Hello again, Singapore

After my Cebu stint, the trip back involved an overnight stopover at Singapore. There were aspects of this place that I absolutely loved before so I made them my first priority!Another season, anther fixture! Last time it was the giant rooster, this time, a giant boat! It turns out it's mid autumn festival or whatever the mooncakey festival thing is, which is pretty cool! Not only was the main street lit up with bright fixtures, but there was also heaps of incense being burned on all the streets.First stop, claypot frog porridge! I loved this place last time and I didn't even know frog porridge was its specialty! This time I ordered the actual item, instead of the ginger claypot frog and adding porridge to it. The porridge tasted so good, but I felt the frog may have been a bit overcooked compared to last time. Still delicious and a great treat, but I think I prefer the ginger claypot with porridge separate - the sauce of the standalone frog seeps into the meat better. And I'd love to eat the chicken feet from here again!I'd also deliberately undereaten because I decided that I'd take my chances at Burnt Ends too. The porridge was enough that I could continue eating, but also if I didn't manage to get a table, I'd be satisfied and not hungry again till morning. So after a short trek through Chinatown, I came upon a closed Burnt Ends. Oh, they're not open Sundays... which meant no extra feed, but my wallet thanked me!!Instead I snacked on this croissant taiyaki since last time I had the mochi version. Not bad, especially as this was freshly made!A quick scout of Chinatown also meant to opportunity to say hello to these adorable foxes!Alright, hotel time! As this was an overnight stay and I'm not allowed to splurge, I decided to test out a capsule hotel! I chose one that wasn't quite budget and seemed rather nice and had decent ventilation according to reviews. I ended up at Cube, which had some cool and hip interior design. Just don't expect much in the way of their continental breakfast; the hawker fare 2 minutes away is so much more worth it.How cute! It came with a towel and water bottle, a main light and a reading light, three pull out compartments, of which the largest doubled as a table and had a mirror installed, as well as a towel rack at the end of the bed.There was a secure set of doors located below this capsule to store luggage.I actually found this quite roomy! There were also charging ports and a powerpoint tucked away, which was really convenient. I think I like small spaces like this, I wish my bedroom was this size!And how the capsule room looked. Here you were supposed to place your shoes in the lockers just outside this room, but I guess most people ignored that. You can see the massive air conditioner that did really well to keep the temperature regulated, but also, the capsules had pull-down blinds. This meant there was a draft into my capsule though, and moving cold air prevents me from sleeping well. I managed okay, and it was better than being stuck in a place with no air movement at all.The bathroom was located across the lobby though, I found that setup a bit odd since you'd have to walk in your pyjamas through a public area. There were more bathrooms on the other floor, but I didn't venture or explore the full setup.Also, I didn't anticipate that because these were just capsules sharing a room, with the only privacy being a blind, that there's no way to tell the time and you can hear everything. So.... how does one set an alarm if they need to be up at a specific time? No idea. But if I was ever on the clock, I wouldn't choose a capsule hotel. My flight wasn't till midday so I let my body clock do its magic. However... that didn't stop me waking up to the sound of someone else's alarm at 2am!Morning came around, and luckily, having had the same morning schedule 7 days a week meant that I got up at around 7AM - 8AM. Perfect time as most hawker shops should start opening soon! And here are more foxes!I circled the stalls at Chinatown Complex, wanting the 1950s cafe I went to last time. I couldn't figure out why I couldn't find it, until after my third lap I realised it was closed. Maybe it's closed on Mondays? That meant I had to find some other food to eat. I also did a round of Maxwell Centre, and in the end went back to Chinatown Complex and tried out the vegetarian shop.Time to do the point and choose thing! I ended up with noodles, tofu, soy "chicken" thing? And hopefully that white stuff was radish cake. I said no to extra soy sauce, and I think the lady thought I was weird for saying so! However it had enough saltiness as is, and was actually rather enjoyable! Man, the food here is so simple, so cheap and so good!My final mission was also supposed to be impossible. When I had heard Kurasu Singapore opened, I thought I wouldn't have the chance to try it since I hadn't planned a Singapore visit. But hey, when opportunity presents itself... I had to get this cafe when it opened at 9AM, try all the coffees I needed to, and then get to the airport as fast as possible to check in for a 12PM flight. Okay well, it was made slightly easier because I already had my boarding pass and my luggage was automatically being transferred cross planes.This is such a nice space! It wasn't too difficult to find Odeon Towers, but my GPS wasn't playing nice this visit so it did take some fiddling and old school map orientation efforts to get to all my places this visit. In addition, Kurasu is located on level 2 of an open office, rather than an actual shopfront.Like all Japanese cafes, Kurasu has a lovely and clean aesthetic. Lots of Kalitas and nice glassware! Single O's Reservoir blend was great as an espresso, and the filter by Mount Coffee was quite nice too! Would have loved to spend twice the time here to really take everything in!But alas, it was airport time, where I actually had another goal. Last time I visited I had some great beef tendon noodles with a really good flavoured sauce, but I couldn't find it again. Maybe it was a different terminal? So I settled for this other cantonese place and ordered similar, but this didn't quite taste as amazing, but was good feed before my flight.Man, Singpore is so cool! I really should come back and explore things like the art gallery and surrounds. Maybe even pay more attention to Suntec City and Raffles. Plus maybe even actually save up to enjoy Burnt Ends!!But different adventures are lined up for me in the upcoming year, hopefully!

