Le Caprice, Ho Chi Minh City

Posh nosh on your first day in Ho Chi Minh City?

What a way to earn my street cred huh?

I wanted to check out Ho Chi Minh City's fine dining scene and our sort-of minder recommended Le Caprice (no relation whatsoever to Ramsey’s London haven) at The Landmark. To cut the long ao dai short, Le Caprice may be considered by some as a place to impress but I hate to think that this is all Ho Chi Minh City has to offer for fine dining.

The set-up and interior décor reminded me of those 90s Chinese drama serials when Mediacorp was still known as Singapore Broadcasting Corporation and LA Gear was still cool. The restaurant played the Carpenters in the background, and the heavy draped curtains, and mismatched embroidery reminded me of Versailles kitsch.

The food was ok, neither progressively ground-breaking or aptly refined… but it was more than edible. Some dishes were tasty, some forgettable and others I would rather forget.

We had the restaurant’s ice breaker, their tasting menu.

Bread

Warm crusty baguette with marshmallow-soft insides, served with a rose-carved (?!) butter. Gone in five minutes.


Amuse bouche – Finely-diced salmon covered with mayonnaise.

Crazy mayo-overload and it took me a while to figure out what I was actually having.


Cod Lasagna with Basil Butter

The word "cod" and “lasagna” are loosely used here. Sheets of traffic-lights-colored pasta sheets sandwiched the fish, with an absence of both béchamel or cheese. And I really really don’t think I had “cod”. More like some river fish from Saigon River down below. Whoooops.


Crab Cornucopia with orange silvers

Sinewy crab stuffed in a flaky puff pastry. This was pretty good though I was still trying to get over the mayo amuse-abuse earlier.


Watercress, Potato and Leek Soup with Whisked Egg Whites and Pancetta

The soup was good and it stood out from the rest of the meal like androgynously-dressed but progressive Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel in a sea of lacey frills and frous.


Golden-fried Duck, stuffed with duck and ham

Frankly the duck was pretty good too though the minced texture reminded me of duck meatloaf. And by then, I was starting to feel the effects of RoboCarb: Reloaded.

Dessert literally rolled by and we each got to choose a cake each from the not-very-huge selection of three cakes - chocolate fudge cake, soufflé cheesecake and some potato-flour cake (that seemed too adventurous for our first night in Ho Chi Minh City).



Good gummy-fudge chocolate cake.

Forget-me-please soufflé cheesecake.

I’m sure this is not representative of fine dining in Ho Chi Minh City. If I had more days in Ho Chi Minh City, I would have liked to try Le Bordeaux.

Le Caprice
The Landmark, Ho Chi Minh City

My long weekend in Ho Chi Minh City

In a cashew nutshell, Ho Chi Minh City was great.

Sightseeing-wise, you could be done in day (we managed to do Cu Chi Tunnels and the city tour within a day). There were many galleries that I could visit for Dream House 2015 though I think Vietnamese art requires an acquired taste... And even more cafes to escape from the mother-honking traffic.

Before you shoot me with, Did you try …? questions, I’ll tell you what I didn’t have time for. Street food such as pho, banh xeo, and banh mi, Quan An Ngon, Pho 24 and Le Bordeaux.

Are you pho real?



Well, we were only there for two and a half days and if you take away the time needed to sightsee, brave the chaotic motorcycle traffic (treacherous, I say), get our afternoon Vietnamese coffee / cake fix … there really wasn’t much time to banh it out.

But anyway, we ate enough good stuff to not miss the street food, so here’s the role call for the upcoming posts:
Le Caprice
Song Ngu
Au Parc
Park Lounge
Fanny
Phu Xuan

được nhồi

Kim’s Family Food

Kim’s Family Food has been circulating around the food blogger scene and I’m glad I joined the bandwagon for once. There was a queue but luckily we made reservations and the proprietor’s son, who resembled the Laughing Buddha, quickly showed us to a table upon arrival.

First up, the bevy of appetizers that beat salted peanuts any day! You wanna see just-kill-me-now pictures taken by with a DSL camera? Check out Julie’s and Philip’s blog.



My favourite was the lettuce and spicy chili sauce. If I could snag a bottle of this spicy chili sauce, I would reconsider my abhorrence towards lettuces.



