Our 13th
wedding anniversary (the wedding dinner one not the ROM one) is on 6 July.
KK said –
Let’s go eat at one of those restaurants where the food looks very small on the
plate and you don’t feel full when you’re done.
I knew exactly
what he meant. I had always yearned to be one of those fools.
I’m a happy hawker center person, KK is a slightly more upmarket café person, but don’t we
all aspire to eat some fine-dining mosh at least once in our lives? I've been meaning to since 2012, took me that long to take the plunge.
Moreover,
one of the most interesting books I’ve read was one on El Bulli and Ferran
Adria’s food inventions. For a while I craved foams and whatnot. Now I’d get my
chance to nibble at pricey food inventions, courtesy of KK’s wallet.
I searched online.
And I found it. My former boss, a highly-respected food critic, had also once
recommended this man’s food to me above all the other fine-dining restaurants in the country. This year, his restaurant ranks 32 on the
list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants, the only Singapore restaurant to make
it in.
I e-mailed
for a lunch reservation (dinner would have been excessive), I got a date a week
later (KK will have to take leave but hey it’s our anniversary), we had to pay
a $50 deposit to secure the table, for a meal that would cost nearly $500.
We turn up
half an hour early on the day, at 1130am, the first amongst a handful of
diners. The place is a recessed slice of white studded with French windows,
set back from the buildings on both sides like it’s not quite meant to be seen,
with a sprig of olive tree like a big decorative bonsai in front.
We step in,
slightly fearful that we’d be outclassed, or maybe jeans and sports shoes is
not allowed (it is). Inside, the first floor is all dark paneling, chandeliers
and mirrors. A black opague sliding door at the end reveals the kitchen, which
we are shown twice because it’s clearly an exhibition of Gattaca-ish
stylings. It’s a dark, glassy, futuristic space where a team of chefs
(numbering more than the diners I think) silently assemble their delicate creations in great concentration. The atmosphere is probably not unlike that
of a semi-conductor facility and its terribly impressive.
We are led
to the third floor – an airier lighter space which the waitress calls the “fun”
space - and given a prime table next to the chef’s personal library, where apart from cook books he also stores his raw pottery creations and sketches.
Do we have
fun? Um. Not quite. We don’t quite know what to do. We cringe at the thick silence,
eschew the wine (“warm water for me please, thank you”) and in what was the
ultimate faux pas, walked up from the table to try and search for the place to
pay before the meal was finished. (our
Japanese Waiter, a very prim and proper gentleman in a suit who precisely
recites the story of each dish before he serves it to us, raises an eyebrow as
we head toward the lift – We have not served you the petit fours, Madam, you
have not finished your meal.)
I honestly
had no idea. What are petit fours? Food Noobs that we are, we are likely not
able to fully appreciate what we are served, like how I as a Car Noob will
never appreciate how a Volkswagen is superior to a Lancer.
But it is
an experience. We are served like we have never been served before (different
sets of cutlery in different styles for every course, a towelette served on a
wooden dish looking for all the world like a dry round white biscuit until boiling
water is poured on it when it then springs open like an accordion) and we put
strange things in our mouth which have never been there and which do even
stranger things once in there.
* Towelette
Now I turn
to the food, which I will dwell on at length because this will be the last time
I’m eating like this. We are served nine plates. I give the official names,
then my food noob observations.
PLATE 1:
Seafood Tamara with Gluten Bun
That’s a translucent
carrot chip (finally! I eat a carrot chip! It’s sweet!) with salmon roe under,
sitting on an incredibly light and crispy puff which explodes in a shower of
warm crumbs in my mouth.
PLATE 2:
Abalone/Liver/Crispy Kombu and Prawn Head
* Abalone with purple things (don't know what) sticking out
* Prawn Head
This plate
which looks like a coral reef is put under my nose. It's the prettiest dish of the meal. The very thinly-sliced
abalone sits on a piece of crispy seaweed, I don’t know where is the abalone’s liver,
while the prawn head (where IS the head?) tastes like some sort of airy Japanese
keropok. The really good part is when I start tearing off the bland greens
lining the plate and stuffing it in my mouth. Along comes Mr Japanese Waiter to
clear our plates. KK asks, pointing at me – Are we supposed to eat that? Waiter
doesn’t blink – Not really, no.
PLATE 3:
Dry Aged Scallop, Textures of Mushroom and Tofu, Kombucha Granite, Vegetables
Demi-Glace
* The melt-in-your-mouth scallop
Lu would squeal. This dish looks like two cute ball-y creatures prancing on a meadow.
