Kuriya Dining

We ate at Kuriya Dining at Great World City today.. quite a pricy place, starting at $35 a head for set lunches, so you get the picture. But celebrating Wing's birthday, so that's okay, of course.

Of course, someone pointed out - if it's such a fine dining place, why are we using disposable chopsticks? It's a very good question, which was answered by MC. Basically, from his 5 years' experience in Japan, all the fine dining restaurants used disposable chopsticks. Anyone can verify?

On to the food - Konniyaku(?) soba comes with a raw quail's egg.. how strange!


My own dish was sashimi...


accompanying a codfish teriyaki.

The main dishes were.. decent not fantastic, but the chawanmushi was wow!

Food: Bistrot du Boeuf Rouge

An excellent, excellent place in Geneva, near Paquis and the Hotel Beau Rivage. Here's one of those really cool chalkboard menus...



And that last dish? The Tournedos Passini?



Wonderful beef, topped with foei gras that melts in your mouth, topped with caviar (which was to me, only meh... )

Bistrot du Boeuf Rouge Geneve

Really, really wonderful beef and foei gras at this restaurant on the Rue de A. Vincent. Will post pictures once I'm home, forgot to bring my phone upload cable....

Some nice places to eat - and some not so nice

Three months of eating compressed into a single post!


This is Reif + James at Clarke Quay. Really small, exclusive restaurant, with an expansive selection of wines. Quite pricey, but I must admit the food was quite nice - look at that beef! The restaurant is not well lit and sits maybe 20 to 30 people at most, so if you like a feeling of exclusivity and intimate service, this is quite a good place.






This next one the Huang Jia restaurant at Kallang Leisure Park , which was rather more pricey. The dishes were very flavourful - very enticing for the first eat, but I'm not sure whether it would become boring after a second visit. All the dishes were quite good - but after a while I forgot to take photos... I was particularly impressed with the crispy chicken. Normally, the skin and the drum stick of the chicken is really good but parts of the chicken become too tough. But in this case, every part of the chicken meat remained moist and tender as well!

The out-of-focus piece at the back here - foei gras with a slab of suckling pig and the crispy pork skin - was fantastic - the flavours combined really well!

















I also liked this dish a lot - it's just a piece of scallop and a snowfish, but it tasted great... heh.

The restaurant is quite large, I'm guessing about 80-100 persons seating, max. What I really like about the decor is the seats, which are really comfortable and large chairs which you can recline in and really enjoy your food in. The restaurant has made sure that there's ample space for these large seats, reducing their capacity but helping to create a spacious, imperial, feeling.








On to a not-so-good place.

Finest Cuts at the basement of Central is somewhere between a butcher and a coffeeshop. There are all these appetising cuts of beef, lamb, and pork waiting to be purchased, and they have a small serving area - maybe 10 persons - where they can serve you your steak at about $20. For that price, you get what's pictured left - looks like NUS canteen western food right? The crime is not the dish decoration, though. It's that the beef is truly ordinary - for $30 I can get much much much better beef at Hogsbreath or Prime Society, so I'm never coming back here again...



Next up - Magma German Wine Bistro. As you'll see below, German food - ie sausages and beer. And in the name, German wine. Honestly - not very impressed, either with their pork trotters or with their sausages. The beer (see how happy we are?) was pretty darn good though, with a nice variety of beers to choose from. I'm curious about some of the non-standard alcohols they have, and next time I'm going to try the honey wine. Is that like mead, do you think?


























Rounding up.... Back to the ole trusty Dessert Hut, in this case at People's Park Center. Yummy ah Boling and other desserts at about $2.50 per bowl. Good stuff. Don't mind the queue, you'll get a seat soon enough...

Red House at Clarke Quay

Fantastic seafood dinner at just under $50 per head.... whahaha... The codfish with teriyaki sauce and the beancurd were wonderful. Have it under good authority that the custard prawns were delicious too, and the chilli crab was fresh-fresh-fresh.