Singapore adventures - land of the green, humid and beautifully predictable rain patterns

Okay. Now that I've settled down a bit, I'm going to do my best to recount my Singapore, Japan and Sydney adventures.This will be a very long post I think, considering it's the first time I've been, and because there's 72 pictures without coffee and stuff. Here goes nothing!I've wanted to go to Singapore for a while, and what better reason to go than a stopover while on the way to Japan. I wasn't sure exactly how many days I'd need there - all I knew was that I wanted more than an 8 hour overnight stopover. It turns out 4 days is about right, one more day would have been good too. The main reason being, there's only so much you can eat in a single day!The first thing I noticed as soon as I entered the airport was that it was green. There were plants in the airport! And it turns out there are plants outside the airport too! It's such a green place! The humidity wasn't too much of a shock to the system considering Sydney was stupidly humid earlier. In fact, I ended up really liking how the humidity changed throughout the day because it made the rain predictable. I think that was one of my favourite things about Singapore! Does that make me weird?For day one, I'd already marked a cafe to go to - Common Man Coffee. What I hadn't realised was that cafes here open late. By late, I mean that Common Man opened at 7:30am. I'm so used to cafes in Sydney opening anytime between 5am - 6:30am that this actually made me deliberately shift my waking hours. The coffee stuff will be in a separate post, so I won't elaborate too much more on it here.Instead, let's talk about the streets! Isn't this a great chicken? It was on my way towards Chinatown, and it looked absolutely fantastic. Loved it so much!There are so many temples and mosques here! They're all awesome looking!Need to know how to use chopsticks? Don't worry, there's a mural in the Chinatown Complex that shows you how! It was time to start looking at the different hawker markets here. Since I've never really walked through these kinds of places by myself, it was kind of overwhelming to see so many stalls selling similar things! I had no idea what half the stuff was!Yeah, that's some Mi Goreng just hanging in bags.These bananas look awesome for cooking with!Alright, time to actually figure out how to eat at these hawker centres. I ended up in Little India after first exploring Chinatown. I also wasn't sure what I wanted, but the places that sold prata looked pretty good. I wanted some tasty roti, so I went to one of them and asked for whatever tasted the best. They recommended the banana prata. Me being me, I have no idea if they just said that cause it was the most expensive prata (at $3 lol), or if it was because it's actually popular. Turns out it didn't matter. This was delicious! And with that curry sauce thing too! Oh man I didn't realise that banana and curry works! Delicious stuff! But it turns out the coconuts are expensive though, I think the one here cost $3.50, so I stopped buying coconuts and just tried random things like cendol, soursop juice (which is like sour custard apple to me) and good old sugar cane juice.The prata by itself wasn't enough, so I decided I should try something else that I was curious about - fish curry. You can't imagine how unbelievably happy I was to see this served as a mess on paper. It was awesome!!! I haven't had food served like this before (not even in Cape Town except maybe the braai I had there), and it was incredibly fun. The curry was borderline too spicy for me, but I kept eating as much as I could. I wasn't surprised that I couldn't handle the heat though - but it's just so good to have things that I usually wouldn't eat at all!There was a guy sitting near me who ate something similar with just his hands. I was impressed! I wish I had been game enough to do the same, I felt like I was being too tidy by eating with a fork.Look at the pretty peacock!Next up, Clark Quay, where it felt very touristy with its shiny shopping complex. That being said, there were some cute things like this love heart of padlocks. Someone must really love Milo. Well, Singapore loves Milo. And Horlicks. The drinks of "Milo dinosaur" and "Horlicks dinosaur" were everywhere! I'm not quite sure what they are exactly, but I was very amused by it. I didn't feel the need to try it since I know what Milo tastes like.Yeah, I decided it would be fun to get my palm "read" by this novelty machine. Especially because it was an Egyptian theme. Was it accurate? I don't know, except that I always carry my passions to excess, because that's how I am!I had originally planned to visit the Skypark on day three, but since the weather was good and I didn't really have anything else to do, I figured I may as well tick this on my list in case something came up later.Turns out my sensor was already pretty dirty, hence you can see weird things in the above skyline. Whoops! I think I managed to clean it out after I noticed.That's the infinity pool. The thing I agonised over because I figured it'd be nice to watch the sunset from the pool. But looking at it from the normal observation deck, I'm really, really glad I didn't fork out insensible amounts of money to be able to use it, because it actually didn't look enticing at all. And far too many touristy looking people.You can see the super trees from here!Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only person who takes pictures of random stuff on the deck itself instead of the skyline. I also took pictures of the plants on the bins.I had a bit of a giggle out of this since I'd just discovered phoneception. Does this really go on forever????Sunset!! I zoomed for the clouds because these ones actually look really cool. I see a puppy and his dragon friend riding off into the sunset.I gotta say, I actually hate the time between 30 minutes before official sunset, to the time it takes for all the lights to come on. It's the most painstaking wait ever! It looks nice though, but I was getting hungry.Still not too used to all the hawker food stuff, I instead visited a place that had the same vibe, but not in a centre. This was a porridge place that looked really popular with the locals, so I figured I'd give it a go. Immediately the frog caught my eye, and I knew I wanted it. It's been a very long time since I've eaten frog, so this was the perfect opportunity! A small clay pot was $8 (and I thought that was expensive!), with a side of porridge being 60c extra. Oh. Wow. I loved that frog. And what was more surprising, I loved that porridge! I didn't know it could taste so good! I wanted this every night afterwards! But when on a short trip, I didn't really want to have the same thing twice. But this was so good! I would go back to Singapore just for this!Day two. Apparently, this is one of the best Hainanese chicken rice. I'd scoped out this place on day one and didn't realise it was closed. Yep, there's still a queue for this. I got the small serving (I got small servings of everything everywhere so that I wouldn't get full and not be able to eat more), and it looked pretty decent sized to me! But since I've never really had this kind of chicken rice before, I had no idea if it was supposed to be good or not. I didn't like the chicken because it was overcooked for me. The rice, on the other hand, was pretty delicious since it had so much flavour. The chilli sauce was far too spicy for me. I know that sometimes I can just tell if something's really good even if I don't really have a baseline, but it's not the case for chicken rice. No idea why.Yeah! Wet markets! I love them! Look at these frogs!!! Aren't they so tasty looking???I love action shots. But they're so hard to get just right!Yep, you can buy stingray out of the tank too.I kind of wish that I had money and a kitchen when I went travelling. Not just a simple hotel kitchen either - one where I actually have space to be able to prep stuff and with proper equipment. I'd love to buy these things and just experiment!Since I had a restaurant booking that night, I decided to do a sweep of Marina Bay sands. It's just... so big and fancy! A lot like Dubai. You can even get a rowboat for inside the complex? And there's an ice rink!However I think the prettiest things are actually outside the complex.After my little exploration, it was time to head off to one of the most expensive restaurant experiences I've had so far at Waku Ghin.And the Helix Bridge