Morton's and Pita Pan

Appletini

 The happy hour cocktails here are really worth it - sub $16, and with a good amount of alcohol. From our sampling, the gin martini was the most potent, followed by the chocolate martini, lychee martini and then the apple martini. The only downside is that you have to start queueing before 5pm, which is nearly impossible if you are working.

The Fillet Migon sandwich - which I donated 3 to my 3 dining companions.

In the back, is the $16++ fries. I would highly recommending just not eating anything and eat the steak sandwiches, since the fries are just normal naked fries (no truffle oil, no cheese, no nothing) with tomato ketchup.

Anyway, the whole point of going to Morton's (for me at least) was the part 2 - which was eating Pita Pan. Of course, as usual, I couldn't find ANYBODY to go with me to Pita Pan. So I offered ALL my steak sandwiches from Mortons, in exchange for a meat-free dinner. In fact, the other half of the group pang-seied us because of Pita Pan :'(

Pita Pan reviews coming up in the next post!

Rose Veranda,Shangrila

 Happy high tea at the Rose Veranda - love their sandwiches but they don't have the quintessentially English plain cucumber sandwiches which I adore. No problem cos they have lots of other choices to keep me entertained, along with a sushi/sashimi station.

 The very out of place highly processed crab claw and more sandwiches.

The laksa was not bad - with a very thick gravy and lots of dried prawns. Added lots of crystal prawns, laksa leaf and fish cake.

I really liked the selection of cheeses (but can't beat St Regis) and I ate so much that I felt full till tea time the next day. My digestive system is growing old.

Rose Veranda
Shangri La
Tel 62134486

Basilico Lunch

Awesome end of posting lunch at Basilico. The last time I came here was for my eopd a few years back (and we sat in the same place too!)
It's a full buffet lunch and even though it was a few days after Christmas, they had a roasted turkey, along with chestnut stuffing. I didn't eat the turkey but the roast lamb was in a league of its own. Pink, tender and juicy. There was even feesh mint sauce to go with it.
The cold appetiser section was superb as usual - lots of fresh cheeses (including fresh mozzarella and smoked mozzarella, and an assortment of tomatoes), salad bar, and a very extensive cheese selection with a variety of honeys. And lots of parma ham and melon too.
There's also a variety of hot foods including lobster bisque, salmon and cod, a variety of pastas (which were pretty average, probably cos they were pre-cooked), and a pretty good four cheese pizza.
I was pretty stuffed by the time it came to desserts, and the counters were closing cos it was 230pm, so I only managed to get myself some gelato (not bad, not spectacular).

I was in post-food coma for the whole day after.
(I read online that there's a foie gras counter? But I didn't see it at all. I hope I didn't miss out on the foie gras cos that will be the best thing ever!)

Basilico
Regent Hotel
1 Cuscaden Road, Singaproe 249715
Tel 67253232

The Drawing Room - Weekday High Tea

 Post call high teas are the best - and even better if it's a weekday.
Actually, it was a hard fight between W hotel's high tea and St Regis, but for the location, St Regis trumps it. I think I narrowed down the high tea locations to these two because of the earlier timings and not many hotels have weekday high tea buffets.

 Assortment of TWG teas

 It's a buffet with replenish-able items from the three tiered high tea stand and buffet area. I didn't like the chicken pot pie (on top) - then again I'm not a big fan of pastries (with the exception of TBB's chocolate croissant)

The chicken pie and salmon quiche were very unremarkable. 

I'm such a sucker for high teas and the highlight for me is the very quintessential cucumber sandwich. I must confess that whenever I make my high tea bookings, the first question I would ask is if they have plain cucumber sandwiches.  These are the innards of the cucumber sandwich - they've removed the seeds from the tomato so that the sandwich won't get soggy. The cucumber and tomatoes are sliced so finely that they look translucent. There's also a thin layer of cream cheese. Somehow, I can't seem to make my cucumber sandwiches taste as good as those found at high tea buffets. 

I think I could eat tons of this but it's such a waste of calories... Plus they get digested so quickly I get hungry again! I think the other sandwiches were smoked salmon and minced chicken but none of them were as good as the cucumber sandwich (of course I am biased). 

 5 types of scones, including truffle scone. There was also a duck scone which had some dried out pieces of duck, and didn't go well with the other condiments...

Clotted cream to clog up my arteries. Somehow I thought it tasted best with the truffle scone <3 p="">

Different jams.