On a side note, it seems like a lot of people have the (mistaken) impression that taking a 10% discount off the food bill before applying service charge and GST, is different from taking it off afterwards. Which leads to some strange miscalculations. It's probably linked to the knowledge that the bill -10% then + 10 % service charge +7% GST is not exactly 7% more than the starting bill.

More nice food : Cheese Fondue

Dripping, melting, yummy, cheese.... ..... *salivates*.
Oh wait. I already ate that.

Dolphin Restaurant

Beef steak, medium rare, at the Dolphin Restaurant at 81 Genting Lane, Everich Industrial Building. At about $30++ for 300gms of New York Steak, it's not cheap, just about the same price as Hogsbreath or Prime Society... And this despite the setting, which is the 7th floor of an industrial building out at Macpherson area.

Nonetheless, the beef is decent - at least they didn't overcook it and the meat is tender enough to be still worth eating. A decent choice on a Friday or Saturday night when all the town outlets are packed.. though it's closed on Sundays....

The Prime Society

Ate at a place at Dempsey Road today, called "The Prime Society". Sounds vaguely Bleach-like, no? The place seems quite posh - and in fact the service and prices are at the posh-level...


But the place doesn't take itself too seriously. Your placemats are these diagrams, ostensibly showing the cuts of beef, pork, fish, and artichokes.. take a closer look (click on the photos and zoom in!) and you'll see that a lot of the comments are pretty silly!



It's a good thing they have different types of mats to keep you entertained, because service is a little slow. We ordered three starters - prime caesar, portobello mushrooms, and calamari. All the dishes were pretty good. I liked the calamari because the squid was fresh and was springy without being chewy.. though Zeal felt the breading was not crispy enough. The portobello mushrooms are pictured here- somewhat after we started eating because I forgot to take a picture!



Here's my ribeye steak! At $36, very pricey, but excellent, fantastic taste. Today I found out the difference in taste between filet mignon and ribeye - which is that mignon is more juicy but also has a strange powdery aftertaste, which can be covered by the sauce to some degree (in this case my sister ordered bearnaise sauce). However, for me, I definitely prefer the ribeye, especially because I like to taste the beef itself without any sauce other than its own juices... And look at where I cut the beef, it's done medium rare really well!



Some more, other than the beef, the carrots, cucumber, mushrooms and potatoes are all very well cooked! The carrots, for instance, were crispy and maintained their taste well, while the seasoning on the fries was just perfect. I wiped out all the veggies - except the eggplant which honestly tasted and felt weird...

Definitely a place to go to eat beef. Try it!

Definitely a good place to eat! Go there for some

Nicest dinner place in Australia - Oliver's

Rather belated post - meant to make people really hungry! Anyway, this is Oliver's Australian Fine Cuisine, a really nice place which Georg over at the Nigana recommended to us. Address is 5/63 Abbott St, Cairns, of course.



By the way, this was where I popped the question... does the background look familiar?



Starter - bacon wrappen in chicken - I think! (My memory fails me - not surprising a month after having this meal!) I remember the skin was super crispy and the meat extremely tender, a fantastic combination.




My second course centred on a piece of egg tofu...



And the main course - three mini-steaks, complete with pumpkin sauce. The steaks' natural juices were already fantastic, savoury and full of the flavour of charcoal and beef. Then when you eat it with the pumpkin sauce, the flavour changes entirely and you're enjoying the beef texture with the sweetness of the pumpkin.



And you can see, medium rare really was medium rare - not like some other steakhouse I recently ate at. (But duh, pay peanuts get monkeys!)



Dessert - I honestly forgot what this was!



And here's our party of four with the boss, Mr Oliver Schreiber. Because Georg helped us book a table, he came over to chat with us, made a wine recommendation, and also talked with us about some of his personal life - like how he'd considered setting up a restaurant in Singapore at an earlier time. Sigh -- definitely our loss!



All in all, a really fantastic meal! Expensive too.. inclusive of a bottle of good white wine, we spent about $400 for four persons. But I thought it was definitely worth it!