I would absolutely order the spicy stir-fried octopus again. Spicy and smoky, accented with a char-ry aroma that lingered after every bite.



The seafood pancake, Rain’s-six-packed with spring onions and seafood, was a heavyweight in the savoury pancake department.



The spicy rice cake, affectionately known as My Darling Tteokbokki, was painful to enjoy. Painful because it made me miss Seoul. But delicious otherwise.



Ridiculously tender beef short-ribs.



But the jajangmyun threatened to turn this into a Korean tearjerker. As first-date-friendly as squid ink pasta. I order this out of curiosity more than anything. My sister and I didn’t get to try this when we were in Seoul because we were too busy stuffing our faces (ok, at least in my case) with tteokbokki.

Hmmm, I didn’t like it. The noodles were bland and served lukewarm, which felt neither here (sizzling hot chigae) nor there (cold hiyashi).



We dunked a handful of salt into the beef oxtail soup. They forgot to include this in the bill and when we asked them bout it, the Laughing Buddha sheepishly said, Oh, $10 (instead of $14), discount… my mistake.

Aww, I actually felt bad for underpaying.

Kim’s Family Food
17 Lorong Kilat
#01-06 Kilat Court
Tel: 6465 0535

Weekend #36

Matches made in weekend heaven

Peanut butter + bananas
Fried egg + kecap manis
Girlfriends + Sunday brunch


Clo wants me to tell you guys, there was too little yogurt! We had to ask for refills twice but they did gave it to us graciously.





I celebrated my surprised birthday brunch at Prive Bakery with the girls. Surprised because I didn't expect to celebrate a birthday brunch a month after my birthday. Past tense because Pau divulged the surprise in the days leading up to the meet-up. Nonethless, it was great (rhymes with ate) meeting up with you guys.

Prive Bakery Cafe
2 Keppel Bay Vista
Marina at Keppel Bay
Tel: 6776 0777

Obolo C3

I recently realized that the Gratification Meter goes off the charts when I take chocolate-and-coffee anything. Double the endorphins, double the adrenaline… I just get weallly weallly happy after that.



Obolo’s C3 – Coffee, Chocolate, Crunch... Well, actually there’s a 4th C – Crack. This offering is literally dessert on crack and a real winner. Weallly weallly happy...

The best (or worst) thing is it comprises of Swiss-account-rich Movenpick ice cream. Best because that means you can replicate this with readily-available Movenpick pints from supermarkets (don’t forget the oreos!); worst if you are an ice cream snob who believes in the healing powers of artisansal, homemade dessert.

If you belong to the latter category, go for their cakes then.



Yuzu – vanilla genoise, mango-passionfruit gelee, lemon mascarpone mousse, yuzu citrus creamaux on a millefeuille base.

With all that going on, the yuzu disappeared in the presence of stronger flavours. It wasn’t a bad slice, on the contrary, the Yuzu was still rather pleasant. Too bad it suffered from the Curse of Pretty Cakes – too pretty and thus complicated to provide instant gratification.

Obolo
452 Joo Chiat Road
Tel: 6348 9791

OH Chi Minh City

The Udder Side of the Story

Scenario 1
Scene: Ice cream needed to cool the fiery Korean dinner.
Location: Lorong Kilat

Initially I thought it was the Mao Shan Wang’s fault. Despite being made with grounded pistachio nuts, the Pure Pistachio was disappointingly bland. I thought I shouldn’t have paired anything with the Mao Shan Wang.

Bittersweet, fibrous and pungent, the Mao Shan Wang was potent to kill any relationship (be it ice cream or human). I used to love durian but like the Backstreet Boys, I definitely grew out of it.

But Scenario 2 convinced me that the Pure Pistachio was probably blah to begin with.

Scenario 2
Scene: Ice cream needed. Period.
Location: Novena / United Square

We chose Udders out of Gelatiso, McD’s, Swensens, getting a Ben & Jerry’s pint or Haagen Daaz stick from Cold Storage. I sampled a couple of flavours and found it odd that I found nothing crave-worthy. But the queue behind me was gathering and in a panic, I / we settled for the Cookies and Cream, Snickers Mars Honeycomb Vanilla and Salty Caramel.

