nom nomz.

The Hand Burger

2010-03-31T05:32:00.002+13:00

What does the title make you think of? A burger with a hand in it?! A burger made of hand?? Certainly not a nommy image.. No no, THIS is The Hand Burger:

Just stopped by at The Hand Burger at 313 on Orchard before heading to watch The Lovely Bones at nearby Cineleisure. We were attracted by the cute graphics on the logo, as well as this:

Yes, that's right. Us Asians are suckers for a bargain.

This diner-style menu on the wall outside the restaurant was also a huge enticement, with burgers like tea-smoked duck, salmon confit, and sirloin tataki. Who could resist? Not me, that's for sure.

Great, clear signage, a recognisable brand-name and a well-lit interior full of happy patrons and bustling servers - this is what makes a restaurant's success snowball! Take note budding restauranteurs! Really, the seats inside were packed. Low, communal-style long tables created a crowded but cheerful atmosphere - clearly people were enjoying themselves in here!

The tiered menu and mini-meal menu. Each page of the menu has a beautiful description and picture of the burger. All of the beef burgers are made using 100% New Zealand beef!! NZ pride!!! Overall, the ingredients seem to be really high quality - hand-cut fries, fresh dory in the fish burger, jumbo-sized fresh prawns. Delish!

As well as interior design and exterior branding, service and place-setting also play a big part in immediate consumer perceptions of the brand or organisation. The large wooden platters and silver cutlery made a good impression on me - this type of high-cost inventory really shows a company's dedication to quality and the customer experience. These custom platters were really neat, and detailed right down to grooves for the cutlery to sit in when not in use.

We ordered some onion rings to start with - my favourite! These were great - hot and crispy, with a light batter and a ring of soft onion inside. The batter could have been seasoned a little more - it had the appearance of being well-seasoned, with flecks of pepper and chili visible to the naked eye, but they weren't quite salty enough for my taste. The dips more than made up for it though - a great thick aioli and a sweet tangy barbecue - this one in particular tasted housemade (and in fact is), with notes of worcestershire and chutney running through it, a really deep complex flavour.

Here's a close-up of those crunchy golden rings of pleasure - halo-effect applied!

Jonathan and I ordered drinks to accompany our meals.

This is Jonathan's Lemon-Lime Slushy. It had a great sweet-sour taste and was flecked with mint to become almost like a virgin mohito.

And this is my (decadent and waist-expanding) Peanut Butter and Banana Thickshake. It was a huge surprise when I took the first gulp - it tasted exactly as it was named - peanut butter, banana and vanilla icecream combining for a luscious sweet-but-slightly-salty mouthful. It was thick but not thick in the way that some thickshakes can be from too much icecream - the ratios in here were pretty much perfect. Sue-Anne commented that it could be served just a tiny bit colder, which is true, but still, it was pretty much sex in a beverage. Check out that beauty of a toasted marshmellow on top too!

Sue-Anne's first choice of the Portabello Mushroom Burger was already sold out for the night (at 8:30pm, it must be good!) so she ordered the Gumbo Prawn instead.

The burger was certainly pretty - presented open-lidded with a great range of colours. The prawns (6 of them to be precise) were fried and coated with a rich and tangy gumbo sauce, and were topped with a mild red-onion salsa. Nestled in amongst the salsa we even found some ikura (salmon roe). I doubt these would have made much contribution to the taste, but it was certainly impressive from an expensive-ingredient-wow-factor standpoint! Overall a very attractive burger with a delicious flavour to back that up.

Yes, this is the famous Hand Burger stuffed tomato! Again, presentation was excellent! Dripping with sauce and studded with sesame seeds, the tomato slices open to reveal a colourful mayo-less coleslaw! Sadly, I found the tomato somewhat lacking in flavour. It may be just because my tastebuds are more attuned to the sun-ripened vine tomatoes we have in New Zealand, but this one was slightly watery and, because it had been skinned, lacked that punchy texture tomatoes should have. The unidentifiable sauce was mild and did not contribute to the taste. The coleslaw saved the dish, however. It was crunchy and tasty - and it felt good to be getting some vegetables back in my system!

Here's a gratuitous photo of me about to tuck into some monstrous tower of taste.

Yes, my friends, this is The Works Burger. What you are here witnessing is as much a feat of structural engineering as it is of gastronomy. Stacked up on a toasted and buttered homemade burger bun are: fresh lettuce and tomato, a 180g New Zealand ribeye beef patty, sunny side up fried egg, onion rings, sauteed garlic mushrooms, housemade relish, housemade aioli and crispy bacon.

I was stunned when it first landed on the table. My first thoughts went to how to dismantle the beast. I ended up figuring that the best way was to unstack and lay out all the ingredients on my plate and then form each bite from these parts as I came to it. Oh, all excepting the bacon. That part went straight down my gullet :D

The autopsy shot. Let's get down to the nitty gritty. That hand-formed patty there was both a stand-out and a slight let-down. The beef had a great medium coarse grind and was not too densely-packed, allowing for a meaty mouth-feel without tasting too mealy. The flavour was EXCELLENT. Really really superb. I could almost taste the green grasses and fresh air of my homeland as the cow would have. The beefy flavour was meaty and complex as only grass-fed beef can be, and seasoned perfectly. My complaint would have to be that the patty was cooked to well-done. I know many people prefer their beef to be well-cooked, especially if it has just flown 6000 miles, but it was just slightly dried out from the extended cooking time. Maybe next time I'll try ordering it medium-rare and see what kind of face the waitress gives me.

The cheddar cheese was melted to a great gooey consistency into the top of the patty and added some good richness. The egg also provided a bit of fatty luxury, though was very thin.

The other flavours combined well with this beef-cheese-egg base. The onion rings provided crunch, and the garlic mushrooms were divine, coated in lots of crushed garlic. Add the same creamy aioli as before and some tangy, caramelised onion relish, and you've got a party in your mouth. A party full of people who get along really well together.

There is nothing left. And there oughtn't be! That's the smile of a guy who is immensely satisfied (and stuffed full!!!)

On our way out we spied these cupcakes on the counter. Don't know exactly what this one is made out of, but its so cute! We'll save it for another time!

And there definitely will be another time. As a burger-aficionado, the top quality ingredients and thoughtful, creative burger options here really impressed me. Even a burger with such standard composition as The Works Burger was pulled off with flair and obvious thought in the execution. I look forward to trying the Duck Confit Burger - A whole boneless confit duck leg IN A BURGER! You know you want it.

The Source.

2010-03-30T04:59:00.003+13:00

Singapore has great food. There's really no two ways about it. It's tasty, it's cheap. Everywhere you look is serving authentic ethnic cuisine. Such variety and quality at such a price is hard to come by in the rest of the world!

I decided to take a look, then, at the source of consumer raw ingredients - the local supermarket! There are so many interesting sights and smells to be taken in, most of which you won't find anywhere else in the world. Really, the supermarket is as indicative of a country's cuisine as the street stall is!

Here's my photo journey of some of the flavours on offer:

As y'all may or may not know, one of my favourite EVER ingredients to cook with is garlic. Each time I prepare dinner for friends, the first two things that are ESSENTIAL are: take the butter out of the fridge to soften, and peel and crush the garlic! Every good recipe has butter and garlic in it, right?? mmm.. look at all this pre-peeled garlicky goodness. And in a fresh vacuum-sealed pack even! That's pretty much all the work taken out of cooking! And so cheap too - only $3.50 for this entire 2kg bag! Insane in the membrane!!!

