenouilles)
Baked Burgundy snails with tomato and garlic butter

Presentation aside, the end result was superb, just like in his restaurant, and I ate a lot more than I intended.... It's my third French meal in a row this weekend. I think I will take a break for a week or two!

Pesto for friends

2010-09-12T19:28:00.008+08:00

This morning I started the day by putting a large portion of my huge basil plants to good use. I filled up a very large bowl with pesto leaves, which was reduced into a small jar of pesto I made for my neighbour friends.
Lots of basil (you need to grow it, or else it's far too expensive), a tiny amount of garlic, pine nuts, freshly grated black pepper, grated pecorino cheese and Italian extra virgin olive oil.

Hopefully they finished it by now, since it doesn't keep its fragrance for very long.

Coq au vin

2010-09-10T15:58:00.020+08:00

I had a very good coq au vin at Le Bistrot du Sommelier, and decided to experiment with cooking one myself. I was quite impressed with the result, which was not far off what I had in the restaurant.

For this recipe I used:

1 chicken (it should be a roster, if you can find it, or alternatively a kampong chicken)
A few shallots
4 slices of smoked streaky bacon
10 button mushrooms
2 small carrots
A few peppercorns
200ml chicken stock
1/2 bottle of Burgundy wine or alternatively Pinot Noir
Some parsley
2 bay leaves
A few sprigs of thyme
3 cloves of garlic, squashed

I started by marinating the chicken (cut into a few pieces), onions, garlic, mushrooms and carrots in 1/2 bottle of Pinot Noir. The next day, I removed the chicken and vegetables from the marinade, which I set aside for later use.

I created a bouquet garni of parsley, bay leaves and thyme from my own garden.

I fried the chicken in butter until lightly golden, then I removed it from the pan and I fried the bacon, followed by the shallots, carrots and mushrooms.

I then added the chicken back into the pot, and topped it up with the wine marinade, together with 200ml of chicken stock, peppercorns and garlic, and the bouquet garni. I recommend adding some of the salt now, and make the final adjustment towards the end. I cooked it on slow heat for about 1:40 hours. Alternatively, if you have a claypot, you can cook it in the oven for the same amount of time. If you have some brandy, they recommend that before topping up the chicken with the marinade, you cover it with some brandy first, and set it on fire. I didn't have brandy to hand, so I had to skip this step.

I made a roux sauce by whisking in some flour into 25g of melted butter over medium heat.

Once cooked, I removed the chicken and vegetables and set them aside. I then filtered the sauce through a sieve, and gently simmered it with some of the roux in order to slightly thicken it. Finally I poured a gentle ladle of sauce over chicken and vegetables and enjoyed the rustic dish with plenty of fresh bread!

Italian home gastronomy - a premature death

2010-09-06T23:36:00.009+08:00

Some time ago, I wrote a post about Quattro Stagioni - an Italian deli that used to be located in the basement of Liang Court. Well, what to my knowledge used to be the only Italian deli in Singapore, is now closed. Although nobody in Liang Court seems to know the reason (according to them, the staff suddenly vanished), I suspect it's due to poor sales. I have been patronising the shop regularly for quite some time, mostly at weekends, and I have rarely seen it busy. In other words, a specialised Italian deli in Singapore doesn't seem to work.

Quattro stagioni used to have the most basic products, forget about an extensive range, but it was a good start. I was delighted that finally I could buy bottarga or good Italian tomatoes, or proper Italian cheeses to complement a meal, including real buffalo mozzarella and burrata. Of course, my expectation would have been that in a few years time there would be more of these shops around the island, carrying a more extensive range of products. Unfortunately, the initiative died prematurely, leaving little room for future development.

Why did the concept of an Italian deli not work? Is Singapore not ready for it yet? Is it too small a market? Is it because we don't have a cooking culture? I would like to leave this question open to the readers.

Gnocchi alla salsiccia

2010-09-06T01:01:00.015+08:00

What can you do when you wake up late on a Sunday morning, you crave for good Italian food and you don't feel like going out to shop for groceries? You have to make do with what you have in the fridge. This is how sometimes hearty recipes come together, and it is certainly the case for this one: simple and tasty, can hardly go wrong.

Looking in the freezer, I identified and selected the following ingredients, which I thought would go well together:

3 Cumberland sausages
3 slices of back bacon
100ml red wine
200ml chicken stock
4-5 oven dried tomatoes (replaceable with two whole tomatoes out of a tin)
1 leek. finely chopped
1/2 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, squashed
1 fresh chilli, seeded and chopped
a few leaves of rosemary

Cut the bacon in thin slices. In a large frying pan, heat some olive oil and fry the 2 cloves of garlic until golden, then add the bacon and fry it until almost crispy. Finally add the meat of the sausages, which you must first extract from the thin wrap.

Fry the bacon and sausages until the meat is cooked throughout, then remove the meat from the pan and add the onions. Fry for a minute, then add the leeks.

Once the leeks and onions are softened, deglaze the bottom of the pan with the red wine on high heat, and let evaporate for a couple of minutes. Finally, bring the heat down to medium and add the meat back into the pan.

Top the sauce with 200ml of chicken stock (I use my own frozen chicken stock and let it melt naturally on the meat). Add the chopped tomatoes. I use my magic oven roasted tomatoes, which add a lot of flavour without diluting the sauce. If you use canned plum tomatoes, I suggest you drain the water out of them for a couple of hours at least before use. Add the chopped chilli and rosemary leaves, and continue to reduce the sauce on a low simmer.

