Bachelor's Banquet - A Cookbook (Advetorial)

I only cook out of necessity (but it doesn't happen often), and I'm definitely not the best cook around (since I hardly ever do it cos the kitchen's so hot and oily and I hate slaving over the stove/oven when I could be vegetating infront of the TV while my maid does the cooking). I think I only cook when I feel very ripped off by restaurants, especially if it's a dish which I really really like and can't bear to pay the over-inflated restaurant price for. I have recently attempted a Lemon Chicken dish (cos it looked the easiest and I have most of the ingredients) from the cookbook Bachelor's Banquet, which was suprisingly very easy.

Lemon Chicken with Corn Relish

2 chicken thighs, deboned
¼ cup lemon juice
¼ cup rice wine vinegar
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon garlic, grated
Salt to taste
Olive oil
2 small radishes, thinly sliced
2 heads of fresh corn kernels
2 tablespoons lemon
vinaigrette (page 188)
Garnish
Microgreens
2 lemon slices, grilled

Lemon vinaigratte

Juice from 1 lemon

1 teaspoon lemon zest

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil

Large pinch of salt and pepper

Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl, whisk until thoroughly incorporated. Use immediately.

Lemon chicken

In a small mixing bowl combine lemon juice, sugar, vinegar and salt, mix thoroughly. Lightly salt the chicken thighs and sear, skin side down, in a medium skillet over medium heat. After 1 minute, add the lemon marinade and simmer for another 3 minutes, basting the top of the chicken thighs every few seconds. Flip the chicken thighs and continue to cook and baste with residual liquid for another 3 minutes. Remove and allow to rest.

Corn salad

Blanch corn kernels in boiling water for 1 minute remove and drain thoroughly.
In a mixing bowl combine the corn kernels, radish and lemon vinaigrette, mix gently. To assemble Spoon the corn salad in to a small bowl and place the lemon chicken over the salad.
Garnish with microgreens and a slice of grilled lemon.

I modified their recipe slightly - cos I was missing some ingredients (like the radish, and I used fresh corn instead of frozen corn kernels), I don't like chicken skin (that's why my chicken looks so pasty and white, and I think I slightly undercooked it) and I forgot to grill the lemon slice in the oven, but I think it still looks ok.

The cookbook is written by Nicholas (a Singaporean who was the marketing consultant and photographer for Martha Steward's living magazine) and Max (an Indonesian who was chef de partie at the Michelin 2-star restaurant Gordon Ramsay at the London hotel) when they were living in New York City

It was written for the mordern day bachelor, or at least, all those young people going overseas to study and who can't cook, since all the recipes are easy to prepare. They even have 2 pages with photos dedicated to 'vegetable cuts' so you'll never cut your vegetables wrongly again.

The other dishes from the book - Chicken Satay and Mint Rice Salad, Antipasti over Polenta, Salmon sashimi with Tobiko, and Raw Oysters. I've actually bought ingredients for the Chicken satay, but I'm too busy to cook it. I shall do it after my test this week. Their recipes are very simple, easy to follow, and have really great photographs for every recipe. I'm currently eyeing the Serrano Ham Salad, Panna Cotta, Rosemary Chicken with Potatoes. Can't wait for my copy to arrive so that I can make those dishes.

The book is priced at a very affordable $20 for the hardcover version, and $15 for the softcover. I think this is an ideal sending-off gift for those friends who are flying overseas to study. I am definitely going to get my brother (who has never touched a cooking pot in his life) a copy so that hopefully he won't have to subsist on maggie mee and fried rice everyday.

They are currently offering all readers a 15% discount when you pre order from their website http://www.bachelorsbanquet.com/.

Notice: Pre-ordered books will reach you before Sept 4, the date the books hit the stores.

Soprano

I was pretty sad that WAY wrote a review in the Sunday Times on the Peranakan place that I've been wanting to try at Biopolis, so when I called them up for a lunch reservation this afternoon, I was told that they were full and there wasn't a table till 2pm. Just 2 weeks ago, there were super empty at 1pm! And so we decided to try Colbar at Portsdown, but since we were so 'lucky', Colbar was closed. I was pretty scared tt we'll have to end up eating at Pietrasanta cos I've been there 4 times previously and I was looking forward to trying a new place. We chanced upon Soprano cos we were walking around the Portsdown area looking for other restaurants. It's run by the same management as Cicada, which is now closed. The restaurant just opened 2 weeks ago, and is pretty empty, probably because it's still relatively unknown.

