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...
Cirrus
There are two seafood restaurants that are quite noteworthy at the moment - Cirrus, and Saint Peter. For me, I'd read more about Cirrus, but Saint Peter seemed to be the more interesting restaurant even though I didn't know much about the history of the chef. In my Sydney visit, I wanted to go to Saint Peter more, but the location wasn't ideal for a dinner due to limited public transport options. In the end, I settled for a brunch visit to Saint Peter, and chose dinner at Cirrus.
Cirrus took Noma Australia's location at Barangaroo, but didn't take the kitchen side - that went to Lotus. It was interesting returning to this place, because looking out, the view was similar, but inside, it was quite different.
Alas, no more Zalto glasses! But those lamps look a lot like the ones they use at Rockpool Bar and Grill.
Being a family dinner, I could order wine so that someone else could drink it! I went for a red, as always. But instead of the usual light bodied stuff, the waitress recommended a sangiovese - 2015 Comte Abbatucci "Rouge Frais". It was actually quite nice!The other wine I was really curious about, was the set of orange and oxidative wines. It turns out the hipster movement now really likes natural wines, so there's a small selection here. I agonised between orange or oxidative, and I think it was the waitress that recommended the oxidative one - a 2008 d'Espanet "camille" grenache blanc blend. Or maybe I liked her description of it. I can't remember. Either way, I was pleasantly surprised when drinking it. Okay, I don't have a wine vocabulary, but basically I liked it because it wasn't sweet, it was dry enough for my liking and kind of reminded me of a light bodied red wine... that was white?
We opted for ordering off the a-la-carte menu, except I forgot to order bread! Oops. I'd been repeating it to my family because I definitely wanted bread, but then forgot when I was speaking to the waitress. Maybe I'm just too used to bread being included? It's more likely that I'm just forgetful.The Cirrus platter was rather hard to take a decent picture of, so here are some pictures of the oysters and scallops. The scallop tartare was great! We received a selection of oysters, but since there were six to a platter, we ordered two more oysters to be able to evenly split between four people. Other items included cooked prawns, kingfish sashimi and mussels.
This pretty dish was leatherjacket cheeks with seaweed and avocado. I loved the different types of seaweed on this dish!
When I saw whole flathead and chips on the menu, I knew it was a fish and chips dish. And flathead is an incredibly delicious fish! So here it came. That adorable ugly fried face! And that crumb. It was so good. Crunchy, salty and peppery all perfectly balanced. The chips were also fantastic, they were also crunchy and had so much flavour! However, even with all that fantastic, perfectly done stuff, I felt that a flathead special I ate at Cumulus Inc several years ago was done better - maybe it was the way it was cooked that made it so good. So yeah, there's nothing wrong with this dish, it's just that I was given a memory of something that I enjoyed more for some reason?
I appear to have lost the details of the menu, but I believe this was a hapuku dish. Either that or it was cod or toothfish. But it must have been hapuku, otherwise I wouldn't have ordered it? I was unable to get a nice picture of the actual fish since there was a lot of sauce covering this, as well as the pretty greens. For me this was the first time the hapuku didn't stand out; Cumulus Inc did theirs better, and so did Automata.
At this stage I was a little disappointed that the seafood wasn't blowing my mind, since this was a seafood restaurant. However, this side of roast swedes, black garlic and parmesan was amazing! The flavour on this was spot on, and the black garlic and parmesan added the umami I was expecting this dish to have. I could keep eating this! And that's when I realised, Yellow is the Brent Savage restaurant to visit. This place is showing off vegetables the same way I suspect Yellow does! So I might need to bump Yellow up my list for next time...
Look, a set of surgical instruments for each of us! And bibs! Basically, we were faced with a choice of getting the lobster or mudcrab. After much deliberation, we concluded mudcrab was the rarer special since lobster is everywhere. We took the 1.1kg crab which cost $190 per kilo. Ouch!
And here's what we got - a mudcrab covered in green goop! I thought this presentation was hilarious, it made the crab look so sad! This was an interesting crab because there was no meat in the shell, so we were scraping for the tiniest scraps. The impressive chunks of meat were instead in the massive claws! But we felt that there wasn't enough meat overall to justify the cost of the crab. The tarragon sauce with this was great, but it did get a bit salty, especially when we used the bread we were given to mop it up - it was just salt with more salt.
Finally, dessert! There were three desserts on the menu, and I planned to get one of each and share. My dad wanted four desserts to be ordered overall though, so we ended up getting two olive oil cakes, mainly because the olive oil cake I had at Kensington Street Social was so good and nothing like what I'd expected. This one didn't have the lovely light fragrance of olive oil, but still tasted good. That candied sorghum was awesome too! At first I thought it was just caramel popcorn until I remembered the menu description.