You will know when the sauce is ready when it looks like in the picture below. It should still retain some of its juices, but it must not be runny. I only added a very tiny pinch of salt, since the sausage and the bacon already did the job. I recommend you taste the sauce before adding any salt at all, since the result really depends on the saltiness of your sausages and bacon.

If you want to continue to simmer the sauce while cooking the gnocchi, just top it up now and then with some of the water from the gnocchi, and keep it going over low heat.
Boil the gnocchi in a large saucepan until they resurface (this usually takes a couple of minutes), then drain them and gently mix them into the saucepan, paying extra care to not mash the gnocchi.

Serve them on a plate with some grated Parmesan cheese and a sprinkle of freshly grated black pepper.

Le Bistrot du Sommelier

2010-09-05T03:36:00.015+08:00

This is the fourth time I have eaten at this restaurant, although it's the first time I blog about it. Together with Cocotte, it is my favourite rustic French restaurant in Singapore. Located within a shop house, the dining room is divided in two floors and there is also a pleasant outdoor area for "al fresco" dining. Booking is recommended, given that the number of tables is limited.
This is a small selection of dishes I have eaten last night, but really everything that's on the menu, is simple, rustic, good French food.

I usually start with a duck rillette, which they can make very well. This time I decided to chose something different, and went for the salmon tartare, served with toasted bread. I was actually surprised by how good this was, and I will definitely have this again as a starter at my next visit. It is a simple dish, but the seasoning was so well balanced that it really worked.

Now, onto the mains... the coq au vin, a true French classic, which was served with a side of tagliatelle. The sauce was packed with flavour, subtly smoky, and the chicken just broke apart, while still retaining its juices.

The beef cheek braised with carrots and mushrooms was superb. The generous chunks of beef were gelatinous to the touch, and the meat was incredibly tender and still retained some of its natural fat.

The chef managed to impress even a simple dish as boiled potatoes with parsley, which accompanied the braised beef cheeks. The distinct flavour of olive oil and parsley made this taste like as countryside food should. We sucked away any traces of the juices left on plates and pots with a basket of bread.
The final bill was S$114, including two glasses of red wine.

Le bistrot du sommelier is an obvious choice if you are looking for rustic french fare. I was delighted with every one of the dishes I have eaten at Le Bistrot du Sommelier at my previous visits, apart from their duck. My only warning is to vegetarians and fish lovers, since most of the menu is meat based, with only 1 fish dish.

Le Bistrot du Sommelier
Address: 46 Prinsep Street, #01-01 Prinsep Place 188675
Tel: 6333.1982

My favourite restaurants #1

2010-08-30T21:52:00.011+08:00

Whenever I end up talking to people about food, the recurrent question is: "What Japanese restaurant do you recommend?" - "Where can I get good Italian?" - and so on...
Every time I reflect on where I ate and what I should recommend. I thought it would be a good foodie's practice to record his favourites periodically and publish them every 3 months or so. The following are my favourites as of today.

Japanese
- Wahiro - Good value for money sushi, and great traditional, seasonal dishes
- Goto - Best kaiseki
- Matsuo - Best top end sushi
- Shimbashi soba - Best soba

Ramen
- Keisuke - Great for seafood based broth
- Marutama - Great chicken stock

Chinese
- Silk Road - My favourite northern Chinese food. Shaved noodles, Dandan mien, French beans...
- Shin Yeh - Taiwanese bottarga, fish claypot with tofu and aubergines
- Lan Zhou La Mien - Zhajang mien, guo tie

Classic French
- Cocotte
- Le Bistrot du Sommelier - Frog legs, Cote de Boeuf

Italian
- Cugini - Linguine alle vongole, ravioli, pizza
- Gattopardo - Bucatini alle sarde, arrotolata, zuppa di pesce, crispy bread
- Forlino

Fine dining Lunch Menus
- Fiftythree - I love their bread and starters
- Private Affairs - Really great deal, great food
- Gunther's - Gunther's style is worth a try
- Tippling Club - Inventive molecular cuisine, great desserts and cocktails!

Bucatini alle sarde

2010-08-29T17:59:00.037+08:00

Pasta with sardines ('sarde' in Italian) is a classic main dish of Sicilian origins, unique in its composition due to the combination of fish, vegetables, fruits and nuts which creates a contrast that is typical of Sicilian/Arabic cuisine. The origin of the dish is legendary and it is usually attributed to the the Arabic general/chef Eufemio who, when he conquered the Sicilian island, was forced to provide food for his troops within the limited means of what were available. He made use of fish, wild fennel, pine nuts, raisins and saffron. The tradition of enhancing flavour of the fish through the use of wild fennel probably dates back to the Greeks and the Romans, while saffron and raisins are certainly of Arabic origins.

Unfortunately I don't yet have wild fennel available here in Singapore, so I had to make do without it. I have ordered the seeds from Sicily, and I am planning to cultivate it myself in my herb garden. I will make this again when I will finally have one of the main ingredients. Said that, I can guarantee that this pasta tasted just as excellent without the wild fennel, despite missing one layer of flavour.

In order to add some colour to the pasta I replaced the wild fennel with Italian parsley, since that's what I had in the fridge. I bought the sardines frozen from Liang Court at S$12.80 for 6. A pretty good deal! The bucatini can also be purchased at Liang Court. All other ingredients are commonly available at any supermarket.

