Weekend #33

What did you do over the weekend?



Did you meet up with the people who matter?

Did you have dinner at home and realise how much you miss the simple homecooked meal?

Did you receive a call from an new old friend who promised to take you out for lunch?

Did you try out Zesty Beef from I-could-never-again-settle-for-Subway Quiznos for the first time?

Did your heart melt when you tried on a ring by Dave Soh of Dave Fine Jewellery?

Did you start watching Departures for the second time and not finish it again because you were distracted with blogging?

Did you pick up a Where's Waldo puzzle book and think, Hey! Didn't he used to be called "Wally"?

Something To Grab

Were you there on August 16?

Where?

Well, just about anywhere outdoors. Breezy with slightly overcast skies, it was perhaps the loveliest day of the year in Singapore.

Bypassing our usual route to PS Café, we spent a good couple of hours at the outdoor café of Regent Hotel’s SomethingToGo. Us, air-con devotees in an outdoor fan-less verandah! Whoa…



Regent’s signature Praline Feuillete - chocolate mousse and hazelnut praline – is such a crowd-pleaser. It was good but I’m going to risk public backlash and proclaim it, a little boring (don’t hate me!). But you know what, I’ll probably order this again if you want to share with me.



But what I really loved was the Japanese Cheese Pear slice – pear jelly crown, cheese mousse on a walnut and pistachio base. Fresh, creamy and nutty… it looked so vulnerable and delicate but every mouthful promptly satiated.

Bliss.

SomethingToGo
The Regent Singapore
One Cuscaden Road
Tel: 6720 8000

Dark day at Canele

That is what happens when 9 out of 10 times, you preach commitment and loyalty, ordering “your usual” … and the only 1 time you decide to “try something new,” you take a bite and think to yourself, I iz Moron.

After dinner, we had dessert at Canele, Robertson Quay, throwing all out all chocolate, praline, hazelnut, caramel, gateau - only options.



Barcelona, an almond chocolate sponge layered with orange caramel and dark chocolate orange mousse, topped with a chocolate macaron and blood orange jelly.

Never one to like fruits infused in chocolate, I was hoping to be “pleasantly surprised” but charmed I was not.



Exotique, a passion fruit banana sorbet with chocolate almond cookie (you’re not a crumble!) and dark sinister chocolate shards.

Sad. To me, Exotique would have flown if the passion fruit had be paired with white chocolate – the pushover in the chocolate world, the “Doug” of the Talking Dog pack; otherwise, there’s too much of a conflict.

My dear Nogautine, I shall never cheat on you again.

Graze, Rochester Park

Peck. Nibble. Nom. Munch. Graze.

Words common to my meal repertoire.

At work, my typical lunch is a 3 hour long affair, where I make my way through fruits, popiah and curry puff and an endless supply of chocolate and candy. While not the healthiest, I have come to embrace my grazey habits.

But I di-graze... and back at Graze, while waiting for the rest to trickle in, the four of us ordered first.



A hearty mix of bratwurst sausage, smoked bacon, grilled mushroom, tomato half, country potato chunks, fried egg, baked beans and plum chilli salsa, Graze’s signature cast iron (ouch, careful it’s hot!) pan is the reason why your cardiologist’s wife has kept her aesthetician on tenure.



Following with my Must-Have-Eggs grain of thought, I went for the Eggs Benedict. Well it was more Eggs Florendict as I had mine with smoked salmon and spinach. The surprisingly tangy hollandaise sauce was a great pique-me-up and I loved the gloriously green but limp spinach.

I was struggling to choose between the Eggs Benedict and banana pancakes. Suddenly on my left, a glossy voice (er, actually it was Huiming’s) semi-shrieked, let’s share the pancakes!

Care and share. Didn’t we learn that at home? Yay.



The early birds gets the banana pancakes and French toasts – on top of their Eggs Florendict.

Four blini-like pancakes, accompanied by chunks of grilled banana (disturbingly good), drizzled with walnuts and thick redcurrant syrup. You could choose between whipped butter or vanilla ice cream but we unanimously chose vanilla ice cream. The ice cream wins love-handles down - no contest here.