Complimentary appetisers - caramelized onions, pickled onions, olives and crusty (rather hard) restaurant bread. I really like restaurants that serve iced water - especially if they refill my water quickly.

Sopranos has a rather interesting menu - it lists it's pasta based on the type of pasta, and in the same page, a whole variety of sauces. So it starts with spaghetti, linguini, squid ink linguini, penne, ravioli etc etc (I didn't really look at those raviolis behind the Ravioli stuffed with truffle paste page, cos I saw truffles and zoomed straight onto that page).

I tried Lunette al Tartufo (Moon-shaped Ravioli filled with Truffle Paste) with the Al Funghi di Bosco sauce (4 varieties of wild wood mushrooms in Creamy sauce) since I'm crazy over truffles. My ravioli was cooked just right, and each ravioli was stuffed with cheese and morsels of truffle. The truffle scent was not overwhelming, but I was still able to taste it in nearly every bite. For $16++, I felt that this was really worth it, especially since most restaurants charge a preimum for filled pastas.

Our waitress actually recommended having the truffle stuffed ravioli with the bolognese sauce, but since I don't eat beef, she recommended the next best sauce which was the wood mushroom. I think that the raviolis would taste great with a meat sauce - imagine the tomatoes and beef mixed with the cheesy truffle paste!

They have lots of other stuffed pastas, which are around the same price (<$20) - I'm eyeing the ravioli with pumpkin! There's also cheese stuffing, crab&lobster etc etc (Photo from itkz cos mine was too blurry)

Linguine al Nero di Seppia (Squid Ink Linguini)with the Al Cartoccio con Frutti de Mare sauce (Mixed seafood sprinkled with white wine, chili, garlic, parsley in tomato sauce wrapped in Cartoccio) for $15++. This was recommended by our server. The sauce was pretty spicy and tangy, and there were little bits of seafood such as baby squid, baby octopus, prawn, and clams.

It has to be eaten with great caution, since the squid ink splatters and I was pretty glad I wasn't eating this cos I was wearing a white top.
Squid ink linguini with the All' Aragostina sauce ($15++), which has a baby lobster, white wine, chili, garlic, parsley and tomato sauce.The 2 sauces tasted very different from each other, even though we thought that they would turn out tasting roughly the same.

White Profiterole, compliments from the restaurant. It's a profiterole filled with chocolate mousse and topped with some very sweet and creamy sauce. Actually, we didn't even intend to eat desserts cos we were so stuffed from our pastas (I was so full I could barely finish the last few pieces of my ravioli, even though it had truffles!). I found the profiterole too sweet for my liking, but then again, I was really full. Maybe I'll try the tiramisu next time - They don't really have a dessert menu - it's more of a refer to our daily specials for dessert.

The service here is quick, efficient and friendly. Our pastas came our pretty quickly - we were done with the bread, waited for about 5 mins and our pastas came. Hope they're able to maintain the same standard of service and efficiency when they become more crowded.

I also liked the ambience - brightly lit, with a blue, white and black colour combination (I really like this colour combination). They also have a pretty big al fresco seating area - I think it'll be nice to have dinner on their wooden patio under all the tall shady trees. Soprano is all set to give Pietrasanta a run for its money. (I like competition - makes food cheaper and service better!)

Ok I'm kind of regretting blogging on Hungrygowhere... I bet it'll be flooded, and they're gg to jack up the price and have an inversely proportional drop in service standard. Oh well.............

Soprano

7 Portsdown Road

Tel: 6472 2100

Sushi Tei - West Coast Plaza

Blogger was being so irritating and not letting me upload photos - if not I would have blogged about my dinner at Hibiki. But since it keeps telling me internal error, I shall just do a short post on Sushi Tei.