The complete list of ingredients is:

3 sardines
1 large red onion
1 anchovy
a handful of breadcrumbs (I use Japanese 'panko')
a couple of tablespoons of pine nuts
a couple of tablespoons of raisins
a pinch of saffron
wild fennel (if you are in luck), or alternatively some fresh Italian parsley

Put the raisins in warm water and let them soften, the longer the better. Remove the heads and tails from the sardines, split them into 2 lengthwise and remove the innards. Carefully extract the spine and as many of the little bones as you can. Put the heads and bones into a small skillet, quickly fry them in olive oil and top them with a glass of water. Bring to the boil, then simmer over low heat (if you happened to have some fennel, I think a few chunks of it would hugely benefit this quiuck stock!). Wash the sardines, sprinkle them with salt and set them aside.

Bring a large frying pan to medium heat, then pour the fresh pine nuts onto it. Gently keep shaking the pan, rolling the pine nuts until they are nice and golden on both sides. Put them back into a small bowl. Repeat the same operation with a handful of 'panko' (breadcrumbs), until from yellow they turn light brown and crispy. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Pour generous olive oil into the same pan, and fry the sardines skin side down first for a minute over medium heat, then turn them to the other side and cook for another 30 seconds. Remove from the hot pan with a large spatula, paying attention not to break them. It is in fact important that your pan is not a non-stick one (as pictured, a solid metal pan is the best choice). Raise the heat to high, then deglaze with a splash of white wine. The reaction should create a cloudy, creamy sauce.

Reduce the heat to medium, pour in the finely chopped onion and keep stirring until it slowly browns. In the meantime, bring a large pot of water to the boil for the bucatini. When the onions are nicely golden and reduced, dissolve a pinch of saffron and the anchovy into half a glass of the boiling water, then pour into the frying pan together with the onions. Also add the raisins, the pine nuts and the whole parsley stems, unchopped.

Salt the boiling water and add the bucatini. Put some of the sardines into the pan which should now be on low heat and reserve a couple of them for decoration. In the meantime, strain the stock which you have been simmering on the side with a fine sieve, and gradually add it into the pan as more juices are needed.

When the bucatini are ready (follow the directions on the packaging), drain them and put them into the sauce pan. Mix well, then top up with some toasted breadcrumbs and freshly ground black pepper. Make sure that there is enough juice in the pan when you add the bucatini (see pictures), and add either some of the stock or some of the bucatini cooking water to maintain the right level of juiciness.

Place a portion of bucatini on each plate, then top with some of the onions sauce, juices, decorate with 1-2 sardines and sprinkle with additional breadcrumbs and pepper.

I had this pasta at Gattopardo, and really liked it. I must say I enjoyed mine just as much despite the missing finocchietto, but hopefully I will be able to grow that successfully.

Grapefruit Campari

2010-08-29T17:17:00.006+08:00

A simple Italian style aperitivo or cocktail for a hot Sunday afternoon. If you like Campari, you will love this. The required ingredients are:

1 large grapefruit
100ml Campari
50ml Cinzano dry (or Martini dry)
3-4 pink peppercorns (optional)

Peel the grapefruit, remove all the peel/white parts and put all the flesh into a blender. Add the Campari, Martini and optional peppercorns. Blend at high speed for about 3 minutes, until it's well blended and foamy. Pour the mixture into a shaker with a generous amount of ice, and shake until the mixture is ice cold. Gently pour into a Martini glass.

Cocotte

2010-08-28T11:53:00.027+08:00

It is rare that I have dinner in a restaurant and come out satisfied with every dish I chose to eat. When this rarely happens, I come out with a long lasting feeling of fulfillment. That was the case with Cocotte, which I was lucky enough to try last night, since my friends did their homework far in advance with the booking. It seems to be incredibly popular these days, and reservations need to be made 1 to 2 weeks in advance.

Pork Rillette

The restaurant is located within Wanderlust, a new boutique hotel opened by the owner of the Majestic Hotel. Located within the little India neighborhood, the building with its sophisticated lighting really stands out.

Breaded pig's trotters

The interior design reminded me of London for some reason. The dining room is integrated with the hotel reception and it is modern, cool and creatively decorated. It really doesn't feel like any other restaurant/bar I have been to in Singapore. There is a generous distance between the tables so the restaurant never feels overcrowded, and the kitchen is open concept.

Deep fried tripe

We ordered quite a few items from the menu to get a good feel of the Chef's repertoire. The food style is rustic/traditional French, and a few dishes came highly recommended by the waiter. We started with the deep fried tripe, which I didn't try since I have never been a fan of pig's intestines. The pig's trotters were mainly composed of lumps of fat, made into crispy patties and served with a rocket salad. Very tasty, although a bit too fat for one person to have it all. We shared one piece each amongst the 4 of us and that felt just right.

Pork's Collar

The roast pork collar was served with a generous amount of mustard and at first sight I thought it would overwhelm the dish. Despite my first impression, the sauce didn't suffocate the pork and all the ingredients came together very nicely. The slightly bitter Brussels sprouts, the crunchy almonds, the crushed potatoes and the juicy pork with the added tang from the creamy mustard sauce.

Braised beef ribs in white wine

Even more outstanding was the braised beef in white wine. The meat was succulent and rich and fell off the bone. This was the most appreciated dish out of all.

