Reine 17/6/25 Reine 17/6/25

Burnt Ends

Wow. Burnt Ends. It’s been on my list for a very long time, to the point where I’d made it a running joke that I’d always “try” to get to Burnt Ends on every Singapore trip but then never end up doing so.

However since this was an intentional trip, I decided to see just how good my restaurant booking skills were. They don’t advertise on their website how their bookings get released (at least not that what I could find), and sleuthing on Google turned out to be only partially accurate.

I did manage to use my fancy restaurant sense to guess, and managed to get it right! From my powers of observation, they release tables on a rolling 45 days in advance at 10AM Singapore time! Huzzah!

I did scope out the location a little earlier, since they’d changed locations between me first learning about them and finally making this booking. It’s a little bit in the middle of nowhere (read: it felt like a mini resort with food and wellness), but close to the Singapore Botanic Gardens. The bakery, restaurant, and bar are all in one neat spot!

I loved choosing the chef’s table to eat at, and was greeted by the chef in charge (not Mr Pynt, but definitely looked like he was running the show). Since I chose the chefs menu (it was too hard to decide a la carte!), he asked me how hungry I was, on a scale of 1 - 10. Luckily I hadn’t eaten too much beforehand, but it’s hard to gauge exactly what the scale means in various restaurants, so I baselined 10 as “leaving the restaurant and eating a cheeseburger”, and said 9. A fist bump from the chef signalled the beginning of the feast!

Their drinks menu is predominantly alcoholic, but on the last page they say they can make most mocktails. I spotted two signature cocktails, I didn’t take a photo of the drinks menu but this one that I started with, was a savoury version. I asked for it non alcoholic and the main ingredients are olive, pickle juice, lemon, with a salt rim. It was fantastic! I finally got a drink with pickle juice in it haha. It was so good that I felt I was drinking it too fast, the diner beside me had a cocktail and was drinking at a much slower pace! But I looove pickle juice!

The first dish, smoked quail egg and caviar. How cute, it fits on a spoon! They had so many of these prepped for tonight, and it was recommended to eat it in one bite since the yolks are soft boiled. That was some really great soft boiled-ness!

Grissini and taramasalata. Look at these chives! These chives are chopped so much better than the ones at Maison Boulud! This was actually a fairly large looking piece even though the bread was so thin! But it held together well while eating.

Look at this sneaky shot! The lighting down on the bread and quail egg station just makes the loaf stand out, so I couldn’t resist taking a picture of it. Also, the chefs were slicing this bread using a normal knife, not a serrated bread knife, it was fascinating! They were slicing it super thin for all the appetisers that were served on toast. It was also interesting seeing one chef instruct the other on how to cut the toast to the right size for the toppings!

Yes!! This was the dish I really wanted! The steak frites, and they also gave me the fish and chips! I love the look of the steak frites. So tiny, fancy, and luxurious! But funnily enough it was the fish and chips I loved more! There was a lot more flavour to it, since the fish looks like it was marinated, whereas the wagyu was mostly shining by itself. And that potato! So crispy on the outside, and on the inside it was that smooth waxy texture that I love.

The beef and uni was something I requested specifically, because I know I would love this combo! It was a sweet and creamy uni, and a gorgeous piece of fatty beef!

I also requested the duck heart, because it’s incredibly hard to find duck hearts. It was very tender and went so well with the sauce! And again, look at those chives, so nicely cut!

It was funny because at this point a diner seated next to me started talking to me, asking if I was liking my meal so far. Turns out this was a regular, and so there was a lot of banter between him and the chef! The regular was joking that I didn’t actually like the food that much, but the chef countered that he always knows! Part of the shenanigans also included the chef giving the regular a burger and saying it was from the kids’ menu!

Oooh a tempura eggplant dish! This was described as eggplant and miso, but what really stood out to me was the spices that that the eggplant was garnished with. They were packed full of flavour and tasted so good! Funnily enough, I wasn’t a fan of the eggplant itself, since I’ve spoiled myself with rosa bianca eggplants which have the kind of texture I love - any other type of eggplant won’t do!

Pork taco time! This was an item that wasn’t on the menu so it must have been a special that night, and it ran out fairly quickly. I’m pretty sure I heard all the chefs say that they were out about an hour into service. They make and press all the tortillas in the kitchen, that was pretty cool to watch!