They even have the garlic prepared and chopped. I <3. $2.00 for this 1kg bag - you must be joking!!

To go with the garlic (in a shallow frypan with two tablespoons olive oil and one tablespoon butter, of course) are these beautiful shallots. Again, already cut and peeled! Why is everything so much easier here?!

But wait, there's more! (Or so they say..) These huge tubers are swedes of some sort.Just had to take a picture - some of them are as big as my head! (See hand for comparison. Terms and conditions apply. See in store for details.)

HUGE sweet potatoes (kumara for all you Kiwis). How many families could you feed off one of these?! Yeesh!

Roast duck in a bag at $22.80 a piece? I really hate to sound like an infomercial, but this is as close to heaven as you'll get. Really.

Rows of fresh vegetables. There must be about 20 types of Asian greens alone here, most with names that I can't pronounce.

Unidentified pickles / fresh chili paste.

Loads of fresh pineapples and bananas. Singapore being located primely in the tropics means not only damn hot and humid weather all year round (yay) but super fresh and sweet tropical fruits! I love how the bananas are just, y'know, hangin' around.

Oranges, pears, mangoes and more!

Sugarcane. Now this is something you definitely won't find in a Western supermarket. Sugarcane can be eaten straight up (peel and chew on the fibres) or juiced through a big pressurized rolling machine.

You won't find starfruit (sometimes called jackfruit) or dragonfruit much outside of Asia either. Starfruit has a deliciously tart taste and is very refreshing when served from the fridge. Dragonfruit, for its enticing and colourful skin, has a soft and mild-flavoured white flesh, studded with tiny black seeds.

Belacan (shrimp paste), Ikan Bilis (fried anchovies) and Nasi Goreng (fried rice) mixture available for all the budding hawker stall owners out there. And at $0.25 a pop, why wouldn't you?

Another typical sight in any country with Chinese - dried stuff. Yeah, stuff. Only the lord knows what's in these packets. I'm sure they specify something innocuous like "beans" or "barley" but really.. might as well be moon rocks. This dried stuff is sold stand-alone or in pre-mixed packages for boiling into delicious healthy soups.

Oh Haagen Dazs. Why must you tempt me so? 2 pints for $23.85 is hardly a bargain, but I can't get this in Auckland no matter how hard I try! Maybe I should try smuggle some in through customs..

Does this remind you of a certain movie? It doesn't for me. Asian semi-celebs are often found championing certain brands or products. It's the Asian way. I don't know who Jeanette Aw is, or what she does, but if she says its Deliciously Convenient, I'm gonna buy it!

Mmmm.. popcorn chicken.. 'nuff said.

A big shelf of wannabe dairy products. Mostly UHT or even double-pasteurised. Some are probably even reconstituted! I really can't trust milk if its not New Zealand milk! I miss my Anchor!

I miss lots of things about New Zealand food, for all I love the food here. I miss my daily glass of milk. Double-buttered (or even triple-buttered) toast in the morning (credits: J Cho). I miss a good cafe latte, barbecuing sausages and lamb, pasta bakes on lazy summer nights, and icecream and fish and chips on every street corner. I'll be back soon. Don't miss me!

Belachan Mountain!

2010-03-24T19:59:00.000+13:00

If there's one thing Singaporeans love, its chili. This innocuous spice is just EVERYWHERE. In fact, You'd be pretty hard pressed to find a dish without chili in it or served on the side. Every soup or bowl of noodles comes with a little dish of chili in vinegar or soya sauce. Mashed chili and garlic is served with chicken rice, duck rice, in fact pretty much anything with rice. It's tossed into stir-fries, preserved in oil, made into sauces and pastes. Everything you can think of! I'm fearing going back to New Zealand and looking for the chili and not having it at hand at all times!!

This restaurant tonight, Old Lai Huat Seafood Restaurant, has received rave reviews from newspapers and magazines all over the island.

It's set out in traditional street style, with wonky tables and plastic chairs. You can just make out the owner's wife sitting at the plastic-covered table in the middle preparing dishes for the night.

Old Lai Huat!

The menu features mostly seafood (duh) with a few standard fare Chinese style dishes thrown in for good measure. Fried rice and noodles, as well as meat and vegetable dishes are available here.

Our first dish out - Sambal Kang Kong. Kang Kong is a crunchy, leafy vegetable similar to spinach. Here it is often stir-fried with sambal paste, as above. This one rated well on Mel's "crunchiness scale" and had that delicious sweet-spicy taste of sambal.

Spicy fried chicken wings. Mmm fried goodness!

This homemade fried tofu dish was very queer indeed. The tofu, cut into sticks and deep fried as usual was actually mashed up inside. Some of the others at the table identified TWO different types of tofu mashed up together inside these crunchy morsels. The texture was very strange indeed.

Black pepper mini-lobsters! While there was not so much meat in these (really, just a small version of the normal lobster!), the meat was sweet and the black pepper really set the flavours off. The shell was also coated in the sticky black pepper sauce - perfect for licking!

The autopsy shot. :D

The star of the night: Belachan Fish! So what is Belachan Fish? Actually, what is Belachan? I had to wikipedia this to be honest. Belachan is shrimp paste, made by grinding fermented dried fish. Here on the fish, we see it combined with plenty of dried chili and fried before being loaded onto a deep fried pomfret.

The overall effect was amazing! The pomfret, a bottom-dweller with very soft white meat, was deep fried til super crispy and the fried belachan chili mix coated the entire thing. The fish was still soft and tender underneath the crispy skin. The flavour of the belachan was very intense. Not fishy, not shrimpy, slightly sweet and spicy at the same time, it has a very unique flavour. After being fried, it was also very crunchy and crumbly and paired beautifully with the crunchy/soft fish.

There was so much of it, we combined with rice to make a crunchy, delicious concoction!

Here's the aftermath:

Not a scrap left - the bones were so crunchy that even the head and tail were taken care of in due course! True Asians not wasting anything :D

Looking forward to the next eating adventure with Eileen's friends and their wide palates and deep stomachs! Hint: dish at the next outing is coated in (one of) my favourite ingredients ever! Stay tuned!!

Can he do it?

2010-03-24T18:34:00.001+13:00

Yes he can!

This post is dedicated to my dear, caring mother. Yes mother I am eating fruit and veges:

That is all. :D

Legendary!

2010-03-23T19:36:00.000+13:00

Long time no post! I'd have to say, I blame it on the weather! It's been raining in Singapore recently, and as you know, I love to stay curled up in bed on a rainy day. Makes me very lethargic, and (thank God!) decreases my appetite just a little. Good for the waistline I say :D

Last week, I had the chance to go running with Melvin out at East Coast Park. His incentive throughout the run was "Legendary Fish Soup!" In fact, he couldn't stop talking about it! The fish soup can be found in this dingy little stall at the hawker centre just below his place at Bedok South.

As with many of the hawker centre food stalls, this one has been here for over 20 years. Melvin still remembers coming down to this same stall as a kid and has (and still does) eat this fish soup at least once a week. He is a pescatarian, so fish soup is one of his mainstays! Trust him to know the best!