Pan-seared seabass

There was something special about this pan seared seabass: the fish. It didn't taste anything like the regular seabass you have in Singapore. This really brought back memories of eating fish in Italy. Below the crispy skin, the white flesh was incredibly juicy and released that subtle sea flavour that reminded me of the Mediterranean. We didn't ask the question, but we suppose the fish was actually imported. The fennel, potatoes and a few oven dried tomatoes added rustic flavour and textures to this simple dish.

Pissaladierre

This classic French savoury pastry is made from a crumbly-dough, reduced onions, anchovies and olives. This is a classic combination of flavours also found in Italian cooking. I liked the dish, although I would recommend sharing it with people, since you will probably find that 1 or 2 slices will be sufficient to stimulate your appetite at the start of the meal.

The citron tart was well presented, but I wouldn't judge it since I never like lemony desserts. I can just say that everybody else enjoyed a little taste of it.

On the other hand, I had most of the apple tart tartin, which was topped with a scoop of smooth vanilla ice cream (removed before taking the picture). The dough was crumbly and thin, topped with chunks of cooked apple. I always prefer non-fruity flavours on my desserts, so this wasn't my favourite dessert, but it was well put together.

I was very impressed with Cocotte. Every detail has been taken care of: setting, comfort, service, flavour, presentation. I will definitely go back to have the beef ribs again and also to try some of their other dishes. The Poulet Roti seems incredibly popular, so much that it was no longer available that night, so I will probably reserve it prior to my next visit.

In terms of classic French food, this restaurant is currently on top of my list, together with Bistrot du Sommelier.

Cocotte
2 Dickson Road, Wanderlust Hotel Singapore
Tel: +65 6298 1188

Lobster Fettuccine

2010-08-22T16:21:00.024+08:00

Pasta with lobster is the king of the seafood pastas. This recipe utilises live lobster meat, egg fettuccine, and a dash of white vermouth to give it a tad of sweetness. You can make the egg fettuccine yourself, or buy them dried at most supermarkets (I bought the "Rustichella d'abruzzo ones at Liang Court, and they are very good).

For this recipe you will need the following ingredients (for 2 people):

1 x 600-700g live lobster
fresh basil
fresh parsley
6 mini plum tomatoes
50ml dry white wine
10ml white vermouth
2 cloves of garlic
Chilli flakes
black pepper
a small piece of butter (optional)
1 onion and 1 celery stalk

Kill the lobster and patiently remove all the meat from the shell, then sprinkle it with salt. Quickly fry the shells in olive oil with the onion chopped into 4 and the celery chopped into a few pieces. Cover with 300ml of water (or until covered) and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and keep to a gentle simmer. In the meantime, while the stock is building up flavour, chop some parsley and put the stems into the stock pot.

Remove the skin from the plum tomatoes, cop them and sprinkle them with salt (make an incision, boil them for 20 seconds and quickly place them into ice water to facilitate the operation). Add the skins to the stock pot. Crush a couple of cloves of garlic. Give the stock about 20-30 mins to get some flavour, and enrich with some fish stock if you have it. Remove from the fire, filter and set aside.

Pour some olive oil into a large frying pan, then quickly fry the lobster meat cut into large chunks. 30-40 seconds should be sufficient for it to be cooked and retain its juices. Remove the meat from the oil, then add the garlic and chilli and fry them until golden. Pour the wine and vermouth and deglaze the pan. Reduce to a half, then add 2/3 of the tomatoes and pour about 200ml of the lobster stock. Reduce to a half, then add 3/4 of the parsley and turn off the stove.

In a pot of boiling water, cook the fettuccine for a couple of minutes (read the cooking instructions on the pack), then drain them, put them into the frying pan and complete the cooking for another 2-3 minutes together with the remaining chopped tomatoes, parsley and basil, adding more stock and salt if necessary. Melt in the optional knob butter if you prefer the sauce to be more rich.

Finally place the fettuccine on a plate, top with some fresh parsley and basil, pour a gentle amount of sauce and arrange the lobster meat on the side. Sprinkle with black pepper.

Gattopardo

2010-08-20T23:50:00.024+08:00

Gattopardo opened a few months ago at the Fort Canning Hotel, and very rapidly achieved its success by serving Sicilian style Italian cuisine. Do not be discouraged by the ongoing works when you get to the location, since they are still renovating the whole building. Gattopardo seems to be the first to have opened within the development. The interior is extremely spacious and elegant, softly lit in some areas and brighter around the fish and pizza counter. I chose to sit at the counter to be in the middle of the action, with a view on the kitchen and the proudly displayed fresh fish selection. I also found that central part of the restaurant to be less noisy than the tables on the side. Unfortunately the high ceilings, stone structure and lack of soft furnishings tend to encourage raising levels of noise in the dining room.

The Arrotolata (S$24) is a rolled up pizza, stuffed with Smoked Mozzarella, Suckling Pig, Porcini Mushrooms, Grape Sauce and topped with fresh Rucola Salad. Great balance of quality ingredients, plenty of cheese oozing out of the pre-cut slices and abundance of fresh rocket to lighten up the flavour. The texture of the dough is not as dry as other pizza restaurants I tried in Singapore, leaning towards the southern Italian/Neapolitan style.