Eel and bone marrow on toast! It was hard to take a shot of this since it was pretty much black on black, but it tasted really good! This is one of the toast dishes that I saw the chefs slice the loaf of bread really thinly for!

I’d finally finished the first mocktail so I asked if their other signature cocktail could be made non alcoholic. I definitely liked the olive-pickle-juice one better, as this one was more on the sweet side. The waitstaff did mention that this one wouldn’t taste like the alcoholic version and would lack some intended smokiness and creaminess, but I was okay with that, it’s all part of the differences between an alcoholic vs non alcoholic version. It was still nice though, and I imagine it’d be great for people who want a slightly sweet mocktail. And they brand their ice cubes!

Ok, you can’t tell from the photo, but this was a pretty big scallop! Bigger than the Rottnest Island scallops for sure. This was a scottish scallop with a sauce made out of its frills, topped with crunchy crumbs and shiso. I absolutely loved this dish, but when would I never not like scallops!

Ha! Also not on the menu, this was maitake mushroom congee. And the most interesting thing about this dish? It’s made me want to try risotto again. For me, congee is more watery/soupy, both from the hawker centres and how I make it at home. But this rice had an aspect of al dente-ness to it, which which was actually really nice, which makes me wonder if I now have a changed perspective on risotto - a dish that I’ve never actually liked that much because something about the rice texture was never to my liking. Interesting, right? I’m glad I got given such a large piece of mushroom for one person, since I love mushrooms!

Ok, what even! After I’d finished the congee, I got given a lobster pick. I started laughing to myself, because I remember seeing marron on the menu, and I was in disbelief that they would give me either half or a whole marron - surely not? And, coming from the land of marron, I couldn’t help but think, I can buy live ones and cook them myself. However, what I got was far more amazing! I was genuinely surprised and impressed when a gigantic oval plate came out with a huge crab leg on it! This was the prize!

This was a Japanese king crab leg, and oh my goodness it was drenched in butter, garlic, and capers. It was so incredibly good, and after struggling to use the lobster pick, I decided to dig in with my hands and teeth instead, which proved to be much more effective! The staff were also prepared for this alternate strategy, because they gave me the little magical expanding towel! However with the sheer amount of butter everywhere, that poor little towel wasn’t enough, so it made sense for me to wash my hands properly in the bathroom! This was soo good, and the hilarious thing is that looking back at the receipt, this (half serve) was about the same price as the tiny morsel of beef and uni from earlier. How crazy!

And the final savoury course. Of course it would be steak! A gorgeous 100g onglet steak with salad. I am very glad that I received this cut, I’m all about those more sinewy, flanky cuts because they taste so good! I was definitely really full at this point and wondered how I was going to fit any more food. I was definitely counting on dessert going into my second stomach!

While I was waiting for dessert, a couple had been seated beside me and had started ordering their dishes. During the lull they asked me how everything was and what my favourite dish was so far. The crab claw was so impressive that I definitely mentioned that one, and to my surprise, the chef had leaned over the counter and was listening intently to what I had to say! What a hilarious moment! So memorable!

A number of desserts had started going out a while before I finished all my savoury courses so I could see the lineup of desserts. I wondered which I would get, and made an educated guess that it would probably be the chocolate fondant. However, I couldn’t rule out the cheesecake. I was fairly certain it wouldn’t be the tarte tartin. I guess this is me profiling chefs profiling me? To reach that kind of conclusion! What does that mean? I have a theory that there’s an assumption that women order chocolate desserts, because a number of times, I’ve had a male friend order chocolate desserts, while I’ve ordered a fruit based dessert, and every time I’ve been handed the wrong one and had to do a swap haha. So I think usually people order the other way around, but it’s definitely a generalisation!

And I got the chocolate fondant! Yay! This was so good and the molten inside oozed out after cutting through the fairly solid but giving shell! And the smoked ice cream definitely really smelled like smoke, it was amazing! It was reminiscent of the smoked eggplant ice cream that I had at Ginza Midai! My goodness I was so full, I thought that was the end!

So you can imagine my shock when I realised that there were still petit fours to finish off the night! Oh no how was I supposed to eat more delicious food! I loved the look of the citrus burnt marshmallow, I called it poop on a stick and had a good giggle! The others were a financier, white chocolate, and a pate de fruit! I was so done after this!