at night. This was me playing with angles and long exposure. What's really cool about this bridge is that it's actually a double helix? Because the floor has lights that say A T G C - so I nerded out for a bit there.Day three, and the pains of late opening cafes hit again. I thought Candour opened at 8AM, but as I walked past, I saw the sign saying they opened at 9AM. So I had an hour to kill. I randomly decided to visit a shop and try a traditional Singaporean breakfast, since that was on my to do list. This was the most confusing thing ever. I received a tacky plastic blue mug, two plates, a spoon, toast, and coffee. I was lucky that I had a rough idea of what the breakfast was supposed to look like, since there's a place in Perth that sells the same thing (minus the coffee), but it costs $13! No thanks. I'll pay $3.50 instead. Just not at a random place like here though. My eggs weren't fully cooked; half the white was still clear. The kaya toast was ordinary. The coffee was like what I used to make as a kid. Instant coffee with milk and two sugars.I was terribly confused and disappointed by this breakfast.Later in the day though, I was in Bugis and my day was made much better by way of radish cake! Finally, a place where there was a line for radish cake! I had no idea what the difference between black and white were, I thought black meant that the actual radish cake was black. It also said sweet and I wasn't interpreting that correctly; I thought it was dessert type sweet rather than just a sweet and savoury thing.This was the white one. Again, small size and it was a decent serving for me.Yay more street art! This was the city of Newton, hence there's a... Newtown's cat? Instead of Schrodinger? Who knows. I was here to check out the hawker centre here, but it didn't seem too impressive compared to the ones in the city?Well, since I was here, I didn't want to waste the trip. So off to the botanic gardens I went! And the first thing I see? A black swan. Am I back in Australia??Those squirrels are fast. And impossible to shoot because it's so dark in those trees!This fellow, on the other hand, was absolutely gentlemanly (or gentlewomanly?) and wasn't camera shy at all.Alright. I had a dilemma. I had no idea what to eat for dinner. I'm simply not used to the cuisine here so I had the problem of not knowing what I wanted/liked that was available. I ended up at People's Place complex or something, and after doing two sweeps, I just joined the place with the longest line. Which happened to also be a line of old people. The most interesting thing about exploring the hawker markets is the age demographic. It's all old people! No young people and only a few tourists. I wasn't even sure if this stall was selling anything that was on the signs, because everyone in the line was just ordering what was in the bain maries. I could figure out what some of the stuff was, but no one was ordering some of what I liked. So by the time it was my turn to order I simply pointed at things that other people had ordered before me that I recognised! So I ended up paying $2.50 for this green veg, cabbage, and sardines in tomato sauce on rice. Not bad, I was very impressed with myself for being so thrifty! As out of depth as I was with this whole hawker food thing, I was genuinely happy with eating delicious things for so cheap. In fact, I didn't want to go to another expensive restaurant or even fork out money for food at the cafes here anymore! Anything that was even the tiniest bit hipster or classy just seemed needlessly expensive.But two veg, two sardines and rice didn't fill me up too much. I'd found a tiny stall that only really spoke chinese and I ended up buying some duck giblets and tongues (which were absolutely delicious but too spicy for me!), but I wanted more. I was craving that frog porridge again. It was just so good! In fact, by now it was my favourite meal of my Singapore trip (Waku Ghin doesn't count since it's a different class entirely).Thus I returned to the porridge place. But I put extra effort in myself to order something different, because I'm all about trying new things. I'd seen so many places sell "bee hoon" but I had absolutely no idea what it was, and couldn't even figure it out with