Even more impressive was this traditional Sicilian style bucatini (S$26). Most Italian restaurants tend to serve the usual "standard" Italian pasta dishes (whether they really are as they are meant to be), and just stick to those to be safe. It is rare to find real regional pasta dishes on a menu. Gattopardo is one of those rare restaurants, as they sourced the hard to find ingredients to serve something you would not find elsewhere. Wild fennel, fresh sardines from the Mediterranean, roasted pine nuts, saffron and raisins. It sounds like a very rich combination, but in actual fact the result is extremely well balanced. I can count on one hand the times I was as delighted to enjoy the essence of well executed regional Italian cuisine here in Singapore.

The Ravioli con Burrata e Crescione (S$26) was also very good. The flavour of the burrata was very intense when biting into these ravioli. The watercress sauce was creamy with finely chopped watercress and parsley and a dash of stock to enhance the flavour.

I was not as impressed by the Cipolle di Tropea e Ragusano (S$18), an onion pudding served with a Ragusano cheese fondue. The cheese itself was deliciously intense, but the pudding didn't have sufficient flavour to contrast it. I would have expected it to distinctly taste of slowly braised onions, but the onion taste was really just shying in the background.

The service was extremely professional and attentive I must say, far above average. I would definitely recommend a visit at Gattopardo if you are after authentic Italian cuisine. Their prices are reasonable on the items I have chosen, with a total bill of S$127 (10% Citi card discount included) with a glass of white wine and a bottle of water. They have quite a few more regional dishes on the menu that are to be tried, so I will be going back for more.

Gattopardo Italian Grill & Pizzabar
Fort Canning Hotel
11 Canning Walk, S(178881)
Tel: (+65) 6338 5498
Website: http://www.gattopardo.com.sg

Jewels Artisan Chocolate - Mooncakes

2010-08-16T18:06:00.015+08:00

I blogged about this magnificent chocolatier in my previous post. We are back to the same shop, this time for a pre-taster of what the annual mooncakes tradition is going to be like at Jewels. A full description of their 2010 mooncakes can be found here.

Let's start with the classics. The baked double yolk mooncake was indeed very good, since the yolk itself was dry and salty, creating a contrast of texture with the soft and sweet lotus paste. Definitely one of the best I had to date.

The baked mooncake with black pearl chocolate and winter melon seeds was my favourite out of the three, due to its uniqueness. I loved the combination of the crunch from the winter melon seeds and the bitterness of the dark chocolate. This is tradition with innovation. After all, why would you come to Jewels, if not for something unique and innovative?

Finally, the single yolk and black pearl chocolate mooncake. Note that the single yolk has been gently squeezed to flatten it across the whole surface, just so that none of those you will be sharing it with will remain disappointingly yolkless! Once again, nice contrast of texture, with a bit of a modern twist.

Now, coming to the snowskin mooncakes... Last year, after many disappointments with snow skin mooncakes, I made a promise: I would only buy snowskin from the Raffles going forward. I have really tried about 6-7 different ones, and despite the fact that the price doesn't vary significantly, I only had bad experiences when eating snowskin other than the Raffles ones. Therefore, after so many attempts, I decided I wouldn't waste my money ever again.

A year later, I know I won't be maintaining my promise. After all, the head chef at Jewels has been making mooncakes at the Raffles for many many years, so it's not that surprising that hers are at the same standard! The mini snowskin with white chocolate ganache is as good as it can get. This is the "classic"out of the 4 varieties, and the beauty is that the white chocolate inside has not been sweetened with sugar, to create more balance between the already sweet lotus paste and the truffle core. To those who got acquainted with such bad practice, no more excuses for leaving the paste and eating the truffle on its own!

The dark chocolate crunchy pearl has a palate teasing crunch to it, as the name suggests, and a mild minty aroma. It's like eating a very mild after-eight in mooncake form, with more crunch. Those who have tried the Pearl Noir signature chocolate from Jewels, will recognise these little pearls. Those who haven't, should really taste what eating a perle noir is like. The espresso truffle mooncake has a very distinct and robust coffee taste, and will be the favourite for anyone who loves their coffee.

Finally, the last one of this year's selection is my favourite: the salted caramel truffle. If you like the salty-sweet combination or you like salted caramel, then this is a must try. The core is uniquely salted with gentle and smooth palm island seasalt, and as you bite into the truffle, you can feel the saltiness oozing out of it, later balanced by the sweetness of the lotus paste. The lemon seeds add that traditional element of crunchiness to the whole experience.
Well, what else can I say... I have already pre-ordered my assorted box!

Website: Jewels Mooncakes

Strozzapreti alla Caprese

2010-08-15T15:06:00.021+08:00

I like recipes that are created out of craves, when the ingredients are selected out what's available or what you really want to have. That has been the case with my past few pasta recipes, and definitely the case with this one. I was looking for a more robust texture, so I chose these strozzapreti "Rustichella d' abruzzo", which you can find at Liang Court.

I was craving again for these Italian fresh tomatoes which I blogged about in my previous few posts, and I wanted to make good use of my ever growing basil plants. I decided to combine these classic Italian flavours into a new pasta recipe, which I called "Caprese" for obvious reasons.

For this recipe (2 servings) you will need:

8 Italian mini plum tomatoes
170g pasta
A lot of fresh basil (about 2 packs if you are buying it from the supermarket)
180ml chicken stock
Some fresh buffalo mozzarella
Garlic
Pink peppercorns
6 fresh green peppercorns (optional)

As described on my previous recipes, remove the skin from the tomatoes by making a superficial incision on them (I cut a cross at the bottom of each tomato), then blanching them in boiling water for about 20 seconds and then immediately placing them into ice water. The skin should break apart and come off easily. Reserve the skin, then deep fry it in a small skillet where you have brought hot oil to the right temperature (about 180C). Remove the tomato skin from the oil when it starts to darken, dry out and crisp. Wrap it loosely into a couple of sheets of kitchen paper, which you then seal with your hands and shake repeatedly to let the oil be absorbed by it. Set aside.