As well as fish soup with vermicelli, they do fish porridge and duck.

The "Legendary Fish Soup". Looks av? I know, but don't let looks fool you! That soup tasted like it had been stewing there for the past decade! A really full flavour with depth and history behind it. I could almost taste the blood, sweat and tears of the struggling stall owner, working 18 hour days just to stay afloat.

The soup features vermicelli, vegetables, fried shallots, steamed fish slices, fungus and (shh) fried pork fat. A wholesome full meal in one huh =p

After the fish soup, we headed over to the ubiquitous dessert stall for something to cool off.

Not so appetising huh. Looks like baby vomit spread over something else that belongs down below...

What I actually got was Ice Chendol with Durian puree (that's the yellow stuff on top). Chendol are those green wormy looking things you see poking out from under. Also in this dish is shaved ice (the white stuff), red beans, grass jelly, coconut milk, gula melaka (aka palm sugar syrup) and atap seed. A real mixed bag of delicious surprises hidden under that smelly durian mess on top. I love this dish for the variety of flavours you get, and the sweet milkiness of the palm sugar and coconut milk combined is almost like a milkshake! (My breath stank a bit after this though.. word to the wise: side effects of eating durian - no one wants to go near you afterwards).

Each neighbourhood in Singapore has its fair share of local gastronomical legends. The residents will vouch for particular stalls they've been eating since they were kids; sometimes it's hard to tell if the taste is simply ingrained into them as nostalgia, and their tastebuds are in familiar and comfortable territory. Solution for the adventurous eater: follow friends from different suburbs around and taste their local - the experience is sure to be good!

Lunch Mashup

2010-03-12T15:37:00.002+13:00

We tend to head out from the office at 12 every day for lunch, just by clockwork. If you don't know what time it is, just wait for the call to arms and you'll know its 12 on the dot! As they say here, "Makan time!" ('makan' = 'eat' in Malay).

There isn't too much exciting fare to be had in the office surrounds, just a couple of hawker centres and a foodcourt. "Downstairs", as we call the tiny hawker centre just below the office, is always the fallback, as its closest, but by now everyone is getting a little sick of the food down there! I usually snap a couple of pics of lunch before tucking in, here's some of the highlights:

Mixed Vegetable Rice - there are many hawker stalls selling this kind of mixed "vegetable" rice (sometimes called Mixed Curry Rice), it's a smorgasbord of sorts - you just choose what you want and the server dumps it all on a plate of rice. Though they call it vegetable rice, half the available dishes are meat or fish options so.... idk.. Above we've got mapo tofu, omelette with onions, curry potatoes, sweet and sour pork and veges. This huge plate only $4!

Dumpling noodle soup. Pretty self-explanatory really. The ikan bilis (fried anchovies) adds a nice salt and crunch hit.

This is what we call the "Daily Special" - one of the Chinese stalls downstairs has a whiteboard with 3 specials on it daily at $3.50 a pop. Good for a surprise and a bit of variety. Above is Nonya Fish with rice and fried egg.

Another Daily Special: Rojak Chicken with rice and fried egg. Yum! Fried chicken (my fav) with a tangy sauce, julienned onions, and crushed peanuts.

This one wasn't actually lunch, but breakfast one day when I was feeling especially peckish in the morning (I don't usually eat breakfast.. sorry mum). This here is "Fried Bee Hoon" or fried rice noodles (米粉) with toppings - fried tofu skin, vegetables, a different kind of fried noodles and vegetarian (??!) BBQ pork (叉烧). Why would you make vegetarian BBQ pork?! It doesn't make sense! It's not right!

Beer for lunch?! Actually this is just ice lemon tea in a beer glass...

Grumpy old man serving up multiple bowls of.....

Fish Noodle Soup! They actually just call it "Fish Soup" here, even though it is always served with noodles.. A great tasting fishy stock with fried fish, noodles and vegetables. Very popular locally!

Mee Rebus. I have no idea what this is, I just ate it. Soft yellow noodles in a slightly sweet, curry-type gravy, served with bean sprouts, fried tofu bits, fried shallots, green chili, calamansi lime and a boiled egg. A Malay/Indonesian dish. Not bad, but the sweet flavour is not my favourite.

Extra veges! Yes mum, 5+ a day!!!

I found this great place just downstairs of where I stay in Simei (四美) called Snack Shop. It's a Hong Kong eatery!! All the servers speak Cantonese! Gosh.. feels like home and makes me miss HK so much! I haven't so far come across many HK places around. This was one of the first. Serving typical HK style fare (roast meats on rice), with a Singaporean twist (note the rice is actually Chicken Rice (!!) and cucumber slices).

Another Mixed Curry Rice, this time from the foodcourt, Koufu. Chose the eggplant because it was a beautiful purple colour but it wasn't cooked well - sorely disappointed!

That was lunch for the past couple of weeks, look forward to more! :D

Pretty.. Pretentious?

2010-03-11T20:03:00.001+13:00

Though I would eat anything that tastes good regardless of what it looks like, there is something that much more fun about eating food that looks good. Proper presentation allures and excites the mind in preparation for the sensation to come - a combination of the sight, smell and taste sensory inputs all contribute to the final impression.

I am always impressed when it comes to the presentation of Japanese food, or food done by Japanese chains. One only has to look at sushi rolls dressed to the nines, decadent bento boxes or sukiyaki with everything arranged neatly, or in this case... cakes!

Though cakes (of the Western style) haven't been around in Japan for so long, they quickly gained prominence and are a great way for pastry chefs to display decorating skill with fanciful and imaginative designs.

This cafe in the Raffles City basement - Fruits Paradise - serves up some of the most delightful-looking fruit tarts I have ever seen! The sign could almost be mistaken for saying 'Fruit ART Shop' as opposed to 'Fruit TART Shop'; it would still be fitting! Here's a sample:

I haven't yet had the chance to try these tarts yet, but aren't they beautiful? And at $7.80 a slice, rather steep too. According to reviews though, they are not that tasty. Reports say too much cream, an insubstantial crust, and lack of co-ordination over all. Is beauty only skin deep? I'm sure I'll get the chance to find out..

Toro, Number One!

2010-03-11T01:00:00.001+13:00

I had been craving for some fresh sashimi for a while since I got here. Japanese food is very popular and there are plenty of sushi bars, sushi trains, teppanyaki restaurants, and don cafes around. Every mall has at least a few of these!

I tempted Eileen into eating at Ion with me and she recommended Itacho, which had been recommended to her by several friends. They said it was the only place they would go in Singapore for sushi now! Must be good :D

The menu was beautiful and wide-ranging, with many many different types of nigiri and rolls available, as well as other Japanese staple foods - udon, tempura and the like. The range of fresh fish was astounding!

This one particularly excited me:

I have never had the chance to experience fatty tuna before, as we don't get supply of this good quality blue-fin to NZ. Toro (this section of the tuna belly) is highly prized for its scarcity, and the tender melt-in-your-mouth flavour that comes from the rivulets of intramuscular fat that run through the meat.

The tick-box ordering forms, categorised and colour-coded. How Japanese!

People sitting at the long sushi bar have the chance to watch the sushi chefs preparing the fish. In Singapore these a-la-carte sushi bars are considered as more high class, where as back home in Auckland there are only 2 sushi trains and they are the most expensive in town!