495SGD later, I had definitely eaten too much! But apparently that might not have even been the most expensive restaurant meal I’ve had! I think it’s superseded by Waku Ghin, and Inua being the most expensive? I’m starting to lose track! It was a really great night and a standout was definitely the energy at the chef’s table and the fact that the main chef was so interactive! I got so many fist bumps and even a hi five at the end, it was just as great as when I got to shake Lennox Hastie’s hand! I’m such a fangirl haha. Definitely a great experience! Remind me next time that I should max out at about 7/10 in terms of hunger though!

Burntendsburntendsburntends

Reine 11/6/25 Reine 11/6/25

Singapore Botanic Gardens

Hello again Singapore!

This was my first proper visit (not a layover) since the first time I went in 2017, and I spent a few days visiting old favourites and trying new things!

Main post will be separate, this one’s just a photo dump of the botanic gardens. And I found the orchard garden and decided to go in and take a look around, everything was so pretty!

Singapore 2025 057 spot the squirrel.jpg

Reine 27/5/25 Reine 27/5/25

More Windblown

I finally started doing Endless Mode and realised that the gameplay is entirely different from single runs!

Managed to get Snake and Jay bodies, and hoping I can get Rabbit and Tiger at some point too! I am definitely loving the Boomerang + Elder Sword combo with Detonado + Chrono Catch. It pretty much stunlocks and does insane amounts of damage!

Reine 9/4/25 Reine 9/4/25

Tuna Cutting Show at James Parker

I found out about a tuna cutting show at James Parker Sushi about a couple of weeks ago, and I pretty much instantly decided to buy tickets! I wasn’t completely sure that it would be breaking down an entire tuna, but I figured it would be exciting all the same!

The show had bar seats available, or standing tickets. Since I found out a little late, the 8 bar seats were already sold out, so I ended up buying a standing ticket (which ended up being really good value!). But, for some inexplicable reason, I ummed and ahhed and then also decided to buy a bar seat for the next night (which was a collaboration degustation)! $500 later I was set up for a really great weekend!

Since I’ve never seen a tuna cutting show before, I wasn’t actually sure what to expect. I thought it’d be a very formal, ceremonial event, but instead it turned out to be super fun, party-izakaya vibe event! A lot of dancing and yelling! They even invited all the guests to go behind the counter and get their photo taken with the tuna!

I was one of only a few solo attendees, most of the customers came in groups (this becomes funny later), and I’m glad I hogged a standing spot near the counter, because of the restaurant layout, there were places where there wouldn’t have been such a good view of the tuna.

This was a Tasmanian southern bluefin tuna that came in at 78kg. Apparently they wanted to bring in an even bigger one (128kg!) but it wouldn’t fit in the box! We also had two guests, the chef from Sushi Oe, and a fishmonger (the only person in Australia to hold a Japanese tuna auction license?) from the Sydney Fish Markets! So it was a super special event, even though I hadn’t heard (or was consciously aware of) Sushi Oe (mainly because there are too many good sushi restaurants in Sydney to keep track of), a quick Instagram check showed that this was super tiny two hatted omakase restaurant!

There was a lot of fanfare, including a shoutout to James Parker’s 10th anniversary (that means my first visit was within a year or so of their grand opening?), and the fishmonger even had a bell (like the ones at the auctions) for the occasion!

It was a fairly quick process for them to cut half the fish (the other half would be saved for the next night) - head first, then collar, tail, top half, bottom half. I can’t imagine how difficult it is to cut cleanly, they had super amazing knives (one was an $8000 heavy knife) to cut through all those bones! The rest of the night was all about the canapes (oysters, a cold pumpkin soup, tuna appetiser (raw tuna with avocado smash, in a lettuce cup), tuna burger, octopus, grilled eggplant, grilled duck, and then heaps of fresh tuna and other nigiri. The one canape I didn’t expect at all was pickled mackerel, camembert, and grape, on a nordic cracker. That was interesting, but I’m not entirely sold on the concept! It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t amazingly mindblowlingly delicious either! Just nice and tasty! It was also awkward trying to get the canapes and hold them (especially the nigiri - I was so worried about dropping the rice!), but luckily it didn’t take me long to realise they actually had plenty of sushi plates available to take, and so I was finally able to place and eat my food without making a mess!