My negitoro don ($10) from Sushi Tei. There are 3 grades of tuna belly - toro, chutoro and otoro - and otoro is the most expensive and toro being the cheapest (but still expensive) grade of tuna belly. I think I still prefer eating my negitoro in maki (the small little rolls with seaweed) or temaki (handroll) style. Somehow, it just seems weird to scoop the very moist, pastey negitoro up with my rice.They're having some lunch promo, where you can top up a few dollars for additional side dishes. I think my Califonia Maki and Chawanmushi costs $3 to top up. Other add-ons include miso soup, rice, udon etc from $3 to $4.50.

I haven't been to Sushi Tei in a while and I completely forgot that they serve Green Tea for free. Plus, they're really attentive and constantly refill it. Perhaps it's only cos West Coast Plaza is pretty new and the sushi tei is pretty empty still.

Sushi Tei

154 West Coast Road

#01-69 West Coast Plaza

Tel: 6775 0012

South Buona Vista Rd Boneless Duck Rice

I freaking sound like some old grandmother - but the portions at this duck rice stall is really shrinking. The plate in the picture is $3 and there's hardly any duck inside! I dapaoed the $4 packet (cos I thought since $3 has such a miserable amount of duck, I must as well get a larger pack) and it was just marginally more. Of course, the main draw is the duck being boneless, tender and doused in sweet sauce. Also, as much as I hate adding chilli to my food most of the time, the sweet and sour chilli sauce goes really well with the duck. The sourish vinegar balances all the dark sweet sauce drenching the duck meat. However, you will have to ask specifically for the watery chilli sauce. They seem to be very secretive about the watery chilli sauce - they won't give it to you unless you ask.$3 portion of sambal kangkong. We were just saying that in a yong tau foo stall you can get a similar portion for 30 cents... at least it tasted good - the stoves at home just can't cook some vegetables properly, and sambal kangkong is one of them. Kangkong has to be seared at extremely high temperatures or it'll just turn to a dark green, mottled soggy mess.

Another thing about this place - the carpark here is nearly non-existant, especially during lunch time. Just park at the Village Centre and walk over - not worth worring about getting caught by the parking attendant or getting your car scratched...

Lim Seng Lee Duck Rice Eating House 林成利鴨飯餐室
38 South Buona Vista Road
Tel: 6475 9908

Wasabi Tei - I'll try the cooked food next time

I hadn't been to Wasabi Tei for quite some time , and the last time I went (on a Friday), the Chirashi Don ($20) was super lousy. The fish wasn't fresh and the uni (sea urchin) tasted like crap. Sea urchin has to be super fresh or not it's really very bitter and inedible. The hamachi wasn't exactly the freshest either.

Actually, I've just realized how blur I am. The last time I visited Wasabi Tei was on Saturday in December last year, and it was also not fresh. Perhaps I should go on Thursdays instaed. Maybe the sashimi will be fresher?

The chawanmushi ($5) was still good. But bleagh not coming back anymore for the Chirashi don unless I'm desperate. I think from now on I shall just camp at Iseatan until it's 50% off for the sashimi! $20 can get me quite alot of sashimi when there's 50% off :/

Maybe I'll try the cooked food next. The hotpot looks pretty good!

Wasabi tei

14 Scotts Road

#05-70 Far East Plaza
Tel: 62388216

Shin Kushiya - Dinner

Shin Kushiya is my alternative to Sushi Tei and Akashi (which is always my first choice) whenever I go to Vivocity. Its cos Sushi Tei's que is always incredibly long, and I think I've been eating at Akashi too much. I've been to Shin Kushiya about 4 times already, but the last time I visited was really long ago. They've increased their prices by quite a bit for lunch since then.This is the Dinner Set ($23.80) which I think has a pretty good amount and variety of food for $23.80. It comes with 2 pieces each of tuna and salmon sashimi which is thick and fresh, Japanese salad which is very unimpressive since there isn't much dressing and consists of Iceberg lettuce, a tomato and a few thin cucumbers, Chawanmushi (Japanese steamed egg), Tori Kakiage (deep fried chicken), pickles, miso soup, Garlic fried rice (pretty good and it has a mild wok hei taste), and 4 sticks of Kushiyaki, as well as a tofu cheesecake for dessert.