Discovered from the place-mat that Itacho is a chain from Hong Kong!! Of course, we HK always come up with the best! This branch at Orchard Rd is the only one in Singapore.

We started off with this Fairy Shrimp. It was super fresh and had that sweet flavour that is unique to raw shrimp.

Itacho Live Shrimp, Salmon and Fatty Salmon. The difference in taste between the Salmon and the Fatty Salmon was not so pronounced - it could be described more as a difference in mouth feel, as the fat presented a more melting, softer texture as well as a slightly more intense 'salmon fat' flavour.

Raw and Grilled Scallop. The Raw Scallop again has a very unique, sweet flavour as well as that delicious squishy texture. It was very fresh. The Grilled Scallop was slightly firmer after being flamed by a brulee torch. It was presented with a small dab of salty ginger paste on top to enhance the flavours.

This Jellyfish Salad was delicious and refreshing. Raw jellyfish tentacles have a texture something like rubber bands, though not chewy (and not that I have eaten rubber bands before!). Marinated with soy, sugar and chili, and served with cucumber base and sesame seeds, this was a great palate lifter! I love jellyfish!

The stars of the night: Toro, Fatty Yellow Tail, Grilled Toro. The Raw Toro (top, front) was amazingly marbled and almost looked like a piece of wagyu. The texture was as sublime - the marbled fat creating that full and rounded mouthfeel. The tuna flavour did not really overwhelm, however; it was quite different from anything i had ever tasted before.

The Fatty Yellow Tail was a lot less fatty than the tuna - a good firm white fish texture and the tiny dab of minced ginger/garlic/caper/oil on top really enhanced the flavour.

Grilled Toro was just as amazing texturally as the Raw Toro, but the grilling process had brought out the oils a little more making it feel more oily than fatty. Would also have preferred it a little more charred on top! The addition of the julienned onions was great though.

That was my splurge meal of the week - new experiences in raw fish that I am now SUPER keen to try again!

Why oh why, Auckland?! We are surrounded by water! Toro toro toro!!!

Daily Staple

2010-03-10T20:02:00.001+13:00

Sorry long time no update! Been busy with work organising the new media kit and prepping for our big launch party this weekend! More coverage of that to come!! For now here's a quick one:

One of the things I love about Asia in general is the BREAD! Boring, it seems, right? But you really just don't get this kind of bread in Western countries! 'Asian' style bread is very different from Western style - is is generally softer and sweeter, and we eat it less often in loaves and rolls, and more often with various random fillings and toppings. The Japanese, especially, are very creative when it comes to their bread! More on that later :D

Here are some of the bread shops in my neighbourhood and some of the delights I have already sampled:

Bread Talk is a chain of bakeries serving up delicious fresh breads - mostly lunch-type rolls with toppings.

Row upon row of assorted pastries and breads - fillings include sausage, ham, corn, curry, cheese, egg, and even caesar salad and roast meats!!

They even have a chiller for cold desserts, and various flavour sponge cakes.

My meal for the day: Ham and Corn Bread, Cheese Sausage Roll, Chicken Curry Roll with Parmesan.

These breads were my lunch another day. Don't know what Bak Kwa is but the Chinese says dried meat. It was the kind of sweet dried meats that you can buy in squares. As well as this, there were spring onions and black and white sesame seeds - Yum!

I love this! Not just because of the funky name - Smart Aleck =P Sweet puff pastry filled with chantilly cream custard! Delish.

Just a short post for now - I'm sure I'll be eating more floury delights before I'm through here :D

Mid-morning Snack!

2010-03-04T20:27:00.000+13:00

Feeling a bit peckish this morning cos we rolled out of bed late and didn't have time to grab the usual teh peng on our way to work! 10:30am was the perfect time to head downstairs to the hawker centre and sample some more of the local fare.

This little stall in the middle of the row is so unassuming and yet....

... Double signage advertising their specialty - CURRY PUFF! Curry puff is a favourite amongst the eating group in Auckland - there ain't many places to get it back home though =( Everyone implored me to not only eat as much of it as I could here, but to bring some back for them!!

This place is even featured in the Yummy Guide 2009! That MUST mean its yummy right?!

$1.00 for a curry puff? Bargain! Give me 10!!

What lovely delights lie in this unassuming plastic bag I wonder..? Surely not 10 curry puffs?!?!

Naww.. Just 4 =) Peeking out from within their containment, tempting me with their aroma, and promises of hidden delights.

Look how beautiful she is!! Golden, fried crust. Slightly crispy and butter-flaky on the tongue, not too dense, not too light, and with no oily residue or pastry sticking on the teeth. Pretty damn near to perfect if I do say so myself as an inexperienced curry puff critic! This is looking like my new addiction.. and a dangerous one (for the waistline) at that.

The autopsy shot: delicious dry curry filling - small chunks of potato, onion and chicken. Usually the curry puffs are vegetarian, but the chicken just made it that much better! And even a surprise quarter boiled egg in the centre! I was delighted with the depth of flavour in the curry here - cardamom and tumeric were the primary flavours, but with a decent mild chili kick and an overall balanced taste - it was neither too bland nor too spicy. I will be back!

Leave you with the angel shot (or overexposure, as they call it..) Jealous much?

In Jean's opinion the curry puff here is "pretty good" but the one at Old Chang Kee is her favourite. Why? The chili kick! I'll be sure to check it out so I have something to compare too. For now though, see you tomorrow morning Foo Kee Curry Puff!

And the difference is...?

2010-03-03T20:59:00.001+13:00

After waking up late (mmm.. sleep in) on Sunday morning, went with Winsie to Bishan to visit the library and have lunch.

I love hawker centre lunching for the huge variety, the bustle of the street vendors, and the CHEAP prices. 24 hr opening times?! Much SE Asia LOVE <3

Not yet filling up for lunch, but getting there! I love how there are staff for the hawker centre just cleaning up, walking around, serving drinks. It makes the whole process so much more streamlined and pleasant. And for street stall centres, they are so clean!!

Winsie's favourite chicken rice stall. She came to Bishan to study in the library every day, just so she could eat the chicken rice for lunch! The original stall is on Bugis St - apparently very famous!

They even have their own branded plastic bags for all the takeaway. While queueing we saw a couple of guys from the lion dance team that was practicing across the street come in to buy lunch for the whole team - about 15 packages of chicken rice!!?

Chili packaged in tiny plastic bags for takeaway.

The chef - expertly chopping chicken nonstop and piling on to plates.

And here's the final product! Sorry for the discolouration in the pictures - there was a green plastic roof that was turning everything green!

So how was it? Well... all I can do is compare it to the one I ate previously. The rice was a little more flavoursome than the last, and a little drier - perhaps a less oily mouthfeel?

The chicken was also better - served a little cooler and it was more slippery, soft and tender. I love this kind of steamed chicken - though the 'chicken flavour' is quite mild, it is a great textural experience.

However, the cucumber was very very bitter - almost ruined the whole experience!

The chili! As I've said, Mark is a connoisseur of chicken rice chili - when I showed him the picture of this one he commented "oh.. so so la. see it is too much of a paste - not the grinded up texture". Hopefully I'll be able to tell a good one when I see it! Chicken rice is serious business guys!!!

It's gonna get messy.