the pictures. So, I had to order it. A fish head white bee hoon. A what??? I didn't even figure it out as I was eating it so I ended up googling it!Turns out it's just rice noodles in soup! So it wasn't as interesting as I thought it'd be, but at least now I know!Plus I really enjoyed the chicken feet since it's been ages since I've had them!Finally, my last day in Singapore. After my brother saw my confused post about the Singaporean breakfast, he recommended I go to a chain to have some again. But against his advice, I instead went to a stall I saw at the Chinatown Complex. And good thing I did! Wow. This was the complete opposite of my earlier experience. There was already a line before 8:30am, and although most people were only ordering coffee, I still had a good feeling about this place.Oh yeah. The best. The best for only $3.50!!! Look at the toast. JUST LOOK AT IT. Do you see that even layer of butter? And that perfect coloured toast? That is how it's done. Oh yeah. It tasted SO GOOD.And those eggs? PERFECT. Ok so the one in the shot was like, 1% over but the other one was perfect. I can't really fault that. It was so enjoyable!!!And then the coffee. This was a real coffee. No, not specialty coffee. I'm talking what people in Singapore drink. I felt this tasted exactly like what Singapore is. That's the difference. Specialty coffee tastes of hipster and privileged. This, this tastes real. It tastes of what life is like here. And that's why I enjoyed it so much. I had originally ordered this as a black coffee, but received it with sweetened condensed milk, and I loved it - in fact I think I liked it better than if they'd actually given me black coffee!If you're in Singapore, you must come to this place for breakfast. And have the frog porridge too. Those two are the absolute highlights of the trip.Lunch time came around, and I wanted to give chicken rice another go. I wanted the place with the Michelin star, but for some irrational reason I decided I would skip the humid conditions of the hawker centre and instead go to the Hawker Chan restaurant for its air conditioning and lack of crowds.I shouldn't have done it.Hawker food gains flavour from ambience. Maybe I sound crazy when I say it like that, but I believe it. The food didn't have the same charm. As soon as I picked up this tray and walked it to my table, I realised my error. This had to be eaten in a dark, humid place with all the aromas of the stall and its neighbours. It had to have all the people crowded around. Otherwise, the experience is lost.Still, it wasn't a bad dish. I liked the chicken here way better, it was cooked better. Still not the best chicken I've had, but ok. The rice on the other hand, I didn't like. Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice did it better. Oh well!Yeah, I was stuffing myself at this point because it was my last day. So here's more radish cake! This time, the black version. Oh yeah. This tasted so good! I enjoyed it so much more than the white version! I don't even remember what the yum cha places in Australia do for radish cake, All I know is that this was delicious.Finally, Gardens by the Bay. There was a dinosaur feature going on, so here's me pretending an ankylosaurus is photobombing my picture of the supertrees. Also, it was raining, so the supertree walk thing was closed.These cannonball trees are amazing.On the grass I float, dreaming.And some mochi taiyaki, because it was novelty. It was so-so.Oh, I forgot to talk about durian. I forgot that Singapore has durians, so it amused me that there are "no durians allowed" signs on public transport! That was hilarious. I really wanted to eat some though, but hadn't done any research to know where to get the good stuff. Instead, I found some durian ice cream from an artisan stall rather than a generic touristy looking shop in Chinatown. It stank like durian and tasted a bit like raw onion. I think I stank of it for the rest of the night! But it was a great experience!And that marks the end of my Singapore trip. Shiny rooster apparently had the same schedule, as it was no longer there on the street on my last day, and later I found it deconstructed a little bit further along the road. Bye bye Singapore, bye bye shiny rooster!  