Chop the plum tomatoes into small dices (about 6-8 pieces per tomato), then sprinkle with salt and set aside.

Blanch the basil in boiling water for 15 seconds, then again in ice water. drain it well, place it into a tall container with a tiny amount of finely chopped garlic, optional green peppercorns and some salt. Pout 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, then whizz with an immersion blender for a good 5 minutes, until it is reduced to a smooth cream of basil. You might need to add some olive oil to reach the right texture, but the end result should be solid and not viscous.

While the pasta is boiling, heat up some extra virgin olive oil in a large 28cm frying pan, fry 3 squashed garlic cloves until golden, then remove them. Add the stock, cover immediately and remove from the heat. When the strozzapreti are almost ready (I counted 12 minutes), put the frying pan back on the fire, drain the pasta and pour it into the frying pan together with 1 tsp of salt. Saute' the strozzapreti for a couple of minutes, until the stock is absorbed and you are left with a few tablespoons of sauce at the bottom of the pan.

Finally, arrange the basil cream circularly at the bottom of a warm plate, place the strozzapreti in the centre, then top with a chuck of buffalo mozzarella, the diced fresh tomatoes and the tomato skins. Pour a tablespoon of the sauce left in the pan onto each serving, then sprinkle with the crushed pink peppercorns and serve hot.

FiftyThree - Lunch #2

2010-08-14T14:25:00.008+08:00

I have already reviewed this restaurant a few months ago, but I decided to go back to have another taste their great bread and barley butter.

I once again decided to have the 3 set course lunch priced $53 (what a coincidence!). The items on the menu were more or less unchanged as last time I visited it, and I was glad that the bread was exactly the same, since this is what I went for! We had a double portion of the milk and charcoal bread. Filling, but well worth it!

Presentation is always great at FiftyThree. This appetizer was beautifully presented in syntony with their "nature theme". I liked the walnut cream and the crab meat, although I left most of the apple slices since I preferred the crab simply on its own.

The beef was absolutely great, tender and juicy, and the sauce was poured onto it right at the table.

We had the lamb again since we liked it last time: a rare lamb rump cut into juicy slices, arranged below thin and crispy slices of radish.

We also repeated the dessert, since it was one of the two reasons for coming back. Pretty high-calories, but well worth it.

This second visit at FiftyThree demonstrated that they have been so far very consistent with their food. The menu seems to remain unchanged, but on the other hand, if this is the food you come for, at least you are guaranteed to find what you like, and that you won't be disappointed due to lack of consistency.

Fiftythree
53 Armenian Street
Tel: 6334 5535
Website: http://www.blogger.com/www.fiftythree.com.sg

Pavé

2010-08-12T16:22:00.021+08:00

When something is done with love and passion, it can hardly go wrong. That is the case with Pavé, the next kid on the block when it comes to patisserie in Singapore.

Quite a few patisseries opened recently in Katong, within a fairly small area. I can list a few, in chronological order: Gobi, Obolo, Indulgence, Temptations, Awfully Chocolate, and now Pavé. While Awfully chocolate aims at the mass market and its success is primarily based on its marketing rather than the product, the other patisseries do try to deliver a good product. So what distinguishes Pavé from the rest?

To me, it is quite obvious at a first glance, as you look at the display from outside. The shop provides a full experience from the moment you step in, with its pastel colours and cozy design. It's like stepping into someone's house, except you are in a fairy tale. All the friendly staff working at Pavé are in there for the passion rather than the money. They know the product, and they love talking about patisserie.

Pavé has only been open for less than a week, and the first experimental batch of desserts is already impressive. I tried the chocolate mousse with coconut and it was fabulous. The cassis mousse with rosemary was also very good, although I am always more impressed by non-fruity flavours. Next on my "to-try"list, is the chocolate/banana dessert pictured above. I heard it's a melt-in-your-mouth experience

While browsing their display shelves, I came across a few jars of jam and more importantly a jar of salted caramel, which I bought without thinking twice. As I tasted it, and it was as good as I hoped. It is meant to be eaten with bread or croissants, but I love it on its own. It leaves a beautiful flavour lingering in your mouth, with that balanced combination of bitter and salty.

The chocolate brownies are also among the best I have tried so far. Every bite of it almost feels like eating chocolate truffles.

At the moment, the display includes 6 types of desserts (3 fruity ones and 3 chocolaty ones), chocolate brownies, beautifully presented chocolates (topped with drawings or nuts / fruits), and a few types of jam.

They are working on their macarons, which they haven't started selling yet, and they are waiting for some top quality chestnut puree to be delivered from France, before they can start making my favourite desert: the Mont Blanc. With such attention put into the selection of the raw ingredients, I am sure this will be a seriously addictive version of it. I am looking forward to that!
I later discovered that the cozy entrance and display is not all there is to this shop. Well hidden around the corner behind the chairs and tables is an antique looking corridor with more seatings for those who prefer more privacy, and a staircase leads to the upper floor of the shop house where renovation work is still ongoing, but it will eventually provide additional space.