2010-03-03T15:37:00.002+13:00

Though spoiled for choice when it comes to eating in Singapore, if there is one thing I am always keen for, it's a damn fast food burger. Call it a whim, call it a weakness - I can't help myself!!

One of the things I had looked forward to when I first spied it in the basement of Ion was Carl's Junior. We don't have this chain in New Zealand, so I had actually only experienced it vicariously through Tim's wide-eyed recounts of his life in America. "Yeah man, we used to head down to Carl's Junior after school, and their chili cheeseburger..... *insert groaning noises here*" This post is for you, Tim!!

Well I wasn't about to stop myself. I didn't end up ordering the chili cheeseburger, it seemed like a bit much for my first time. I'll save it for another day!

Here's my meal: The Big Carl, Texas Toothpicks, Lemon Tea.

The Texas Toothpicks are a new side dish - crispy battered strips of onion and jalapeno! I subbed my fries out for these as soon as I saw them.

Burger unboxing - The presentation is beautiful. Grease-free yellow cardboard box opening to reveal a tidy burger wrapped in white paper. There was also a great cheesy charred smell wafting out as soon as I opened the box!

The Big Carl - two standard patties, two slices of cheese, lettuce and special sauce. Sound familiar? Yes, the makeup is similar to a big mac, just without the middle bun!

The similarities end there, however. The toasted sesame bun tastes a lot more fresh than any McDonalds bun I have ever had, and is soft and springy, with that white roll flavour. Stayed in one piece throughout and didn't let any juice out!

The patties are closer to Burger King's than McDonalds'; I ascribe this to the char. While BK supposedly flame-grills theirs, Carl's Junior char-broils, leading to a slightly juicier patty. The flavour is fresher and beefier.

Melted American cheese slices are creamier and milder than those of other chains, and somehow seem a little less artificial. Don't know if I was overwhelmed by the experience, but they really seemed better! The special sauce was not much to talk about - not like the thousand island of a Big Mac, but not that exciting either.

Overall, a decent fast food burger, if a little pricey ($9 for the meal). Would nom again.

Texas Toothpicks were great, if a little greasy. Very crispy and it was to get a variety of jalapenos (not hot) and onions in there. Onion rings are pretty much my favourite side - could eat these forever. Good with the hot salsa (pictured at the back).

It was only after I had eaten my meal that I spied this on the tray-liner:

Well, they probably should have warned me before-hand!! Wasn't a messy meal for me, but I have a feeling it would be a different story if I ate the chili cheeseburger.. That's still on my to-do list, but with all the other local delights still to try, may not happen for a while yet!

Ciao!

The High Life

2010-03-02T16:45:00.001+13:00

My friend, ex-Royalefam-intern Eileen took me out on Saturday for some feasting! Like me, she loves to eat, and so is definitely my number 1 eating tour guide for Singapore!

As she loves eggs, we went to an all-day breakfast cafe called Hatched! From the decor to the menu, the place is totally eggcentric =P

Hahahaha! I love this - "Friends of Eggs" - they probably won't be good friends anymore after they find out the path their 'friends' have led them down - straight into my belly!

I had the Burly Benedict, a strange mannish take on the classic Eggs Benedict poached eggs on English muffins with corned wagyu beef and mornay sauce. Who knew you could get wagyu beef in corned version!? That seemed to me to be wasting perfectly good wagyu beef - and isn't this defeating the purpose somewhat? The pickling process would surely mask that delicate wagyu flavour.

Nonetheless, it piqued my curiosity enough to make me give it a go! It surprised me - all that expected wagyu tenderness was still there - it wasn't tough as most corned meats turn out. Those tiny rivulets of intra-muscular fat were also all still present, leading to a deeper mouth-feel. The vinegar flavour was also not as strong as I had expected; there wasn't much wagyu flavour left, but it was not too tangy or salty. Overall a good impression!

I'm doubtful of the choice to use mornay sauce though - it was a bit too creamy and with not enough salt.

Sauteed potatoes with caramelised onions were not bad - potatoes could have been a bit crispier and the onions were charred in places, with that unpleasant burnt bitterness.

Also had a latte - not bad!

All in all, though, a yum and filling breakfast - something that reminds me of many cafe breakfasts back in Auckland.

Here's a pic of Eileen's delish-looking Smoked Royale eggs benedict:

After brunch we took a cab out to the trendy area of Dempsey Hill. This is a small subdivision of cafes, bars and restaurants and a popular hangout for the wealthy expats. Everything here is expensive! New Zealand prices almost, but the interiors are decored with a touch of class.

The place we went is called HOUSE:

Everything an expat could wish for under one roof!

The menus are themed to a morning newspaper - stylishly executed and very fun to read!

Complete with full-page 'advertisements', headlines and bylines! So fun!

This is the desserts magazine!

And there's much more! Its such a beautiful menu... I wanted to steal a copy for the coffee table at home!

Here are the desserts we ordered:

Charred grapefruit, lemon curd meringue tart with crunchy green tea base.

Decadent bittersweet chocolate tart.

Warm strawberry shortcake.

Cherry Ripe slice - layered coconut/dark chocolate with cherry.

Fantastically indulgent, daaaaaaahling! Really really good, high quality desserts here, though the prices ran to about the same as in an upmarket Auckland cafe - $6 - $10 for a dessert, $15 - $25 for a meal. I'd recommend anyone to come here and try, and the surroundings are lush and peaceful up on the hill.

Thanks so much to Eileen and her friends for a relaxing afternoon out!

A night at the Opera.

2010-03-01T04:10:00.003+13:00

Friday night we went into Orchard Rd to have dinner in Ion - the second newest supermall along the strip. The basement has a foodcourt which is operated by Food Republic - a foodcourt chain that operates throughout several malls here in Singapore. This one in the basement of Ion is named Food Opera!

What follows is just an abridged tour around this vast foodcourt - there are more than 20 stalls in total, covering all sorts of hawker-type cuisine. Prices are about 1.5 times hawker centre prices. Food Opera has really funky decor and is super clean and well maintained - I love it!

This one's for you Carlton Wong:

I had my dinner from Teo Chew (Chiu Chow) Fish Ball Noodles, a recommendation from Mark. He was super enthusiastic - saying that it was the only thing he ever at when he came to Food Opera, and also the only Fish Ball Noodles he would ever eat!

The Singapore style of Fish Ball Noodles is different from the HK style I am used to. Instead of noodles and fish balls being chucked together in a broth, the noodles are served dry and sauced, and the fish balls in their own separate bowl of soup.

The mix of sauces on the noodles includes sesame oil, chili sauce, tomato sauce and sweet soya sauce.

Here is the big vat of fish balls ready to be served, and the cook ready to serve them!

The different types of noodles you can order.

A sign like this, delineating the heritage and cooking process of the dish, accompanied each stall. These fish balls are handmade twice daily using yellowtail fish, and are soaked in cold water instead of storing in the fridge, to ensure maximum freshness.

The sauce mixture is prepared in a bowl, and the noodles scooped on top and stirred.

Fish Balls in broth waiting to be devoured! They are huge too, about the size of a golf ball each. I was absolutely shocked when I bit into the fish ball. The texture is unlike any fish ball I have ever tasted - completely smooth and delicate, light and airy. It is a lot less dense than every other fish ball or fish cake, and not as springy. It was a complete surprise and completely delicious. I can see why Mark recommended it so highly and will definitely be back to eat it again!