Waku Ghin

Finally. Just under 6 years after my first fine dining experience at Tetsuya's, I finally made it to Waku Ghin. Technically that makes it the restaurant I've had on my wishlist for the longest! I almost didn't go ahead with the booking though. I knew that it was potentially expensive, but I didn't expect it to be Noma level expensive! At 450SGD plus tax and service charges, it would be my second most expensive meal to date. But, I had to go, because it closes my Tetsuya loop.First of all, the booking process was essentially the same as that of Tetsuya's. I emailed them, they emailed me back, I filled in my credit card details, they secured me a table. Now it was just a matter of waiting.Then on the 28th of March, it was finally time to trek to Marina Bay Sands and check out the amazing complex. It turns out even with instructions, I'm bad at navigating indoors. It took me a few goes to finally get to the elevator that went up to the restaurant floor. Then, I was somewhat baffled because Waku Ghin's door wasn't open so I didn't see that there was a door! I walked all the way around and back before realising there was a handle and that all I had to do was push.As I walked in, they greeted me by name. I was a little suprised by this, but then figured they were able to deduce this by the fact I was dining solo, and because I booked the earliest time. I was lead into a small room that seated about 5-6 people, in front of a shiny, super clean hot plate which looked a lot like we were going to experience a teppanyaki style dinner. Being alone, I decided it was a good idea to ask if I could take pictures. They said yes, just no flash photography or filming. They also brought a bag hook over so that I could place my bag somewhere.The first thing I notice after I'm seated? Look to the right. See that stem? See how gorgeously thin it is? Yeah. It's a Zalto. But they took it away when I ordered a mocktail :(That being said, the mocktail was delicious! I spotted a virgin bloody mary, and decided to give that a go. Usually these are too spicy for me, but this one didn't have peppers added to it, so it was totally drinkable! I had made a really good choice, too. Being a more savoury drink, it felt more appropriate to have this with my meal instead of a sweet drink. The salt rim on this just added to the moreishness! I really loved this and wish all restaurants had a savoury mocktail!At this point I was also given some reading material since I was dining alone. Uh, yeah, ok. You're seeing that right. They look like fashion/female-centric magazines? Did they just profile me? Did they assume I would enjoy these? What would they give solo male diners? Was there some sort of tech magazine that maybe I would have found more interesting?It definitely threw me, but I was also quite bemused. It could be the culture in Singapore? At Cumulus Inc, I was offered a newspaper and a cookbook. At another restaurant in Adelaide (Cos), I was offered a newspaper. I'd say the newspaper is generally a safe choice. Plus, who needs to read books when you can study the decor, even when the chefs aren't in front of you.And here's the real eye candy. Today's catch, presented to us by the chef. The lobster, sea urchin and abalone here were visibly alive, with all of them still moving. If I remember correctly, it was sea urchin from Hokkaido, Canadian lobsters (the chef was adorable for pronouncing it "Canadia"!), Australian abalone, and botan shrimp from... somewhere. The box was then taken back into the kitchen for them to prepare for us.I noticed that again, this felt very formal, just like at Tetsuya's. I couldn't pick out if it was just me though, since usually I gauge a restaurant better when I have a dining buddy. It just felt like the chefs would come out, do stuff, then run off to hide behind the kitchen again. The waitstaff, on the other hand, always appeared from behind and were quite silent, so I felt that was quite sleek and organised. If they were able to manage an open kitchen, maybe that would be better for me.

Carpaccio of flounder with bitter salad

And woosh, this dish magically appeared from the silent waiters that approached from behind. Unnerving, but cool! And what a lovely little dish this was! I didn't find the salad bitter at all even though it was radicchio, I think that could be because it was marinated. Quite nice!

Marinated botan shrimp with sea urchin and oscietra caviar

And bam. Waku Ghin's signature dish comes out blazing in its self contained luxury. Those ingredients! Shrimp, urchin, caviar, all served with a mother of pearl spoon. This was a creamy, sweet, salty delight! The couple sitting next to me also used the spoon, but were still using their chopsticks. I'm pretty sure they were told why the mother of pearl spoon was to be used though. Anyway, I could definitely enjoy this one everyday.

Next, out came a lovely shiny copper pot, and a plate of lobster. The hot plate turned on, and we watched as the chef started preparing this for a few courses in.

Even this clear broth looks so good! It was also brought out to heat up for a future dish.

 Twice cooked Scottish bamboo clam with olive and garlic cream

A fork and spoon were placed at our table just before this dish came out, but both the diners next to me and I missed the fact we were supposed to use the cutlery until after they took it away. It just seemed easier to eat this one with chopsticks. I really love the texture of the clams, but when do I not love clams! The love flavour was nice too. The green sauce around it was parsley oil, but I think even with a spoon, I wasn't quite sure how to make it stick to the food, so mine remained mostly untouched once I'd eaten the clams.