A visit to the toilet confirmed my first impression: they do have attention to detail. Even this space had to be matched, and they turned it into a toilet you will want to visit. Sketched on the door, you will notice a 4 cute animals that represent the enthusiastic owners.

I get excited when people do things with pride and passion. I get especially excited when this happens right in my neighborhood. I wish Pavé all the success that they deserve.

Pavé
93 East Coast Road
Singapore 428792
Tel: (+65) 6342 0677
Website: http://www.pavechocolates.com/

My Basil

2010-08-09T23:02:00.010+08:00

I started growing basil about two years ago, and once I overcame the initial difficulties, it has been a smooth experience ever since. Basil is actually a very resistant plant, and to my surprise it lasts incredibly long and can withstand even the most powerful storms.

The little plant pictured here is the third generation from my very first basil plant, it's now about 20 cm high and has been growing for about 4 weeks. Its 'mother' is now about 10 months old, pretty huge (80cm diameter) and healthy, pictured at the end of this post. The first generation actually died eaten by caterpillars, after growing for about 4 months.

Once it's up, basil produces flowers and lots of seeds, and you will see dozens of little basil plants sprouting up. It's then just a matter of potting some of them, if you wish to extend your basil plantation. Some claim that you should always trim the flowers to prevent the plant from dying, but I found that my basil has been growing more healthily since I stopped chopping its flowers, and it hasn't died yet (it has been sprouting flowers for at least 6 months).

It's great to have such a plant in your terrace. You can just pluck a few leaves if you want to make some fresh pesto, and I guarantee it tastes better than the basil you buy at the supermarket. I am now planning to start growing other herbs such as rosemary and shiso. Hopefully I will soon be able to show how beautifully they have grown.

Hitachi R-X6000

2010-08-09T17:06:00.011+08:00

I have been the happy owner of this fridge for over a year now (since I moved to my new place) and I am now confident to review this wonderful piece of kit.
I can definitely state that if you cook and love your food, once you will get used to this fridge there will be no return! You must be wondering what's so special about it...

This is the first fridge that introduced a revolutionary feature: a vacuum compartment. It is basically a drawer that keeps whatever is stored within under vacuum, prolonging the lifetime of the food and its freshness.

To give you an example, parsley is one of the most perishable herbs, and I tried storing one bunch in the vacuum, and one in the vegetable compartment. After a week, the parsley in the vegetable compartment was totally dried, dead and unusable. On the other hand, the bunch in the vacuum drawer was still perfectly fresh after TWO weeks!

Some examples of things I store in the vacuum:

Cheeses like Gorgonzola - they last forever, as if you never opened the pack
Herbs - they last about 2 weeks or longer, depending on the herb
Bottarga - it won't age and dry out so long as you store it in the vacuum, so you can stop aging it when you are happy with the consistence!
Oven dried tomatoes - instead of bathing them in oil, just put them in here up to a month or so

More generally, I store any expensive / delicate ingredients that tend to dry out and age rapidly. Also, besides the fact that food keeps fresher for much longer periods, it also retains more of its vitamins and nutritious elements, since these do not oxidize.

The ice cubes compartment is extremely large and stores sufficient ice for everyday use. I much prefer the drawer concept to the "push the button and ice pops out" idea. Popping ice looks cool, but for practical purposes the drawer can't be beaten, and you will always know exactly how much ice you have left.

Some other features that come with the fridge:

A dedicated "fast freeze" drawer, which I use for the initial freezing period whenever I freeze from fresh. Fast freeze button.
1 large freezer and 1 large vegetable drawers
Large or smaller ice-cubes
Energy saving technology

This fridge won 2 awards for its energy saving features. For those who are keen on more detailed articles about this revolutionary piece of technology, these are some links:

Energy Saving Paper by Hitachi
Vacuum compartment review
Vacuum chilled refrigerator - notes by Hitachi

The conclusion is - if you are a foodie, you will love this fridge - it will just take some time to get used to the idea that now you can preserve what you used to think was impossible.

Linguine al Branzino

2010-08-09T14:06:00.027+08:00

I had some Italian imported tomatoes left in the fridge from yesterday's cooking, and after a bit of thinking, I decided to make use of a fillet of sea bass that I froze a month ago and had to be cooked. I thought the sea bass flesh would be a great way to add texture to a seafood pasta, combined with the richness of the Italian plum tomatoes.

To make this pasta for 2, you will need the following ingredients:

160g linguine
10-15 Italian mini-plum tomatoes
1 fillet of sea bass (one side only)
1 small red onion, chopped finely
2 cloves of garlic, squashed
200ml fish stock
some parsley, chopped (reserve the stems)
some basil, in long thin slices
extra virgin olive oil
dry white wine
chilli flakes (optional)
grated bottarga (optional)

Remove the skin from the mini plum tomatoes by making an incision crosswise, boiling them for 30 seconds, and then placing them in ice water. The skin will peel off easily. Halve them lengthwise, drizzle them with some salt and set them aside.
With the blade of a knife, scrape off the flesh of the sea bass until you are left with the skin. Chop the meat coarsely and set it aside.
Put generous extra virgin olive oil into a large frying pan and when hot, place the fish skin carefully into it, and hold it down with a spatula to keep it straight while it fries in the oil. Turn the other side, complete the cooking and when nicely crisp and bubbly remove from the oil and pat dry with some kitchen paper.