There’s the brittle ball of what tastes like onion ice-kacang on the left (KK
does not like the iciness), while on the right is a truly succulent springy
scallop, the flesh of which isn’t the least bit like the usual “strands”
texture of scallops, wearing a cloak of very artistically burnt (?) mushroom
strips. That powdery stuff is tofu powder, ground from a block of dried tofu
and I think the meadow is spring onion oil?
PLATE 4:
“Terre Et Mer” Gillardeau Oyster Tartare, Cured Lardo, Shima-Aji and Pork
Trotter Broth
Mr Japanese
Waiter announces – This dish is a very interesting combination of the sea
(fish) and the land (pork). Ah, so. The dab of paint is a salty, smoky puree of
onion and smoked eel, the pile in the centre is oyster with what seems to be
potato cubes covered with a white veil of something, the perfect tiny triangle
of seared fish with straight-cut sides (I’m very impressed at how each side of
the fish is exactly perpendicular to the plate) is apparently stuffed with
chicken. I cut very small pieces trying to find the chicken in the fish, but I
can’t. Maybe it’s blended in.
* Got chicken?
The dish also comes with a small cup of
spectacularly rich intense pork soup, so rich it feels like if you dripped it
from a spoon it’d drip slowly.
PLATE 5:
Burnt Beef Tongue Salad, Ruban of Butternut Squash, Warm Foie Gras Soup
The story for this is that it combines poor food (butternut) which takes centrestage as the star of the dish, and rich food (foie gras). This was
our favourite. Usually I hate pickles and those delicatedly-folded origami-ish
columns (no idea what the white dot on top is) have a definite whiff of
sweet/sour pickle about it. However it’s supposed to go with the bed of stuff
under, presumably the beef tongue although I can’t decipher the beef’s tongue,
and some crunchy bits. The waiter pours a rich foie gras soup into the plate. Everything
goes into the mouth at the same time. It’s intensely sweet, salty, rich,
crispy, crunchy, sleek, jelat, satisfying.
PLATE 6:
Salt Baked Poulet De Bresse, Grilled Leek Flower, Egg Noodles, Tasmanian
Truffle and Emulsion
* Chicken wrapped in the dark lotus leaf
This was the
big surprise. These sort of meals usually have some sort of surprise element,
whether it be from ingredients which have been turned into a completely
different form or unique combinations. The waiter first brings a small loaf of
black bread as long as my hand to our table and beams – “This is your main
course. Actually, your main course is chicken breast from France, which is the best
chicken in the world (like a showman, he then proceeds to cut the bread to magically reveal, in the cross-section, a perfect circle of chicken. He continues slicing
the bread). The chicken is wrapped in lotus leaf and baked in the bread so the flavor
is intense (he removes the bread and places one tiny piece of chicken on my
place). Enjoy.” He walks away with the bread and chicken which is still in the
two ends of the loaf, where it would presumably be discarded (no!!! I can dabao for the kids!)
We’ve never
had chicken like this, KK says it tastes and feels like ham, it's salty moist and springy. We don’t like the
egg noodle (chewy) or the leek flower (grassy) but hey, I had my foam! All three patches of it!
PLATE 7:
Porcini Crème Glacee, Milk Skin, Buttermilk Curd
Mushroom
ice-cream with crumbles (one spoon's worth) and on the other side, something sweet with what tastes
like sweet beancurd skin.
PLATE 8:
Carbonated Red Grapes, White Peach Parfait, Honey Ice Cream on Raspberry Ice
* What lies beneath
A sliver of
ice which really tastes like raspberry. sits like an ice-skating rink over a
cocktail of peach ice cream, raspberries and grapes. The grapes fizz when I
bite them. For me, because I’m not a fan of berries, the honey ice-cream wins
the day.
PLATE 9:
Petit Fours
The course
we almost missed, I’m glad we didn’t. A warm soft chestnut madeleine, kaya
toast macaron and a Dr Pepper lollipop which I was told was a specialty but
which I refused to eat because I hate cherry Coke and I hate lollipops. KK ate
mine.
* The chef behind, talking to another couple, as KK fingers the bill with an interesting expression of... resignation? The chef doesn't open the restaurant if he isn't in town, so he can cook / supervise personally.
2 comments:
you went to Andre! well worth it because the restaurant just earned their 2 michelin starts!!
ya we went b4 the stars were awarded :)
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