Dry noodles with sauce - served with spring onions, shallots and CRISPY PORK LARD. Delish!! (Yes, this is the same kind of crispy pork lard served in the fish head noodle soup at Sri Mahkota in Auckland, but a hundred times better!!) I think everything should be served with crispy pork lard. I think I've already said the same thing in the past for crispy fried shallots, so now everything must be served with both!

And of course, everything must be served with a bowl of chilis in soya sauce. The chilis are not that hot, and balanced with the slight sweetness of the soya sauce, can be eaten with everything!

We followed our meal with a cold treat from Ice Shop - a generic icy dessert stall.

This is Chendol - a dessert made with crushed ice, coconut milk, palm sugar syrup, red beans, and green jelly. Sweet and refreshing. Apparently can get much better ones on the street so I'll have to keep an eye out for those.

Overall, a fantastic meal at Food Opera, see you there next time! =)

East vs West!

2010-02-26T21:16:00.001+13:00

One thing I notice in Singapore is that there are many many many different types of cuisine here. Though the main ethnicities are Chinese, Malay and Indian, everyone is Singaporean and so the food, whatever cuisine, always has a Singaporean take on it.

The food is exceptionally cheap. Usually a plate of noodles from a hawker centre is just $3. Can upsize for $5 - the portions are usually quite small, but well suited to the climate. If you eat a large portion, you may be feeling quite heavy and lethargic in the afternoon heat. Western food is comparatively more expensive. The usual chains like McDonalds run about $6 a meal, and Western food in a cafe or restaurant won't drop below $10.

Last night we ate at 15 Minutes, the on-campus cafe at Lasalle College of the Arts:

They serve a good selection of burgers, sandwiches, pastas and pizzas, as well as beer and other alcohol!

Lychee Soda.

Sotong (squid) balls. Made from real squid - YUM! Fried goodness, light and puffy. Good with chili sauce.

Mushroom rocket salad.............. in a JAR! This one's for you, Dan. You'd love this place! Quirky idea, huh?

My meal: Chef's burger - home-made patty, salad, mushrooms, garlic, swiss cheese, fried egg! Reminds me of home haha. Patty was really decent aye, I'm really loving the home-made patty. Really decent chuck, medium grind, good outer char, left rare in the middle - now that's a real burger! Mix of ingredients here worked really well. You know I love teh burgers! Can't wait to try Carl's Junior. Shek, recommend me that burger again??

Ham and Mushroom Pink Sauce Linguine - damn creamy and delicious, with a really strong hard cheese flavour. Ivan couldn't finish, it was so rich!

Jasone's pepperoni pizza. Good thin handmade base! Maybe should have been cooked at a higher temperature for more crispyness, but it was good. The pepperoni wasn't real pepperoni after Sal's NY Pizza back in Auckland. I miss you Sal's!!!

Let me tell you something about Jasone: he likes to eat. Being a young guy (19), he can eat and eat and his metabolism takes care of everything - he is so skinny! On the first day in the office, he ate two lunches and two dinners. I wish I could be like him again.....

Today's lunch was at Koufu - a foodcourt near work. The name is hilarious.

Inside are a bunch of stalls lined up - generally they specialise in one particular cuisine or dish. Of course, there's the ubiquitous Chicken Rice stall too!

Yum! But no prawn?? =(

Lunch: Char Kway Teow. Mark says this is the best Char Kway Teow in the area - and from a foodcourt no less. It was YUM! Real good wok hei (wok air) flavour, lots of spice and depth of flavour from the different sauces used in the mix. I'll have to go back and find out what exactly goes into this. Apart from the hokkien noodles, got lap cheung (Chinese dried sausage), fish cake, mini oyster, bean sprout. Delicious! Mark is going to take me to the BEST (in his opinion, of course) Char Kway Teow on the island - near to the old office at Haji Lane. Can't wait!!

Iced Lemon Tea to cool me down while eating the Char Kway Teow.

After lunch we went to the local supermarket to buy fruit. Look at these KOREAN strawberries. Shipped all the way here! They are elongated and half white colour - not very appetising compared to the ones we pick back in NZ. However, I had a chance to try them and they are actually sweet and with a decent flavour. No comparison with NZ strawberries though!

Watermelons! Not a bad price for how damn big they are! Yum, gonna love eating all the fresh tropical fruit over here.

That's today's meals. More to come tonight :D

The OTHER national dish!!?

2010-02-25T20:33:00.001+13:00

The afternoon began in the sweltering heat, trekking from Orchard over to the office at Commonwealth. There I met with Jasone who introduced me to a way of life in Singapore - Teh Peng! Teh = tea and Peng = ice, so Teh Peng = iced milk tea! Sure, you might say, all the other Asian countries have iced milk tea too. What's special about the Singaporean one? THIS:

It's in a bag!!! WTH!!! Who would think that you can take a perfectly normal drink like milk tea, which is easily drunk out of a cup or a can or a bottle, and put it in a BAG?! WHAT!? Fill the bag with ice, tie it up with string, chuck a straw in it and BAM! Instant Singapore street culture. All for $0.90!

Dinner tonight was at Ang Mo Kio, at a place famous for Chili Crab! Chili Crab is renowned as being the very essence of Singapore - the spice and depth of flavour of Singaporean style food and the fresh seafood! You have never had crab like this before!

The place was packed as - people lining up everywhere. Generally, I'll try to only go to places where people are lining up - if the locals love it and are willing to line up for it when there is so much choice and competition, it must be good!!

So many different styles of crab! I want to try them all!!!

Pricing the crabs by grade and weight.

Long as queues to get inside. People have been lining up for almost an hour....

And after we order.. another hour of waiting time!!! :O

The requisite peanuts and chilis.

I start with a cool refreshing young coconut to drink. There is no aircon here so I'm sweating like the crabs in a pot of steaming water.

Stir-fried vege with chili. Don't know what kind of vege this is but its super yum!

Seafood with broccoli and egg tofu. YUM! The silky soft egg tofu is another specialty of Malaysia and Singapore. HK, China and Japan style tofu just cannot compare!

Sweet and Sour Pork - true Chinese style!

Cereal Prawns! The large prawns are coated in crispy crunchy cereal bits before being deep fried with a salt and pepper mix and spring onion and chili! Yum! The left over cereal mix is especially good with rice.

The MAIN EVENT! Chili Crab! A dish you can only find in Singapore - this, like the chicken rice, comes in many many different iterations across the island. The sauce is based in tomato, egg and chili, an intense, slightly sweet flavour, and a mild burn of chili. All this enhanced by the crab meat and crab fat soaked into the sauce.

Deep Fried Bun (mantou) to dip in the sauce! Genius idea!!!

YUM! Uncle Shun, Aunty Heidi, Aunty Lynn, if you are reading this, come to Singapore! You will love the seafood here!!

Me chowing down on a crab claw :D

Had to have a second drink to cool off from all the excitement! Lime Juice - how refreshing.

The aftermath of the battle... I wish we had another plate of mantou to mop up this delectable sauce! But was stuffed max...

My plate of shell. What a meal to start off my eating tour of Singapore! First day and two national icon already eaten! No doubt I'll be trying this again soon....