Bearing my dislike for cinnamon, I thought I wouldn’t give two hoots about the cinnamon raisin French toast. I had a small piece just to be polite… and ended up mopping up the dish. Though harbouring minimal egginess, this syrup-drenched block of toast was foot-in-mouth awesome.



I really enjoyed my time at Graze. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much thanks the mixed reviews. If it weren’t blazing hot out there, I would have plonked myself at the alfresco lounge.

Graze
4 Rochester Park
Tel: 6775 9000

Weekend #32

The start of a beautiful weekend began at easy-to-love Kith Café.



With some banana bread...



... and pepper pastrami sandwich with Danish cheese.





Kith Cafe
7 Rodyk Street #01-33
The Watermark @ Robertson Quay

Marui Japanese Restaurant

Our Shoebox Restaurants Adventures continues at Marui Sushi.

We stumbled upon Marui on our way to Kazu and were visibly intrigued since the 10-12 seater restaurant was full on a weeknight. Although we wanted to dine there the following week, the lady maître d advised us to visit on a weekend instead since they usually entertained corporate clients on weeknights. So no stories of drunk salarymen in this episode.


Starters – seasoned scallop and raw tako in wasabi-based sauce

This omakase meal took place more than 3 weeks ago… so I’m trying my (very) best to recall as much as my goldfish memory permits.

The seasoned scallop may not be new but the wasabi-soaked tako was tangy and slimy; in other words: fun on the tongue.



The display of sashimi made me smile in a way that most people do in front of babies. Hamachi, kampachi, salmon belly, hotate, ebi and chutoro (which was almost as good as otoro) … All fresh and flabby… I could have gone all teary-eyed like most people do in front of babies.


Sliced cucumber and bean sauce.

I love vegetable sticks (carrots, yes. bucumber, maybe. daikon, no.) and Japanese bean sauce dips. One of the raw moments when I could make myself eat raw vegetables without hurling or sulking. Unlike peanuts in Chinese restaurants, vegetable sticks/ dips is one of those seems-complimentary-but-not dishes that I don’t mind paying for. Marui’s bean sauce is chunkier and more fibrous – like the chunky version of peanut butter.


Simmered daikon with bonito flecks

Daikon is not something I get excited about. The bonito flecks looked alive, like the writhing polyps / victims of The Little Mermaid’s Ursula.


Grilled hamachi cheek

Another winner unless you don’t like the smoky charry aroma and the thrill of nudging out juicy fleshy bits. AWKWARD PAUSE. That’s ok, I’m not judging... but I don’t think we can be fwiendz.



A palm-sized tempura with prawn, parleys and carrots. It didn’t deviate too much from your average tempura though the parsley made it a sprightly treat.



If truth be told, I was disappointed with the sushi. No complains about the fish – again, fresh and flabby, but the sushi rice was too dry for its own good. Sadness.



We couldn’t stomach dessert. It might not seem like a lot of food but this was after we ate enough cake to feed a Laotian village and maybe, an American family.

Marui Sushi Japanese Restaurant
5 Koek Road
#04-01 Cuppage Plaza
Tel: 6738 6048

Y X Zee

The other day I received 3 missed calls from Zee, which worried me because it's been a while since we were chatty-chatty-bang-bang. When I called her back, she said, Babe I've been something important to ask you. Do you know David Lebovitz?

Er, yes I've his blog on my Google Reader (AHH, busted for being a Google-dependant geek). He's funny as hell. And he's living the life I want in Paris.

Then she went on to tell me that she was thinking of getting his book for me for my birthday and was wondering if I would like it.



YESSSSSS!

Despite being on the bus, I squealed into the phone, ignoring the odd looks that were thrown in my direction like dirty French Laundry. I'm one of those who believe you can't have too many books about la douceur de vivre à Paris... even though I squirm in half-pain, half-envy while reading it.



The fact that Zee bothered to call me for veto was hilarious. Thank you babe for the book and beautiful card. Here's to many more years of friendship and yes, over warm chocolate cake with ice cream.

La douceur de vivre en effet indeed.

Through thick and thin at Tong Ah Coffeeshop

Put off by factory-made franchises, I can be quite the kaya toast snob.