Borscht Steakhouse - cheap, but looks like it's more worth it to pay for good steaks!

Eh.. Borscht, opposite Chomp Chomp at Serangoon Gardens. Set dinner at about $13, beef was quite tough and was not tasty or juicy. I think this is pretty much it for me in terms of cheap beef - better to head for the slightly pricier places in order to get a good steak!

Season's Reasons

Dinner at a restaurant called "Season's Reasons" at the basement of Raffles City. Not bad, and quite affordable - I think it was about $12 and there's a 15% discount for UOB credit cards.

Normally for this kind of place I would not expect too much - confluence of high rental and "low" price usually results in not-very-good food. But the pasta was of a decent quality and the chicken pieces were quite succulent. Not too bad, would definitely give the restaurant another shot.

Graze @ Rochester

Decided to walk-in to Graze@Rochester yesterday night for dinner with Key. By some luck, managed to get a table, and wow, the dinner was good. Rump steak was delicious, the white pudding was marvellous. Probably the next time will pass on the oysters and get a ribeye fillet instead of rump though.

SWA Restaurant

I mentioned quite some time ago that I was going to eat at the SWA Restaurant. Much delayed, but here's the pics! Separately, Qiwei informs me that this is his dad's favourite restaurant too!



This was the duck, which was really quite well done - very tasty and tender! Generally most of the dishes were done in a savoury, high-flavour, probably unhealthy but two thumbs up manner... such as the pork dish here...




Of course, some healthy greens are needed too! Cooked very well too, the firm-ness of the broccoli was just nice.




I didn't enjoy the chicken much, probably because I prefer my meat de-boned...




Here's the fish - wasn't fantastic, I normally prefer the sweet soya sauce gravy for the flavour, and this was lacking..



After the rave reviews I read earlier, the kway teow was a disappointment - tough and rubbery. I don't think it's as good as advertised!



Overall - meal was about $30 per head and food was decent. Service was normal for chinese restaurants (ie non-existent) and parking difficult.. Overall, was a little disappointed, but would not mind going for another try at a later date.


To recap, here's the contact details:
540-542 Macpherson Road, Singapore 368223 - tel number 67445009

Disappointed at Marutama

Was supposed to grab lunch at Marutama Ramen today, and had actually sat down and ordered! Several friends had commented that it was really good stuff... but some really bad customer service put us off and the bunch of us walked out..

And that solo guy sitting at the table for four - I hope you choked on it...

SWA Restaurant

Going to treat Nekki and PL at the SWA Garden Restaurant tomorrow. No 540-542 Macpherson Road, Singapore 368223 - tel number 67445009.

Peiling's recommendation, a Teochew restaurant. The reviews look really good... lol. Here's one by a food blog, and another by a blogger. The dishes look really delectable - and I'm looking forward to crab, calamari, broccoli and kway teow!

Hogsbreath

Had dinner at Hogsbreath at Vivo City recently - let's just say it serves fantastic beef at a decent budget!

Here's how the basic meal looks like at lunch - nothing special yet other than the overwhelming portion size.



and then, when you cut the beef (which you should have asked for medium rare), it's like this - juicy and delectable! It's not the Tavern, but it's pretty good!




and then finally - there's decent dessert too!



Well worth the price, try it out, near the Daiso in Vivo City.

Kyomomoyama

If you've been to Central, you would already have seen the Japanese floor - the one with Waraku, Tom Ton, Kyomomoyama, and also the upcoming Sun with Moon. One huge row of Japanese restaurants.

So I was eating in a large group at Kyomomoyama. First time into the place, which has a rather unimposing facade. The interior is done in an understated style that reminds me of Tatsuya.. see the central displays with the huge bottles of Sake?


The dishes are expensive though - the set lunches range from $12 to almost $30, and the individual dishes (other than the sobas and udons, which cost about $9) are generally in the $20+ range.