Preserved meats, smoked salmon and sushi

The cheese selection - I really like the kikorgani cheese. It's from New Zealand and is a blue cheese but it is extremely creamy and soft. And it just won the 2013 Champions cheese award in Auckland. I wonder where to buy it from (Other than the cellar door, which sells it in 1kg - way too much for me)...

 Desserts galore - the desserts look better than they taste, but perhaps it's just diminishing returns.

 There was also a crepe station (either sweet or savory) and ice cream :D

The ambience was great - it was quiet so we got a table facing the pool, and there was a pianist in the restaurant area itself.

Perhaps it's time to visit the 10@ Scotts again, which really impressed me the last time I was there (really long ago!)

The Drawing Room
29 Tanglin Road
Level 1 the St Regis
T 65066888

10 Scotts

High Tea at 10@Scotts eons ago - it was really great just that I didn't have time to blog about it. I shall try to clear up my backlogs (from months ago) by blogging about the places that I really enjoyed...

High tea was a highlight in my food diary - the menu is small but concise and it's unlimited servings of everything, including the tea (and you can change tea flavours too!). I would really love to re-visit this place, but there's so many other high tea places which I have yet to try :(

The sandwiches are soft and fluffy and they have ham&cheese with a nice hot mustard spread, smoked salmon (not particularly impressive) and egg sandwiches. I'm such a sucker for soft fluffy sandwiches and I would just waste stomach space eating them up one after another...
The crab cakes are particularly nice - extremely sweet crab meat with crispy batter and a creamy herb based sauce - I got 2 servings of this! Lazy persons way to enjoy crab meat instead of painfully digging through the shells...
Their fruit bowl which was very refreshing - they have this little fridge with many desserts/fruits/mixed vegetable dips etc as well as chicken liver pate (which I didn't try cos I didn't want to waste the whole huge jar)....Of course, their service was impeccable and we enjoyed the buffet and rolled off to shop after...

I really want to try the St Regis high tea next! Just need to look for a weekend where I don't have to work...

10 Scotts

Grand Hyatt Singapore

10 Scotts Road

Tel 67321234

Summer Pavillion Dian Xin Lunch

I'm back after another long hiatus! Work is super tiring (glad to know that I'm in the 18% of Singaporeans with stagnant pay) - this lunch happened many calls ago but I've just had the ultimate killer call on Sunday-Monday which will probably add to my eyebags and premature ageing...

The starter was this very unassuming looking dish which was deep fried diced yam. It's coated with some sugar and actually tasted much better than it looked. The shotglass on the right is some haw juice (can't remember the Chinese name) which was very sour and acidic, the perfect drink to kick off the meal and stimulate the salivary glands but I would much prefer another plum wine sherbert anytime.

Nourishing soup - came here when I was post call so I was craving for soup and decided to indulge in the Shark's cartilage soup. It's milky, warming, tasty and perfect post call food. Best of all, there's supposedly alot of collagen in this soup to combat against the oxidative stress from the night before...

Dian xin - the main reason why we went to Summer Pavillion was to eat this. It's one of the few Chinese cuisines that I enjoy. Though the menu at Summer Pavillion is very modest, the most of the dian xin you get here have a mordern twist. For example, instead of the plain fried grated yam cake (left), the yam cake comes with a layer of pumpkin. It was very moist and one of my more favourite dish. The har gao comes unadulterated - no suprises inside... Behind is some chive dumpling (had something interesing inside but I can't remember already).

Siew Mai - also unadulterated.

The green thing at the back had crab meat with mushrooms and was really quite tasty.
Another intersting dian xin they had was this triangular corn one which different kinds of vegetables inside. The corn kernels were very sweet and juicy and the skin is very thin and translucent.The obligatory char siew pau
Some fried thing - looks similar but one has bean curd skin outside

Boxthorn with 3 different kinds of eggs - I don't think boxthorn is very common here - can't remember the Chinese name for this tho... I think it tastes a bit like spinach but more delicate and there aren't any annoying stems which spoil the nice soggy texture of the leaves.

Onto the multiple desserts - sesame paste glutinous rice ball coated with ultra fine peanut powder.

Mango pomelo sago - not very spectacular cos I prefer the milky kind.

Hashima with almond tea

Herbal Jelly

Overall, the dining experience was pleasant as expected, with extremely attentive service. Of course, I would expect nothing less from the Ritz.

*Random thought: whenever I think of the Ritz, the first thing that pops up in my mind is the short story the Diamond as Big as the Ritz.