This was the fig, whipped ricotta and fennel granita. This was a fairly big dish (all the desserts were described as being 1.5 person sized), and reminded me of breakfast granola. Some of the fennel granita was salty and I didn't like it, but not all of it was salty. So I'm not sure what was going on with this.
Peach sorbet, verbena, and yoghurt custard. Also a larger dish than what we were expecting. The peach sorbet had a great flavour! But as this wasn't what I ordered, I don't remember too much about it. It was nice enough though that I don't remember anything negative about it.Overall, for a seafood restaurant, none of the seafood dishes stood out for me. The flathead and chips came close, and was definitely very good, but with each dish I ate, I was wishing for Saint Peter more and more. Perhaps we just didn't get the restaurant on a good day, it's hard to tell when I only visit once. The conclusion I made during this visit though, is that Cirrus serves up more "classic" seafood (I'm not actually sure exactly what that means), and that Saint Peter is more progressive (doing things like offal, fish bacon, eyeball chips etc) which is why I think I'd enjoy it more - I like the unexpected. Based on my experience on this night, it actually made me want to visit Yellow. Basically, this restaurant bumped Saint Peter right to the top of my "must visit" list, and has made me want to recommend Yellow as the Brent Savage restaurant to visit.
Firedoor
Ok, finally time to start posting about all my fantastic adventures! I really hope I haven't forgotten too much. I've decided I should do all the restaurants first, then Singapore, then Japan, and Sydney last. Maybe. Only because Sydney is already so familiar.Firedoor. The story with Firedoor is that when it opened, I added it to my list. Communal tables, cooking with fire, what more could you want? But then it never really made the top of the list for some reason. A year or so later, I got linked an article which claims Firedoor has one of the world's best steaks and was expensive, and aged in its own kidney fat. That didn't really get my curiosity going enough to bump it up either. It wasn't until I was looking at the cost of booking Burnt Ends in Singapore that I realised, I don't need to fork out three times as much for an expensive restaurant there, when I could get the "same" thing here for much less! And that's how I finally went to Firedoor.
We were seated about as far from the kitchen as you could get - the bar table and the communal table were both in the way. I should have asked for a kitchen seat, but maybe next time. It's both a good and a bad thing - watching chefs in action, but it'd definitely get very, very hot. My lens was barely long enough to be able to get the shot of the fire.My eye was on the pippies, and my ears were all over the mentioning of the marron special they had. I actually didn't think much of the $167 247-day aged steak on their menu, but I felt compelled to order it because who doesn't order steak in an acclaimed fire-based restaurant.
It turns out I forgot to take a picture of the bread that we ordered. Did Sydney restaurants change all of a sudden so that bread is now a menu item and is charged? Or is it because I've just been to too many degustation restaurants in the past so it comes included? I don't actually know, or mind... except that two half-slices of bread cost $8... that was a bit steep.Anyway, the marron! That meat was so tender, so nicely cooked! And of course I love coastal greens. It's been a long time since I've had karkalla! That finger lime was also delicious, though I kind of forgot to spread it all out with the available marron, since I was too busy enjoying the meat as is.
The humble spud - ash baked potato, dill creme fraiche, bottarga. Yeah, look at all those bottarga shavings! Of course you have to order a potato at a fire restaurant! This was an awesome version of baked potato which I believe maintained its firmness.
Pippie time! The garlic shoots and black bean flavour was really familiar to me, and went great with the pippies! There was a good serving of that too. What was really funny was seeing my brother arrange the shells in a really need way around his plate. I had thought about doing the same, but ended up just stacking the shells randomly on my plate. The shells are such pretty shapes, like butterflies!
Behold the special cutlery! That is a really interesting knife design. I love taking pictures of cutlery! And that water was from my mocktail condensating like crazy.
Oh yeah. Yeah. I've got a story to tell with this steak. Like I said, this place apparently served up one of the best steaks in the world, and I'd forgotten about that. I thought I'd ordered a normal, albeit super aged 500g on the bone black angus rib eye for stupid amounts of money.That's when I heard the bandsaw. It's been a long time since I've heard that high pitched, piercing sound of a saw going through bone, and it was a gorgeous sound. My head immediately popped up as I looked at the kitchen, and found the massive hunk of meat that the steak pieces were being sliced off. I've never seen that at a restaurant before. It was amazing! It may have been the head chef? Or just whoever was on at the time (I don't recognise Lennox Hastie by sight), but basically I think they noticed that I had started looking in their direction. I really hope I had a goofy looking smile, I honestly don't know! But I was just so happy when I realised our steaks were all being cut to order.It was also about this point that I started remembering that article about this legendary aged steak at Firedoor, and then thinking about how long our steak had been aged for, and how it looked just hanging there in the kitchen, in room temperature, made me think that we might just have ordered that same thing. Not only that, but it also hit me that we didn't want our steak done. So there must have been only one way this steak was served...And just look at it. Rare, and so rich in colour and taste! It was immediately like no steak I'd ever eaten before, and definitely had an aged, gamey flavour. It was actually really impressive! My brother noted that different parts of the steak tasted different. I didn't really like the fat - the marbling was fine, but the actual fat on the sides was just a bit too funky for me, and I realised that the tingling I got on my tongue was similar to that of blue cheese (I don't know if other people get that sensation; I just happen to be quite acid-sensitive so that's how I remember it), and then the flavour started to make sense. I still couldn't eat all the fat though. But the rest of the steak was awesome! Funky, but awesome! It was well worth the money as it's not something you can easily get anywhere else. I'd definitely recommended it, but with a caveat that it's probably not something that everyone would like.