In the same oil, place the squashed cloves of garlic and the chopped onion, and fry until golden together with the stems of parsley.
Add the chopped sea bass, fry for about 20 seconds and then pour a dash of dry white wine and let evaporate on high heat.
Turn off the fire and remove the fish, garlic and parsley stems. Discard the stems and garlic and keep the fish aside.

Pictured: the sea bass frying in the sauce with the parsley stems

Cook the linguine into a pot of boiling water, but be prepared to remove them 3 minutes earlier than suggested on the package.
In the meantime, pour the stock and chopped parsley into the frying pan and keep over a very low simmer while the pasta is boiling. For extra flavour, I like to dissolve one of the plum tomatoes into this sauce by breaking it down inside the pan.
When the linguine are ready, drain them and transfer them into the saucepan.

Pictured: how the sauce looks like when you have added the stock and the pasta is boiling

Add 1.3 tsp of salt and stir into the pasta, while you keep it bubbling.
Finish off the cooking for about a minute and a half (or until the sock is reduced by 2/3) then add the fish and the plum tomatoes and cover the pan. Let it cook for another minute or so keeping it covered, and remove from the heat.
Let the pasta rest for 20 seconds, then serve on a plate pouring some of its sauce on top, then topping with the shredded fresh basil, bottarga, and half of the crispy sea bass skin.

Spaghetti al Gazpacho

2010-08-08T14:27:00.014+08:00

I wanted to experiment a bit with vegetables and tomatoes, for a light, 'summery' pasta that could be enjoyed on a hot day. I decided to experiment with a few types of gazpacho, and then combined it with pasta and fresh Italian imported plum tomatoes (see my other post for where to find them). This pasta is incredibly easy to cook, and besides the Italian imported tomatoes, the ingredients are cheap and available. I was really satisfied with my creation, which brought back memories of when I used to live in Italy. I think it was the combination of full flavoured tomatoes with fresh basil that really did it for me.
This dish could alternatively be served cold, although I haven't tried that yet.

I made a gazpacho from the following:

90g ripe tomatoes
30g red onion
35g red and green peppers
40g cucumber
10g celery (optional)
3 tbsp water
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
1 or 2 anchovies
a tiny slice of garlic
a pinch of grated Parmesan (optional)

Blend all the ingredients together until smooth, remove excess water through a fine sieve and add salt as needed.

Peel the fresh plum tomatoes from their skin by making an incision, putting them in boiling water for 15 seconds and then immediately in ice water. Season them with salt and set them aside. Boil the pasta and remove it a couple of minutes before its cooking time, then put it into a large saucepan where you have already fried in olive oil a couple of squashed cloves of garlic. Add about 100ml of chicken stock for each 100g of pasta. Remove the garlic, and finish the cooking of the spaghetti in the pan, adding salt as required. Finally, arrange the gazpacho at the bottom of the plate, place the spaghetti in the middle, and top with freshly grated black pepper and thin slices of fresh basil. Arrange the fresh Italian plum tomatoes all around the gazpacho.

Tippling Club - Lunch

2010-08-07T23:56:00.025+08:00

This is my 3rd visit at Tippling club (see my other post), and second one at lunchtime, and I was never disappointed with this place. The spacious and bright counter draws the attention of the diners right onto where the action is, where the desserts and cocktails are prepared, and beautiful dishes are skillfully plated.

The amuse bouche is a beetroot mousse topped with a yogurt crunch. I love everything about this dish, from the way it is presented, to the foaminess of the delicate beetroot mousse and the contrast in texture and flavour with the sour crunchy bits of yogurt.

By the time you remove the foil cover and you unveil this beauty, you will already be salivating.

The scallops in almond gazpacho were also superb. Generous, meaty and juicy scallops were pan fried to perfection and served with sliced grape and a gazpacho of almonds. I thought the combination of that foamy, light gazpacho with the scallops was a brilliant idea.

I was less impressed by the main dish, which was a pan fried king fish on a bed of spinach cream, paired with a kombu crunchy cake and seaweed. The dish was pleasant enough, although I didn't find that the composition came all together in the palate. An interesting experiment, although it wouldn't be my first choice.

And with the desserts, the Tippling Club always surprised me. The frozen mandarin foam with dried mandarin was truly exceptional! The orange foam was frozen in nitrogen and had the same texture as a crispy meringue, except it was lighter. The frozen mandarins had an intense flavour and dissolved in the mouth. I would really love to know how they achieved that texture. Overall a very light, flavoursome dessert.

I reviewed the snowball before, but being this my favourite dessert, I don't mind doing it again. This is where frozen, creamy, sparkling, sour, all explode into your mouth. I really have no words to describe this dessert, since every time I have it I devour it within seconds. It is what I would define a true molecular gastronomic masterpiece. Essentially, this dessert is a combination of frozen coconut and sudachi and yuzu curd.

The dessert was complemented by a Parisian fog. This cocktail was Champagne based, and then topped with an Absinthe fog which gave it a subtle aniseed smell and flavour. I must say that Tippling Club serves the best, most innovative cocktails in town. It is a place to go and taste cocktails though, not to get drunk, considering how highly they are priced!

This fixed 3-course lunch menu is priced $55++ per person. I am glad that someone decided to do something different and push the boundaries a little more than most of the other fine dining restaurants in Singapore, and I wish that such sense of initiative will be acknowledged and rewarded by the local diners.

Tippling Club
8D Dempsey Road
Tel: +65 6475 2217
URL: http://www.tipplingclub.com/