Summer Pavillion

7 Raffles Avenue

3/F Ritz-Carlton Millenia
Tel: +65 6337 8888 (Reservations recommended)

Lunch from 11:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. (a la carte & dim sum)
Dinner from 6:30 p.m. - 10:30 p.m. (a la carte)

Blu - Shangri-la's birthday promo

Celebrated my mum's birthday recently at Blu - using Shangri-la's very worth-while Flash-your-age birthday promotion. "With effect from Tuesday 17 March 2009, guests who celebrate their birthdays (exact date) at Shangri-La Hotel, Singapore, will enjoy a dining discount that is equivalent to their current age at all five restaurants - BLU, The Line, Nadaman, Shang Palace and Rose Veranda." This offer is valid for up to 8 people.

My pictures aren't very good, because of the extremely low lighting in the Restaurant.
The menu - it's a thick heavy black book which looks like a cookbook. For the birthday promotion, you can only order from the 'special' set menu - and there's 3 kinds of sets.
The Gold set (which I ordred) has 6 courses, the silver has 5 courses, and bronze has 4 courses.

Fresh and warm bread - one was tomato and the other was some cheese thing, served with some special garlic butter (which I think was whipped?).

Caviar Waffle - sturia caviar d'aquitaine on buckwheat waffle. with creme fraiche, chives and egg

I liked how the creme fraiche went with the salty caviar, and the waffle was crispy and slightly sweet.

Lobster Thermidor

Canadian lobster (roast, foam, reduction) with mushroom, parmesan and tarragon
The lobster was so fresh and juicy - and the lobster 'reduction' tasted like an extremely concentrated lobster bisque, and

Foiegras @ fruits. com

Roast foie gras, peppered fruits, balsamic, pistachio

Probably the best foie gras I've eaten. Crispy on the outside, and soft and oozing on the inside.

Sparkling Grape

Grape (sorbet, carbonated with greek yoghurt)
This reminds me of Tippling club's fizzy grape. The icy grape sorbet and creamy greek yoghurt was very refreshing.

Lamb Mole

Grilled lamb lion, crispy potato, corn x3, spiced chocolate sauce
The lamb is a 3 month old lamb, and it was extremly tender. Probably because it hasn't been walking around much since it's so young? The chef recommends it cooked to either medium rare or medium well, so I had mine medium rare (since I like my lamb pink). The chocolate sauce was pretty interesting - it's the first time I'm having chooclate sauce in a savoury dish, but I don't think I really like the combination. Fortunately, the chocolate sauce wasn't doused over the lamb and I thought that it tasted much better on it's own.

There's three types of corn in this - creamed corn, popped corn, and some kernels of corn. The yellow powder was pretty interesting - its supposed to come from some chilli, and has the texture of icing sugar.

An Egg?

Mango, pssionfruit coconut

My favourite dish of the day - served on a tile with a picture of a hearty English breakfast.

The egg even had a 'shell' which was hard, and the 'yolk' was made with mango and passionfruit. The 'yolk' was globular and could even burst, just like a real egg. The 'egg white' was made of coconut cream, and the richness of the coconut cream went very well with the slightly sour mango and passionfruit 'yolk'.

The following two desserts are from the other dinner sets:

O-r-e-o

Warm chocolate mousse, vanilla ice cream, cookie dust

The lighting was so dim in the restaurant, that I didn't even realize that the white stuff spelt 'o-r-e-o' until I came back and looked at my photos! This dessert was too sweet for my liking - the chocolate mousse, cookie dust and ice cream was a lethal sugar rush combination.Lemon Meringue

Lemon jell, meringue, sorbet, powder

The lemon meringue was unlike other lemon meringues I've eaten. Under the layer of prettily piped meringue, there was lemon sorbet instead of the usual lemon curd/lemon pie base. Ice cream never goes wrong for dessert, and it was an interesting combination.

Cotton candy tree - where you can pick off little balls of cotton candy (which were laced with some sourish tasting powder) from the 'branches'

It even came with crunchy chocolate rice 'soil' and chocolate 'leaves'It was a great experience having progressive dining at Blu, especiall the 'An Egg?' dessert (which so suprised my grandmother, and she ate half the dessert even though she usually doesn't because she's very sugar conscious). And after this foie gras, I doubt that I would be able to eat most other foie gras. Personally, I thought that taste wise, I still prefer Iggys, perhaps because of their stronger flavours, and also because their dishes are closer to the Asian taste (like the Sea Urchin and cauliflower mousse, as well as the sakura ebi cappellini), but overall, it was really interesting trying all the different dishes.

If you have money to splurge on dinner, please go to Blu instead of Tippling Club, you won't regret it.
Blu

22 Orange Grove Road

24F Shangri-la Hotel

Tel: 6213 4598