One Love.

The national dish?!

2010-02-24T18:38:00.002+13:00

First day in SG and the sun shines upon my arrival! (or more likely it just shines all the time..)

Here's the food intake for the past 12 hours, beginning with yet another round of plane food (bleurgh!) Was seriously debating whether to skip this meal and just eat more upon my arrival but.. I can't say no to food. No matter what it is..:

Fresh fruit selection - not bad not bad! As y'all will know, I love them melons :D

Followed by croissant. As you can see, I've got this lid-heating method down pat.

Some average butter. Another cold roll (didn't eat) and some jam (didn't eat). This butter is some Fonterra brand, but it just ain't anchor! (for those of you following the sweepstakes, i ate about 2g of butter..)

The main event: grilled beef steak (dry eurgh...), veal sausage, 'Boston' baked beans, hash brown. Pretty meh over all, soggy, tasteless, mush. Can't wait to get to SG and have some real food!!

So after all that disappointment (well, what should I expect?) here is it. The inaugural meal in Singapore. And, to be honest, I couldn't really think of a more fitting first meal. This is a staple of the Singaporean lunch/dinner diet - something you can get everywhere, but something that is impossible to PERFECT. Nevertheless, a great way to start my eating adventures in SG - Hainanese Chicken Rice!!!

This specimen here from an unidentified foodstall across the road from where I'm staying. Un-airconditioned, plastic stools, old men arguing over newspapers, grumpy stallholders, I LOVE IT!

This is sort of like a mini hawker centre. The type of place locals go for breakfast. Grubby, cheap, i love!

Hainanese Chicken Rice!!! Served with the requisite chilli/crushed garlic sauce and broth on the side. This cost only $2.50 for one la! How cheap is that!? (Thanks Winsie!)

Winsie's Roast Chicken Rice. Didn't have a try, but it was served in the same style as the Hainanese Chicken Rice - looks nommy!

A close-up of the nomness. What is so special about Chicken Rice? For those of you who don't know what it is, the rice and chicken are steamed together, or the rice with chicken stock, so that the rice is soaked with a delicious chickeny flavour. The chicken itself is smooth and very tender, and served warm or cold with a bit of stock sauce. Cucumber on the side. I couldn't really say if this was a good example or not of this beloved dish, but it was certainly tasty! Look out for more Chicken Rice coming up later in the blog!

Served up with some 100 plus - Isotonic drink to replace all those fluids I sweated out before :P Comes straight out of the chiller and with a cup of ice - that's how hot it is here!

Beverage of the afternoon - Caramel Frappucino at Starbucks. I don't like Starbucks and this was more expensive than 2 x my lunch, but I wanted to use the internet..... Inside Starbucks is about 5 degrees cos of the OTT aircon - compared with the 30 degrees outside! So hard to adjust..

That's it for now folks, check in again for dinner!!

/End Hiatus

2010-02-24T01:55:00.001+13:00

My apologies for being so slack with the blogging recently! (And by recent, I mean the last 4 months.. ><) Have had stuff to deal with RE uni, work, holidaying.... erm.. yeah. And just laziness in general, y'all know me.

Here's the end of the hiatus - and with it a new new beginning - Singapore! Eating capital of SE Asia! (bar my beloved HK of course, does this count as SE Asia?)

You can read about my Singapore travels over at www.singaporeray.blogspot.com but here is where I will be posting all FOOD related stuff. And there will be a LOT of food. Singapore - home of the Chilli Crab, Pepper Crab, Salted Egg Yolk Crab, Crab Bee Hoon.... yeah.. there will be lots of crab. And Chicken Rice stalls as far as the eye can see! HEAVEN!

Just a heads up, my good friend James will be starting up a sweepstakes on facebook as to how much weight I will gain!! Wahahaha... expect me to keep good tabs on this and keep updated for tips as to how I'm doing! You'll be able to read about the food I eat, what I drink, how much daily consumption is going on - and how much exercise I'm doing! (HA!) Know by now that I am prone to excess, especially where good damn food is involved. Tip #1: When I was last in TW, I gained 3kg solid over just less than 2 weeks. Damn that good street food! Expect more of the same in SG? Wait and seeeeee :P Join the sweepstakes and be in to win!

Today - the first day. Here's what I ate.... on the Emirates flight from Auckland to Brisbane:

Pineapple Pecan Cake served with Vanilla Sauce Anglaise. Meh. I always eat the cake first while I wait for my bread to heat up --------->

I hate the airplane bread being served cold! I remember once upon a time when airplane bread was served hot.. those times are long gone. Tip for travelers who prefer their bread hot - cut in half and lay face down on the top of your sizzling hot main tray. Hot bread perfect for buttering! Yum!

Anchor spreadable butter, Kapiti Egmont with Arnotts crackers, Emirates chocolate! What more could one ask for?

Cajun lamb loin salad with roasted vegetables and beetroot relish. This was pretty meh too, the lamb was chilly cold and I couldn't be bothered heating it on the lid :P

The main event - Kung Pao chicken - stir fried with rice and vegetables. Again, average. But really, what can one expect from airplane food!? I know NotQuiteNigella had a post not so long ago regarding airplane food in all its (not so much) merits, but I have never thought a whole lot about it!!

Apparently there is an 'As You Like It' option for the Brisbane-Dubai leg which involves vegetable pie, classic beef gravy pie, fresh seasonal fruit and assorted chocolate bars. Does this mean you can order as much as you like of these when you want?! I want! We'll see what I'm offered on the Brisbane-Dubai leg. Coming soon! Look forward to more exciting airplane food as well as deets of my first meal(s) in SG! Wahahaha.

One Love.

A quick word about ratings

2009-09-21T03:47:00.000+12:00

I've hummed and harred about whether or not to append ratings to my restaurant reviews for a long while now. I feel I'm somehow not qualified to be passing judgment on the creations of chefs who have spent their lives mastering and perfecting their techniques. Be that as it may, several readers have requested ratings as a way of comparing restaurants - seeing which might be suitable for any ocassion and etc.

So, I have done my best to present ratings across four facets. I find it hard to really present comparable ratings though, so I have sort of taken The French Cafe as my measure of excellence on this account. Though it may not gain a perfect score over all categories, it would be remarkably close on my scale, and I perceive it to be the best fine dining experience in Auckland.

O'Connell St Bistro, CBD, Auckland [republished]

2009-09-21T03:23:00.001+12:00

That I'd been given vouchers to the famed O'Connell St Bistro only served to hasten my visit there. Sure I'd planned to go sometime, but one can only afford to dine finely as much as the pittance of a student's part-time wage can sustain. And as B was back from Sydney for the weekend, I had the perfect excuse to give this Auckland eating icon a try.

I'd become intrigued with this restaurant ever since walking past a few years back. Though the place was always filled with suits, they never seemed to be there on business, and looked to be truly enjoying gorging themselves on the gorgeous food.

O'Connell St Bistro has won the laudments of almost every Auckland food critic for its simple, elegant style, intimate dining experience, and especially for its deep and varied cellar, for which it has garnered several awards. The space is tastefully decorated without being overly romantic - wooden floors, chocolate walls and rich, red velvet curtains, with candle light on crisp white tablecloths (somewhat oddly covered in white glossy paper). There are mostly tables for 2, and a few for 4, with a separate private dining room at the back for larger parties. Several older couples and a group of business partners render the atmosphere relaxed though muted - 'Very Adult' as our voucher so plainly states.