Now the plate kingfish came out, ready to be cooked in the broth and then plated up. I think the experience of being able to watch the chefs cook this was great. It wasn't flashy teppanyaki - it was all really refined, clean, minimalistic motions to simply prepare the food and serve.

Do you spot that yuzu? Yes, yuzu! How exciting!

Shabu shabu of buri with endive and rocket

Oh the yuzu zest was so light and aromatic! I loved the smell of this! And the kingfish was so nicely cooked - because it was just done, all the fat in the fish was soft and retained its flavour. It kind of felt like warm, cooked sashimi, which I enjoyed!

Just because I can, here's another gorgeous copper pot. How is everything so shiny in here? It's amazing to look at.

When your abalone is being cooked in front of you and then sliced, oh man, why would anyone need those magazines from earlier? This is mesmerising stuff!

Tasmanian abalone with fregola and tomato

This was beautifully simple. After being told this was fregola, tomato and basil, I was like, oh yeah, this is nice, simple and homely. Yet the flavours were so powerful! And the fregola was the perfect texture! It was al dente the way I like it! I think it may have been slightly harder than maybe what some people prefer, but this is perfect for me! It just absorbed the flavour of the soup so well, it was clean, it was flavourful, and just so good! This was my favourite dish of the night - the abalone made it even more awesome but I'd be happy with just the pasta and sauce.

Oh, is that board what I think it is? Am I gonna get some freshly grated wasabi?????

Bread roll time! But with no other condiments yet, I waited to see how we were going to eat this.

Braised Canadian lobster with tarragon

Remember that lobster and the shiny copper pot from earlier? Well it was finally ready. Those were some decent sized lobster chunks, in a lovely tarragon soup! And now, that's what the bread was for. Eat the lobster, then mop up the sauce with the bread. Who needs butter when you have it incorporated into the soup, which is just asking to be all soaked up!

And look, I was right! Wasabi!!! Real wasabi! This was going to be exciting. Either he didn't mention where the wasabi was from or I wasn't listening, so I dared to ask him where it was from. It was Japanese wasabi, but I don't remember the region. I don't know why I asked, though I think I was just curious as to whether it was Tasmanian or not. Apparently this Japanese one was less intense.

Is this one of the cutest, smallest spoons ever??? This was given to us in preparation for the next dish. It's a citrus soy dressing.

More good stuff. Look at that wagyu. Just look at that marbling. Oh yeah, we were in for yet another treat!

Look at the salt, pepper and sizzling!!!

That level of cleanliness. Amazing.

And the best action shot for the night. I can't believe I actually got a nice shot out of all that, I spent a good portion of the night trying to capture movement because they work with so much precision it's amazing! This is the one I'm most proud of, though I still didn't get the picture just right since I should have angled the lens just a little higher so I didn't have to crop nothingness out of it.

But seriously. Hands. Knife. Reflection. It's just so achingly gorgeous!!!

Japanese Ohmi wagyu from Shiga prefecture with wasabi and citrus soy

And this is how the whole dish came together. Do you see that tiny wooden spoon in the dish of citrus soy in the background? Yeah, background is where it stayed. I mean it was nice, don't get me wrong. The flavours were great. But compared to the simplicity and perfection of the wasabi and beef pairing? It didn't stand a chance. That wasabi was delicious, it had the normal burning that comes with wasabi paste/mustardy things, but it also tasted like a real vegetable. It was the texture and secondary flavours that made it really enjoyable, so I pretty much slathered as much as I could take of it on the beef. We were also told to keep the beef rolled up and not to try and open it out to eat it. That deliciousness was great!

I ignored most of the shaved shallots there, but the dark green patch of vegetable intrigued me. I'm pretty sure it looked like some variant of sea blight, and I was inspecting it so intently that the chef then said that it was a coastal vegetable, so it might taste like seaweed but is actually found on land. So I'm pretty sure it might be sea blight!