Now back to the crowd - because the restaurant’s tables had been mostly cleared to allow room for standing guests and canapes, people were all standing around and drinking, and it felt very much like bar vibes. I managed to find a spare seat, which happened to be right next to another solo attendee, and we both ended up planted there for the rest of the night. What’s even funnier is that it looked like we were both foodies who did the exact same thing - take a canape, take a photo, then eat the canape. I actually found it quite hilarious! But I was too socially awkward to decide to make conversation, so I just imagined that we were both socially awkward foodies comfortable doing our own thing.

However, there was still a limit to how long I could sit there without getting super self conscious, so 30 canapes, 2 hours in, I was full enough that I decided to retire for the night. I wasn’t worried about missing out since I booked the next night too! And that’s when I brought my camera!

They even re-moisturised the head for display!

*Saizuke - homemade tofu with tuna soboro sauce*

This first course came out before they completely finished preparing the tuna, though they were cutting some parts of tuna for most of the night. This homemade tofu was so smooth, it was more like a just-solid custard - softer than even the softest solid tofu I’ve had!

This is going to sound a bit weird, but I absolutely love being served fresh akami! It’s much rarer to get akami of this quality than it is otoro, because more people go “oooh otoro” and spend money on it. But I still remember the first fantastic akami I had was from Tetsuya’s, that memory has stuck with me to this day, that’s how impactful the experience was. The sauce had a great acidic punch as well that made it even tastier!

Zensai - crumbed medium fatty tuna with tartar sauce

Is this a psuedo fried fish? The presence of tartar sauce made me giggle, but in a good way! This was a classic flavour done well!

Zensai - tuna bloodline meatballs with seasonal vegetables

I remember watching them cut out the bloodline meat, and I was so worried they were just throwing it away or not doing something interesting with it. I actually enjoy eating the bloodline meat on smaller fish; I’ve never seen such a huge portion on such a big fish! It’s almost like the restaurant read my mind, and served up some bloodline meatballs! Super dark tuna, and also featured some of my favourite veg (most veg are my favourite veg), okra and eggplant!

Oh my goodness I can’t believe I’ve never thought about using persimmon as a vessel for other food!

What a cute way of serving sashimi! It is right on persimmon season too, so i was really happy seeing it presented this way! I am loving all the akami I got to eat across the two nights!

Extra course - lean tuna and chutoro in spicy sauce

This dish wasn’t written on the menu, but I won’t ever say no to more sashimi! This was presented as a spicy sauce, but it wasn’t too spicy upfront. The more I analysed it, the more it kind of reminded me of yuzu kosho (but without the yuzu). The chef explained that it was mostly made with jalapenos, which was interesting!

A random sneaky shot of another table’s beef roll being prepared! Dual flame action!

Yakimono - rare tuna steak with sudachi salt

It’s basically tuna tataki, with some excellent aromatic sudachi lime salt! I enjoyed with just the salt, but I also did squeeze some sudachi juice on them too, which tasted just as good!

Bonus dish - grilled scampi with uni butter

Ever since I discovered that I can buy sashimi grade scampi from a seafood shop, I feel that scampi is a much more accessible ingredient for me now. To be honest, I probably won’t continue to buy it because it’s so expensive! I was really glad that this came up as a bonus course!

I spent a good while trying to get all the hand shots with just my short lens. I didn’t want to bring other lenses and spend half the night fiddling around, so these were the best shots I could take.

Did I mention how much I love lean tuna?

This was probably my 8th attempt or so on trying to take an in focus shot as he brushed the fish!

One can never go wrong with some delicious otoro!

This is new! I’ve never had tuna cheek nigiri before! When I was googling exactly what the word was (I heard “kamako” or thereabouts when the chef explained it, and I was sure I was wrong! And google said I was right for being wrong!), I learned that cheek sashimi is generally only served when a tuna cutting event happens because of little there is of it. The other people at the counter said it had a really buttery texture and was different from otoro, though I don’t think I have a developed enough palate to have noticed the difference.

This was a suprise only because I wasn’t expecting anything to be torch grilled, but still very tasty! I definitely like the soy sauce variants over the salt variants though.