At best, I felt the ice cream was
a. bland
b. unsatisfactory
c. WTF
d. All of the above

I like the chunky bits within the ice creams but strangely enough, they did nothing to increase the oomph factor. The Snickers / Mars nibbits were so-so - their approval ratings decreased sharply from a chocolate bar. Even the Cookies and Cream was deceivingly tantalizing as the riddling chunks of cookies hardly translated into flavour. And the Salty Caramel was plain odd – can’t put my finger on it but it tasted nothing like what I would normally declare love for.

After that, we walked into McD’s and eased our pain with a glorious hot chocolate fudge.

Udders
17 Lorong Kilat
#01-08 Kilat Court

155 Thomson Road

1 Bukit Batok Central Link
#02-10 West Mall

Al Divo

If you were called to namedrop a couple of suburbans that have Italian restaurants, no doubt places like Greenwood Avenue, Chip Bee or Namly would roll off your tongue like a ball of fresh mozzarella.

But how about Sembawang? Or more specifically Jalan Gelenggang?

Ge-leng-what?

Trust me, I too find it hard to believe that my part of town has been touched by the Neighbourhood-Italian-Restaurant Fairy.

First things first, Al Divo needs more than fairy dust to fly – the service was polite but clueless, the cold white bread burned my fingertips and the restaurant could be eerily quiet when it’s less than half filled.




The antipasto della casa al divo was a respectable spread of parma ham and melon with arugula, mozzarella and tomato with black olives, salami, grilled snap peas, zucchini, eggplant, sundried tomatoes and long beans. This reminds me of the dashing Jamie Oliver Antipasti Platter I saw earlier. If you have 45 pounds to spare, let me know. And if I get it, I will definitely invite you “O Generous One” over for dinner.



Got to say for the 128th time that I’m not a pasta person but the tagliolini neri con mentaiko was pretty good. Flat floppy tagliolini pasta with creamy mentaiko sauce. I know a colleague who likes this so much she visited Al Divo twice in a span of three days for this (HELLO MAGS, if you reading this!). But the portion was small. So small that even a non-pasta person such as myself found it barely enough.



The maitre d slash pasta slash pastry chef highly recommended the costatella di maile (grilled kurobuta pork chops). Unfortunately it wasn’t kurobuta in its finest shining glory as this little piggy was a little overdone, though the rim of fat provided slight relief. As for the sides, we had stumpy potato wedges that were lightly fried and caramelized onions, which were too lovely.



Served in a glass cup, the mascarpone-heavy tiramisu with specks of chewy bits, marked the end of a meal and perhaps, a new beginning for this suburban.

Al Divo
8 Jalan Gelenggang
Sembawang Hills Estate
Tel: 6288 3009

Tea time in the office

Ginger Snaps from Marks & Spencer

Six cookies later, my jaw ached from all the snappin’, I was high from the coffee and my belly was feeling happy-fed.

Summer of '09

Flaps of cashmere ice sheets

Lighter than gelato but more gratifying than ice kachang



Victoria made a beeline for the Mango Mania, milk frost topped with mango puree and cubes. I had a few scoops of it but even that was enough to make me woozy.



I customized my treat - black sesame frost, blessed with a heap of crushed oreo and caramel drizzle. It’s odd how much I love oreo chucks. The whole oreo cookie or oreo smashed-to-smithering-sand bits don’t do it as much for me, but oreo chucks? Perfectly scoopable. It would have been awesome if the black sesame was stronger (because I *black seh-sar-mee* you) but it was a great treat nonetheless.

I can’t wait to have it again.

Summer Frost
41 East Coast Road

Werking It at Brewerkz

You can’t come to Brewerkz and not order their burger.

Well … The bistro burger (blue cheese, sautéed mushrooms and grilled onions) sounded, Come get me but it wouldn’t befit the lazy soppy mood that a rainy Sunday afternoon created.



I got to write about the rubs before I get sappy over the chili. The half-rack BBQ pork ribs was tasty though lacking that slightly-charred surface de riguer for any self-respecting rack. I like how they served additional BBQ sauce as a separate condiment, instead of slathering it all over the rack.



The herb-garlic fries were insanely good though. I’m almost tempted to say that they beat any of the potato fries I’ve ever had - truffle fries, shoestring fries and steak fries. Apart from the occasional dunking, they were good on their own, casting away the need for any ketchup and mayonnaise.