That being said, I love kaya toast and could never pass up a kaya-toasting opportunity. When it comes to bread-slathering loveliness, kaya is right up there with peanut butter – though the satisfaction gained from licking spoonful of peanut butter right out of the jar is simply incomparable!

Tong Ah Coffeeshop (Tong Yah Coffeeshop) remains loyal to their kaya toast and we’re talking, through thick and thin.



Their thin toasts amuses me. They resembled little matchboxes … though it took more one to light my fire. Though satisfyingly crusty, the barely-there bread crust was incapable of masking the chilled butter slabs.

Although the thin ones are super crusty and rarer (ie more rave-about), I preferred the thicker pillowy ones.



Tong Ah’s kaya toasts were satisfying but I'll stick with Wah Yen Eating House’s French toast for the Toast with the Most title.

Tong Ah Coffeeshop
36 Keong Saik Road

Patisserie Glace, Chinatown Plaza

There were only the two of us so we got six slices to share. Yeah, it’s good to exercise a little restraint every now and then.


The candle that never got lit.

Admittedly when it comes to sugar-filled tea time treats, I have always chosen convenience and comfort over exclusivity and trendiness. However, I decided that for my birthday, I would go out of my Cedele / Canele way and get some raved about treats from Patisserie Glace.


Strawberry Hill

Patisserie Glace’s strawberry luminaries include the Strawberry Soufflé and Strawberry Shortcake. But since I usually won’t jump through fire hoops for soufflés and sponges, I went for the Strawberry Hill, a sponge cake slash tart. Fresh strawberry slices and the lightest of custard cream and fresh cream on top of a tart THAT MADE THE DIFFERENCE. I loved it!


Choco Renga

Choco Renga (“Chocolate Brick” in Japanese) was a multi-layer chocolate sponge ganache thatssit. Though undeniably rich, it didn’t make me wanna join the dark side.

Puts away my Darth-Vader-Korean-Ahjumma visor.


Fromage Syun

On the other end of the colour spectrum, the Fromage Syun is a low-fat cheese tart. It was good in a I-can't-believe-it's-yogurt way. With its flawless finish, this cheese tart could star in its own skin-whitening advertisement.


La France

We also had a pear tart, finished off with a crème brûlée gloss named La France. This scores a generic “nice” and I probably won’t remember to order it again.


Rin Rin Cheese Tart - Japanese Rock Melon.

There were close to ten over cheese tarts to choose from so we chose the most unibrow-raising flavour - Japanese rockmelon flavour. I’m glad we didn’t go for the usual maple, caramel etc flavours as this was flippin’ awesome. It seemed practically Made for Disaster but the rock melon flavour was intense but refreshing.


Maison

Another unexpected find was the Maison that housed 4 different flavours - vanilla, organic green tea, coffee and Belgian chocolate. The cake greets with a stiff coffee aroma but leaves with a bitterish green tea aftertaste. I thought it was amazing how clear cut the flavors were … Home Sweet Home indeed.

I probably wouldn’t go all the way down to Chinatown Plaza to grab a slice or two but say, I had a party with friends who would appreciate an afternoon of sugar-high … Hmmm I think we are onto something here…

Patisserie Glace
34 Craig Road #01-10
Chinatown Plaza
Singapore 089673
Tel +65 6400 0247

Happy Friday

USB Squid from Sarai0989

Reminds me of the crazy delicious baby squid from Joo Heng.

Power and Puff

New York Mag's Grub Street asked, has the Restaurant Critic’s Power Dwindled?

I don't know about you but I sure as hell don't believe anything I read in our Food section these days.

Macarons from Obolo

A friend of mine has issues with people mispelling macaroons macarons. I know I've been misspelling it for the longest time too. Though my rationale would be that some of us derive an extra O from macarons, as of TODAY, I will try my darnest to spell them correctly.

Love the salted caramel, green tea and mango macarons from Obolo.

Obolo
452 Joo Chiat Road
Tel: 6348 9791

All Tied Up

Although the wedding is a good 6 months away, I can hardly wait for my lovely friend Zee's white nuptials.

Here's a sneak preview (for you too, my dear reader) of Marcus and Zee's Save the Date reminder.



I. Can't. Wait.