Some of my colleagues' set lunches - this is the tori karaage...



and the pacific saury. It looks really interesting, no? There was also a tonkatsu dish which tasted okay, but not spectacular.

For myself, I ordered a non-set dish. Normally the first dish I try is tonkatsu, but it just seemed kind of boring, know what I mean? So I ordered a hitsumabushi - grilled eel and egg ($21+++).



Not a complimentary picture, heh. The grilled eel tasted quite good, and the rice was fine. But the best part of the dish was the egg! It was just fantastic - a little bit juicy, and a little bit sweet, and a whole lot of tasty and delectable. It was cooked into this ultra-thin, delicate layer spread evenly all over the rice, and from my first bite I was pretty much hooked. I don't know if the dish was worth $20, but it was darn good!
(Note though: this dish comes with soup and chawanmushi, but the chawanmushi did not taste very good at all. Kind of stale tasting and powdery, somehow)

Overall, quite a nice place to eat, but pricey! Not as bad as Tatsuya though, definitely.

Changing Appetites

Key and I ate at Changing Appetites last weekend, at Marina Square, next to Carl's Junior. It smelled really good and the price looked reasonable...

The service was enthusiastic, but it pretty much fitted the casual atmosphere. In the sense that it was not really impressive.

So the food arrived, and mine looked like this.



Presentation was nice right? But the taste was lacking. The rice was dry and tasted worse than just plain Thai steamed rice. And the fish texture was a bit closer to dried wood.. I imagine, this is what healthy food tastes like. Now that I'm researching, the review I linked above said the same thing about the fish!

The vegetables were pretty fresh though!

We also ordered dessert, but I forgot to take a picture of the waffles. The waffles were really good though! The waffles themselves were tasty, went well with the ice cream, and both the strawberries and bananas were fresh and delectably delicious.

Overall, I would say the main courses were not up to standard, but the dessert was good. Plus, there's a special offer!



So, waffles! but avoid the fish here. At most I'll give it one more try, maybe try the burger and chicken fillet next time. If that's disappointing too, I'll probably condemn the place to just dessert...

Fu Qing Seafood Gourmet at Hindoo Road

This is a nice coffeeshop at Hindoo Road, HK-style zi cha. Ate there the other day, but didn't take pictures. It's not fantastic in that way, but the food just goes down easily - you take one bite, take another, and before you know it the dishes are gone. And it's quite affordable too, $10 per head gets you a good meal!

Hooked!

We'd actually meant to eat at Let's Clap but they were packed! Ah well, Rail Mall has plenty to eat, their loss! We headed onwards towards Ramen Ramen Ramen but got waylaid by this store menu!


Another Fish and Co clone? Well, the store decor is very well done. I liked the facing wall especially, check out all the fish!



The place is also very spacious - lots of space between tables, not like Manhattan and Fish n Co which are normally quite packed together.

There's also a very cute kids meal served in a plate the shape of a fish... Here's a picture of the smiley potatoes.



The sides were also pretty good, with scallop pictured here (though the pic looks a little disgusting, no? But it tasted quite nice, very fresh!) as well as fried mushrooms, jamba wings and other goodness.


On to the main course, fish n chip! In general, sis felt that the food was much less oily than Fish n Co - more healthy, less gelat. Key felt the same way, but actually we like the oily, buttery taste of Fish n Co...

The fish n chip comes with a choice of fish - dory, shark, or (more expensive) snapper. I went for the shark, since Key was getting the dory. Also because I'd recently been having some conversations with people where they tell me its cruel to cut the fin off the shark and let it go. So let's eat the whole shark?



Not much to look at, and frankly I'll never order this again. There was a weird powdery aftertaste which no one seemed to have - might be the shark meat itself. Not enjoyable.



And finally, waffles! Fruit was like the fish, very fresh and in large portion, and it was served with a generous helping of maple syrup. A bit toasty, but otherwise delectable.

Verdict: Price is probably very close to Fish n Co, just a bit cheaper perhaps. It'll be interesting to come back and see how their fish tastes like when they've mastered their craft.