So what’s great for a “lazy soppy mood that a rainy Sunday afternoon created”?

Chili.

My eyes lit up as soon as I saw the word “chili,” and I could only decidebetween the Chili Cheese Fries, Chili Dog or Beer Chili Bowl. The Beer Chili Bowl won out eventually because it came with either tortilla chips or cornbread (oh, we had both for an additional charge).



Ever since I studied To Kill a Mockingbird for O levels literature, I’ve always wanted to try cornbread. I remembered how Calpurnia would make southern food for the Finch children and I was absolutely salivating at the thought of artery-clogging food in insane quantities. Please tell me I’m not the only person who got hungry reading To Kill a Mockingbird.



Beef and beans with cheddar cheese reporting for Dunk Duty.

The beef, kidney beans and cheddar cheese concoction was a magnet for everything from forks to fries, cornbread to chips. I’m pretty sure if I had some dunk-worthy ciabatta or naan, they wouldn’t have been spared from the slosh fest.



The cornbread came in a cake slice, instead of cubes. It was distinctively sweet which made it difficult to enjoy with the chili but on its own, it was worth the food coma that I had after polishing it off. It was one of those food where the first few bites taste odd and you take a couple more bites just to make sure … but by then, the oddity starts to grow on you … and you think, hey it’s not bad and it would be such a waste to not finish it.



These blurry pictures remind me of the comfort of soppy food.

But I will try their burger soon. Thanks for the voucher, Dave!

Brewerkz Indoor Stadium
2 Stadium Walk #01-06/07/K1
Singapore Indoor Stadium
Tel: 6345 9905

Sabar Menanti, Kandahar Street

Hmmm I think I'm a Pariaman girl after all.

Sabar Menanti
48/50 Kandahar Street
Singapore 198899

An Ember September

One day, back-from-Boston Edward rescued me from the drabbyness of my workplace vicinity and we both headed to Ember at Hotel 1929 for lunch.

Recently mentioned in Financial Times, this is my third visit to Ember Restaurant and still as every bit enjoyable. While Ember has been known to not make drastic changes to their menu, I guess this fits people who twitch uncontrollably when they can’t find their go-to dish.

The since-it’s-not-broken-why-fix-it homemade crispy tofu, soft shell crab with wasabi aioli, miso cod and warm banana tart are still on the menu. Edward stuck to his favourites – soft shell crab, miso cod and warm Varlhona chocolate cake, while I decided to take a new route – at least for starters and main course.



The complimentary sun-dried bread that as raved about as its mains.

It’s amazing how idiot-proof simple it is to get people to like your restaurant when you serve fingertips- and-heart-warming complimentary bread.

For my starters, I was nobbing between the pan-seared scallops and bamboo clams but settled for the clams as they were a lot less commonplace than their other shellfish counterparts.



It was fantastic. Steamed bamboo clams sliced up and served on a manicured lawn of bottarga hollandaise. The cheesy, creamy and slightly fishy sauce spruced up the unapologetically-fresh bamboo clams without overshadowing them.

WHOA, I have a feeling that bottarga hollandaise would be my new “wasabi aioli”. Someone please make it into a dip for chunky fries!



I don't think I could pull a string of sentences to fully describe how much I enjoyed the pan-seared Chilean seabass with mushroom and smoked bacon ragout. Clean oilish seabass ... pan-seared crisp crust ... smoky creamy indulgent ragout ... AHH, sorry that's the best I can do. But it was awesomeeee.



Warm Varlhona chocolate cake (WCC) may be ubiquitous but it’s like how I always tune into CNN or Discovery Channel when I’m on a holiday in a foreign- speaking land. A familiar comforting blimp amongst a sea of I-donch-get-chew channels. And Ember’s WCC was a very competent version.



Initially I ordered their Dessert of the Day - nougat and lychee sorbet, but when I saw how unsatisfactory tiny it was (as it being served at my neighbour’s table... poor neighbour), I felt a strong sense of moral obligation to not blemish my experience.

I changed my order to the (massive) tiramisu, which came with a smooth and rich chocolate sorbet… and a little rum to make my Thursday afternoon more palatable.

Restaurant Ember
50 Keong Saik Road
Tel: 6347 1928