The kushiyaki here (grilled skewered meats and vegetables) is pretty good. I usually come to eat the Lunch set (which used to be aroudn $15++ but the price has increased so I don't come here to eat that anymore). For the dinner set, there was grilled Shishamo (pregnant fish), some pork thing (not sure if it's pork neck or what, but it was very fatty and I didn't like it, but people who like eating lard will enjoy it), chicken balls and grilled shitake mushrooms. It's a really small piece of tofu cheesecake, but I was very full by the time it came. The tofu cheesecake is rather gelatinous and the tofu taste is very distinct.
Some of my friends shared the Large Kushiyaki Moriwase ($49.90) which is meant for 3-6 persons. Actually, there are only 3 sticks for each type of kushiyaki, so I think it'll be very pathetic if you shared this with 6 people.

There's cheese wrapped with pork, fresh skewered prawns, shiitake mushrooms with minced chicken filling, enoki mushrooms wrapped with beef, black pepper yakitori, pork neck with mustard sauce and grilled rice balls.

Some other dishes that my friends ate: Chirashi Don ($23.80++)

Yasai Kakiage Don (vegetable tempura with rice) (~$11++)

The service here was pretty bad. They serve water, took painfully long to refill it. Out of the whole 2 hr meal, they only refilled our water at most 2 times, and majority of us had it refilled once. I think the waiters and waitresses there all have attention deficit disorder whenever they came to refill the water, they never ever filled all 8 cups at once, but instead filled half and then wander away, even though their water jug is full!

I quite like the food here, but the service could be much better!

Shin Kushiya

1 Harbourfront Walk

#02-120-122 VivoCity

Tel: 6275 8766

G7 Sin Ma Frog Porridge - Cheong Chin Nam Road

I like the Geylang Lor 9 Frog Porridge, but it's really very far away, and the parking is insane. So I haven't been there for over a year. There's a frog porridge place along the row of shops opposite Beauty World, which I've heard about for the longest time but never tried (due to the "backyard syndrome" [which ieatishootipost coined]). Frog porridge - frog legs and the sweet and salty dark sauce. I really like eating the legs, but I hate the body cos you can see each vertebrae and there's hardly any meat.

The porridge also comes in a claypot - it's very starchy and has a few discrete rice grains, and it tastes best when mixed with lots and lots of the frog sauce.

We had 5 frogs and 1 porridge (enough for 2 ppl) for $22. Much cheaper than the Geylang one, though I do think that the Geylang frogs are better - they're more tender. We tried both the kung pao sauce as well as the spring onion ginger one. I think the kung pao sauce tastes better than the spring onion ginger. As far as I can remember, the sauce tastes about the same.

Although it's not as nice as the Geylang Lor 9 Frog Porridge, I'll definitely come back here when a frog porridge craving hits - it's in a really convenient location, and I don't have to stress over finding parking. Also, the place feels cleaner and is brightly lit - no need to dine next to the dumpster.

There is a huge painting of 2 (ugly) frogs on the wall outside the restaurants. Totally unappetizing! (That's why I sat inside - fortunately they didn't have glass tanks full of slimey frogs piled on top of each other wading in murky water. Yucks!)

Thery also serve some other tze char dishes, which we didn't bother ordering since we came here specially for the frog, as well as dry chilli cat fish which the waitress was trying to convince us to get (obviously we weren't convinced).

I think there's also another branch for this G7 Sin Ma Live Bull Frog Claypot Porridge in Geylang in Lorong 3. Never been there but if it's the same as the one in Bukit Timah, you must as well go to the Lorong 9 one.

G7 Sin Ma Live Bull Frog Claypot Porridge

3 Cheong Chin Nam Road

Singapore 599730

Tel 64677317

Paulaner Brauhaus - The only thing that comes quickly is the bill

To celebrate our non-existant EOPT, we went to Pauler Brauhaus cos they were having a 10th Anniversary promotion.Paulaner Brauhaus has it's own microbrewery. For their 10th Anniversary celebration, they are only brewing 2 kinds of beer - the Munich light and the Munich dark. I prefered the dark one cos it wasn't as bitter and tasted more interesting than the light one.

My main, the Spicy Kolbaz grilled sausages with Potato Salad (promo price $10++)

Actually, I couldn't decide between the Nurnberger and this, since both were pork sausages (and since I don't eat beef, I couldn't eat the curywurst), and I already tried the pork kunckle. I chose this in the end cos I wanted to try the potato salad. The potato salad isn't the usual cream based one that we get. It was very sourish and had bits of bacon mixed in. The sausages were rather salty, mildly spicy and not bad, but not something that I'll be craving for anytime soon. For $10.60 nett, it's a pretty good portion.