Steamed rice with snapper, consomme

Yet another dish that reminds me of Quay's mud crab congee! It all comes back to that dish! This was a really nice light consomme, but I think I was getting full at this point and didn't actually want to eat all of the snapper. Yeah that's right, I enjoyed the rice but didn't like the snapper as much? I just found that it didn't stand out, maybe because I'd gotten my fill of protein.

Gyokuro

Green tea. Such a simple palate cleanser! This was brewed very differently from what I'm used to - it was done at a very low temperature of 30 - 40 degrees celcius over a long time, so that it had a very bold, seaweed, grassy, umami, seaweed flavour. I've never fully been able to enjoy Japanese green teas because they are more savoury than Chinese green and white teas, but this was great since we had so many strong flavoured savoury courses.

Tea leaf reading, anyone?

This was a terrible picture, but I'm posting it because at the end of the savoury courses, we were then moved to the dining area for dessert. As always in these kind of establishments, the chairs face towards the view. If you weren't paying attention, this kind of looks like the Sydney Harbour Bridge? Which then reminded me of Cafe Sydney. Anyway, dessert was now going to be served.

Japanese musk melon with Cointreau granita and fromage blanc sorbet

I didn't realise the waiter was saying "musk melon" mainly because I don't hear that very often so my ears weren't attuned to it. As a result, the fragrant flavour of the melon was even more refreshing! While I enjoyed this, nothing about it stood out too much.

Chocolate fondant with coffee and peanut

What a cute trio of desserts! The chocolate fondant was super cool, when I opened it, this lovely dark chocolate sauce oozed out of a perfect sphere of chocolate cakey thing! I was very impressed. The peanut mousse was also super light, as I find most peanut/peanut butter things to be too heavy, and the coffee ice cream had a nice flavour! Also, there were three cubes of cakey things around the desserts which were also dense, moist delicious bites!

Petit fours

Wow. These petit fours are probably the best I've had in a long time. Usually they are a bit of a let down (except the Rockpool Bar & Grill caramel puff things, they are still my favourite addictive things!), but each one of these was really tasty! I don't actually remember what each of them was, but the flavours and textures were spot on! The last one at the back was a champagne truffle, and that I was comparing to one I've recently eaten from a local chocolatier (Sue Lewis) which had spot on flavours, and this one wasn't too far off the mark.

Yeah, this was definitely a strong finish to a great night.

Jing earl grey to top it all off. Very light, smelling nicely of bergamot. Definitely a good choice since most restaurants still fall far behind on coffee. Plus, I did it mostly out of amusement too, since my Sydney trip involved my brother asking "what kind of tea and coffee do you serve?" at the restaurants we went to, with the answer being "oh, just the usual selection" without actually being described what teas and coffees were available or the brand. Do restaurants maybe not put as much detail into this because customers also don't ask for that much detail? It's still mind blowing that we put so much effort into curating wine lists with vintage, provenance, process, etc but that this doesn't happen with tea or coffee, and you really only get that level of enthusiasm and knowledge at specialist coffee and tea houses.

My dinner was finished at pretty much right on 8pm. And since I was here, I asked the waitress if the light show was going to be on soon. She seemed to be unsure as they were setting up for another performance right outside, but then, a few minutes later, there it was! Those flashes of lights to indicate there was indeed going to be the light performance!

I couldn't hear anything though, so as I was fixing up the bill, the lady said that it was better for me to enjoy it outside as the lights were accompanied with a song. 600SGD later (the total bill was just under $550 but I rounded it up with an extra tip), I headed out and enjoyed the "after dinner entertainment" that reminded me of the Vivid festival back in Sydney.

Overall, I'm really glad I went ahead with my booking. It was an incredibly steep cost, which reminded me that Australian fine dining is very cheap, which makes me feel incredibly lucky to be able to enjoy these experiences. I also enjoyed this style of having the chefs cook in front of you, with amazing precision (hands. knife. reflections.), though I think I realise that I like a more casual atmosphere (it was deathly quiet and there were only two other diners with me at the chef's table). I love that I'm able to experience all this high end stuff as well as still enjoy all the cheap things too (I was really glad that the rest of my Singapore trip was full of street food because that's some tasty stuff!).

Now to save more money to tick more restaurants off my list...