Nigiri - soy sauce and sake marinated akami

I was so busy trying to take a hand shot that I forgot to take a photo of the nigiri itself afterwards! The marinade on this was really nice, and I was fascinated that it caused a colour change to the outside in a similar style that tataki would!

How cute are these mini rolls? These used chopped up tuna belly, and some chives too. Really tasty little snaack!

That was the end of the official tasting menu, but the staff told us that we could order anything off the normal menu if we still wanted to eat. The nigiri section was also free for us to choose from - a literal no extra cost. At first I felt I was really satisfied with how full I was, and that I’d gotten all the value out of the ticket I purchased. I actually ended up asking just to continue to the end (i.e. soup and dessert), but then I was pretty sure the rest of the counter was ordering more nigiri, and I definitely wasn’t full as the night before, so I felt socially pressured to order more as well? So I ended up going with the sea urchin since that was one of the things I didn’t manage to buy for my home cooking last year. This urchin was small and quite bitter tasting, so it wasn’t my favourite. It actually feels like they’ve used the same supplier as the first time I dined here all those years ago, because I remember having the same impression of the uni not being a particularly sweet variety.

I got presented dessert at this point because I’d told them I was done, but what actually happened between the uni nigiri and this ice cream was that the group sitting to my right wanted more nigiri, stating that they also weren’t expecting the uni nigiri to be so bitter (they also liked sweet uni more!), and wanted to cleanse their palate with more otoro. I somehow also got involved in the conversation, so the chef ended up looking at me and asking if I also wanted more otoro. And whenever I’m asked if I want more tasty food, well, there’s only one answer.

As a result, the conversation when I got given dessert became really awkward! The waitstaff said, as they were giving me the gelato, that they didn’t realise I was getting more nigiri, so they would prepare dessert a second time when I was actually done. I felt so bad, I told them it wasn’t necessary, but they insisited! So…. I was going to get 2 desserts?

In any case, I finished eating my gelato, drank some water, ate some ginger, and prepared my palate for another piece of otoro!

Now we’re back on track. Everyone was done with the extra nigiri so we got our miso soup! A very red version with tuna meatball!

And lo and behold, I got a second dessert, just as the waitstaff wanted! It was actually a really light and refreshing yuzu gelato so it was no trouble eating even more!

Overall this was a great experience, apparently this was only the 5th tuna cutting show that James Parker has done, and possibly one of the few (or only) collaboration cutting events! I am so glad that I got to see a Sydney sushi chef here in Perth, especially from a hard to book 2 hatted restaurant, because now it means I won’t feel so bad that I can’t visit Sushi Oe since they visited me!

There was also a really interesting conversation at the end about how Japanese tuna no longer tastes as good, in fact, the chef said that Tasmanian tuna currently tastes a lot better. The waters around Japan have risen by 2 degrees celcius in the last few years, meaning there’s a change in the type of fish available, and the tuna is less fatty since the water is less cold. The conversation reminded me a lot of Jiro Dreams of Sushi where Jiro mentions the same thing - climate change means that many fish that used to be common are not so common anymore.

Next time it would be great to either get standing tickets with a group (so that I’m not a solo socially awkward foodie), or, have keen senses to know when it’s happening again and get a counter seat (to avoid awkwardness altogether while still enjoying all the food). And save money by not having to book twice as a result!

maguroooooo

MAGURO

MAGUROOO!!!

Reine 29/3/25 Reine 29/3/25

Perth Japan Festival 2025

I actually don’t know what I’ve been doing the last few years to completely forget about the Perth Japan Festival! Luckily I remembered this event exists this year, and the great thing was that the location was much better than the last time I visited! The previous space in Elizabeth Quay was way too cramped, and the new Supreme Court Gardens this year was perfect and didn’t feel overcrowded.

First things first - all the mochi! One of my favourite Japanese cafes had set up a stall here (Hinata cafe!), and were selling yuzu jelly, and a whole bunch of different mochi. I got a mochi mix - mitarashi dango and one with red bean paste on the outside, and also got some daifuku and tricolour dango to take home. I also saw someone eating what I thought was a fish cake, so I looked around at all the different stalls until I finally found the corresponding picture displayed. Turns out it was age mochi! So I had to get that too and it had good flavour! I also did have to try some warabi mochi another stall was selling, but it wasn’t super amazing.

And some wagyu beef nigiri just cause!