Nurberger Grilled Sausages with Mashed Potatoes and Sauerkraut (promo price $10++)
This was the other pork sausage, which were non-spicy. I'm not a sausage expert so I thought they tasted about the same - just that the Kolbaz was slightly more spicy, and the Nurberger was jucier.

Grilled Veal Sausage with Curried Tomato Sauce and French Fries(aka "Currywurst") (promo price $10++)
Since I don't eat beef, I koped lots of the sauce and french fries. The tomato sauce is really delicious - sweet, salty and tangy, with a generous sprinkling of aromatic curry on top.
The Crispy Pork Kunckle with Sauerkraut and Bread dumpling is pretty good, just that the it isn't a full pork kunckle (probably a half or a third of a full pork kunckle?). The skin is very crispy, and looks just like suckling pig skin. I find that a whole pork kunckle shouldn't be eaten by just one person cos by the time I'm 3/4th way through my pork kunckle, I'm usually sick of it and I won't feel like eating pork kunckle for the next 3 mths. Anyway, this portion is just right for 1 person, and it's only $10++.

Now, for the sucky part of the meal - the service here is really atrocious.

We were sitting inside the aircon bar area at first (that was when we ate the prok kunckle), but we moved to the al fresco seating area after having our pork knuckle cos there weren't enough seats in the airconditioned area for the 11 of us.

When we asked the waiter outside for iced water, we were told that the restaurant doesn't serve iced water. Which is complete b*** s*** cos the table of Caucasians right next to us ALL had iced water. So we pointed this out to the waiter, and he said that it was because they had ordered beer. So we ordered our beer and food. Our water took a whopping 1 hour 15 min to arrive. And that was after reminding them 3 times about it.

We ordered 7 main courses first (since the other people were coming later) - the first four took a reasonable amount of time to arrive and the next three arrived 40min later.

Another thing that irked me was that they didn't give us any knives - we were all eating our main courses with forks cos their service was so slow - half the time we didn't have food, and the other half of the time, we were waiting for cutlery.

On top of that, they overcharged us for 2 beers.

The waiters and waitresses there are all competing for the blackest-face-award. There was not a single smile, and they were very unapologectic about their lapses in service.

The 10th Anniversary promotion is only for people who can't count or can't drink. Their promo says that beers are only $10++ each, but if you bother to read their menu, you'll realize that their offer isnt really an offer after all (unless you're only going to drink ONE 0.3L beer).

And because they're having their beer 'offer', they only serve 0.3L beers, and no 0.5 or 1L beers.

That said, the food's quite worth it (only during the promo) - Citibank card holders get an additional 10% off, so each of our $10++ was $10.60 nett, which is great if you're willing to put up with the shitty service.

(Blogger doesn't seem to be letting me upload pictures now! Anyway, I'll be giving the food 3 stars, cos of the anniversary promotion. Without the promo, I'll just give it 2/5. Not worth coming back here unless they're having a promo, but then again, they'll have the blackest faced waiters ever!)

Paulaner Brauhaus

9 Raffles Boulevard

#01-01 Millenia Walk

Tel: 6883 2572

Scoopz

We were walking around Parkway Parade killing time before mj and stumbled upon Scoopz. They're famous for their durian ice cream, which they make themselves in a frozen plate device. They also happened to have avocado ice cream the day I went, which I've never seen before (since I don't even live anywhere near the east I hardly go to Scoopz). The only other time I've ever had avocado ice cream was when I ate the honey avocado ice cream from Da Paolo Gastronomia.

The avocado ice cream was very delicious. It had a natural looking pale green (I hate the fake green colour, especially for pistachio ice cream!) very creamy, had a strong avocado taste and reminds me avocado milkshake.I think it's $3.20 for a single scoop and $4.50 for a double scoop. I think it I wasn't so stuffed, I'll defnintely buy a tub home.
Scoopz
80 Marine Parade Road
#B1-154 Parkway Parade
Tel: 6440 3412