And finally, dessert. This is actually the tiniest iced vovo dessert ever! Full of raspberries and coconut. The waiter also told us that it'd be a small dish. I think it's good that it's small, because it means you can pack all the flavours into a single mouthful - I found that separately, while it was nice, wasn't too vovo-like, but as soon as I ate all the components together, yeah, it was definitely vovo. The coconut made it all come together with the raspberries.Even with the expensive steak, the bill wasn't all that much higher than what I'd pay at any other fine dining restaurant in Australia - which made me all the happier because I would have paid the same amount if I'd dined alone at Burnt Ends - I'm certain of it.YAY FOR FIRE
Adventures in Paddington
I really wanted to do a Saint Peter post, but I don't think I'll make it to a dinner service, so this post will be about two places: Saint Peter for brunch, and Victor Churchill.I can't remember exactly when Saint Peter started popping up on my radar, but its signature dish, oysters with blue scampi caviar, really caught my attention. Then once I saw the fish offal, I knew I had to go. However, I didn't really arrange a dinner since I was more interested in their brunch since it was equally unusual, and I hoped, to be more accessible.
So here I was. Turns out you kind of need a booking for brunch, which I had an inkling might happen, but I was hoping one wasn't needed, but if I were to be asked if a reservation was essential, I'd say yes. We were lucky enough to have a table for an hour, and since I saw Artificer post that Saint Peter was using their coffee, I decided to try it out. Their batch brew was not as bright and acidic, but that kind of explains the side of milk. An interesting approach, to serve just filter coffee. I kind of like it!
Okay. Yes, this picture has been shopped. I actually had to tone down the blue so that you can see all the different shades of caviar. When I tried this on my phone, I completely washed out the lemon so that it was almost white! That's how brilliant and bold this caviar is. Yes, it's tasty too! I was worried it was going to be too oceanic and briney but it actually was quite nice with the oyster. Because of its price though, I only put it on one of my two oysters. If I had the money, yes, I would put this $14.50 supplement on all my oysters!
Sea urchin crumpets! I found this to be a really interesting concept and wasn't sure it would work, since it would largely depend on the crumpet. I really enjoyed this; the crumpets, being house made, were not plasticky, and they were fried (I think), making them deliciously cripsy and therefore giving a complimentary textural contrast (can I use those three words like that?) with the smooth smooshiness of the sea urchin and its gooey umami.There was totally not enough urchin for the crumpet though!
Guyra Destructor Yabby scrambled egg toast! I love the name of this yabby because it's so adorable! It makes up for the fact that this day wasn't featuring the Donnybrook Marron scrambled eggs. But hey, when the crustacea is cooked this nicely, who cares! Plus there's that saying, two heads are better than one, right? When you think about it, you're forking out $38 for one slice of toast, a couple of eggs, and the rest of the money is going into these adorable creatures. Wow!So that's all I have for Saint Peter. I really want to come back and try the lemon tart and some of the fish offal that Mr Niland seems to be really good at preparing, but I am a little sad that I might not be able to... this restaurant would have to thrive the next three years for me to get another chance. So we'll see!
Since I was in the area, there was another place that I was meant to visit last time but didn't make it to - the glory that Victor Churchill. This kind of shiny is totally worth the trip - but bring a cooler bag! When there's what I think is a quarter cow greeting you, you know the stuff inside is good.
When I saw the stuffed pig ear terrine, I knew I had to get it. The downside to not planning ahead was that I had no way to take anything home, should I choose to buy things. The terrines were not suited for more than a couple of hours outside, even with ice, so what did I do? I bought the smallest amount the lady could cut - some pig ear terrine, a knob of saucisson, and a sliver of chicken liver pate - and ate them at a bench outside the shop! Why not, right? It's like a ghetto picnic with the best food ever. The pig ears were so crunchy, my favourite!
I could stare at butchers preparing meat behind a glass display forever...
And that chicken liver parfait with foie gras... oh my. If only I had money!Paddington is so shiny!