I can't quite navigate the book-long wine list with much panache, so we opt for two mocktails (not on the menu). These arrive in martini glasses and are a combination of pineapple, cranberry and lime juices, topped off with what I think is ginger ale. Delicious and refreshing, and I suspect will be of use in cleansing the palate later on in the meal.

I feel I must make a mention of the complimentary breads - though not quite as fresh as, say, those at The French Cafe, they are superb little bites, dense and chewy and perfect for soaking up the Motutira (Te Arai Olive Estate Olive Oil - itself flavoursome, light and a little spicy.

Ordering is a la carte in the modern European Bistro style - notable for one of Auckland's top fine dining establishments is the lack of a degustation menu (which has almost become the norm), save the 5 course $250 pp Veuve Cliquot Set Menu. We'll save that for another time.. So without much further ado, we order:

Steak Tartare, Quail Egg Yolk, Matchstick Potatoes.

Not on the menu, this was one of several specials offered to us by the Maitre'd once we had been seated. Finely diced, premium eye fillet steak was marinated with capers, onions, parsely, gherkins, olive oil, cognac, mustard and egg yolk and pressed into a large disc. I was happy that the beef was not too finely ground nor too densely packed, as often steak tartare can come to resemble an uncooked burger patty. Instead, here the different ingredients in the dish were easily discernable and could even be tasted one by one.

The beef flavour was intensified by the tangy marinade, not saucy, but absorbed into the meat. The capers and onions provided a little crunch for textural contrast with the soft beef. The complexity of the marinade was perhaps overshadowed by a little too much salt from the pickled capers and gherkins, though it was not too salty for my taste. The raw quail egg yolk on top added a rich, fatty, eggy flavour that took the edge off the pickles and further highlighted the quality of the beef.

The fried potatoes on the side were well done, crispy, even something like McDonalds fries, and tasted great with the addition of the table sea salt.

This was a pretty sizeable starter for the price ($25) and I was surprised by the combination of different flavour and texture elements. Being a raw meat kind of a guy, I thoroughly enjoyed the full flavour of the fresh eye fillet and the simplicity of its preparation.

Seared South Island Salmon, Ruby Grapefruit, Snow Pea Shoots and Crispy Shallots.

A stark contrast in colours and flavours, this dish had it all. The salmon, wonderfully fresh, was seared til the skin was crispy, but melt-in-your-mouth tender on the inside. Salmon can often be hurt by overcooking, changing a soft, squishy mouth feel to flaky and dry. This, however, was exemplar.

Accompanying was a textural medley - fresh sweet grapefruit, bitter shoots and crispy fried shallot goodness. I think that fried shallots should be served with everything from now on, they are just SO good! The flavours of the salad complimented the salmon perfectly, adding a refreshing change to the taste, and lifting the fat, whilst providing a nice textural contrast.

Pappardelle of braised Bendigo Station Rabbit, Rimu Smoked Bacon, Walnut Watercress Pesto and Parmigiano Reggiano.

Not wanted to be stuck with the usual sirloin, scotch or lamb rump again, I opted for the rabbit for my main. I'd eaten rabbit in a casserole before, and very much enjoyed the wild flavour. Here again the gamy flavour of the meat really stood out, though unfortunately it was a little tough in places. I would have thought that a slow braise would take the stringiness out of the meat and leave it soft, but perhaps it had been too quick of a job here.

The walnut watercress pesto, which I suppose was to bring a deeper earthier feeling to this dish, was slightly marred by the cumulative meat juices of the rabbit and bacon, which were dark, rich and very flavoursome, though obscuring the other flavours somewhat. I felt that this dish was one-dimensional where it didn't need to be. The pesto, tossed through the delicious fresh egg pasta, was lacking in punch, and light olive oil flavours didn't quite come through over the brawn of the smoked meat.

Milk fed Veal fillet wrapped in Prosciutto, Calvados caramelised Apples, Poached Baby Leeks and Truffle Jus.

I am always cautious to order veal, as I believe it takes a very skilled chef to be able to cook and garnish it well, and I am happy to say that this specimen was outstanding.

The fillet of rare-cooked veal was rolled in prosciutto and cut into medallions. The creamy, rosy pink veal was delicate and meltingly tender. The mild flavour - not as meaty as beef, nor as brazen - actually tasted like a baby cow. Mmm... baby cow...

The prosciutto was extraordinarily fatty and rich, and injected that much-needed salt and fat into every bite. Accompanying this meaty morsel was a dark sauce that tasted mostly of drippings, though I could just make out the earthy flavour of truffle hidden in there. Again, the rich oily flavours enhanced the meat's unique taste.

I couldn't at first make out what the caramelised apple was; it seemed to me like parsnip posing as something else. The light sweetness was refreshing. The leeks, sadly, were overdone and slightly tough on the outside - perhaps the outer layers should have been stripped first?

Overall, the meat here was the highlight - great flavour and garnished well to leave a comforting taste on the palate.

Roasted Beetroot with Chive Creme Fraiche.

The beetroot, a beautiful earthy red colour, smacked of quality seasonings and olive oil. The creme fraiche dressing provided a lightness and creamy sour lift that melted into the roasted flavour of the beetroot. Outstanding.

Baked Tahitian Vanilla Creme Brulee.

Look how big that is! Though it was in a shallow dish, this creme brulee was huge! I was a happy creme brulee fiend that night ^_^ (Last year I was obsessed with this dessert, making it batch upon batch until my friends and family were sick of it XD)

The top was browned to perfection by a kitchen torch (I still don't have one! Christmas present anyone?), burn marks and bubbles apparent in abundance. The crisp burnt sugar layer was of variable thickness, sometimes up to a millimetre and down to paper-thin. The flavour was intense, with a great, burnt caramel taste.

After cracking through the veneer, the soft yellowy custard creme was creamy and light - much lighter and less sweet that I am used to. There were subtle hints of vanilla flavour here and there, and the use of real vanilla bean was marked by the tiny black specks throughout. I thought it tasted much more like a custard than a caramel creme proper, and the texture was more of a light goo than a pudding. The combination of the crisp, sharp sugar skin and the soft custard was heavenly.

[As an aside, I read on KevinEats that the Tahitian Vanilla Creme Brulee is a Thomas Keller (The French Laundry) signature creation! Perhaps that dish was Stephen Ward's inspiration for this beautifully executed classic?]

Valrhona Chocolate, Pedro Ximenez Sherry and Hazelnut Trifle.

Hmm.. I am unsure what to make of this one. For sure it was a top class dish, using very quality ingredients and with just the right amount of pizzaz, but something about the quantities in there put it off-balance for me. It may just be that I am used to my mother's amazing custard/berry/sherry/sponge creations!

The trifle consisted of layers of sherry jelly, ladyfinger, coarse-chopped hazelnuts, chocolate mousse and cream, topped off with shaved chocolate. The jelly had a really strong, almost fruity flavour, and there was far too much of it, overpowering the delicious rich chocolate mousse. The ladyfinger and hazelnut didn't lend enough weight to the dish, almost no nut flavour coming through despite the generous layer. The sponge was also slightly dry, needing a good ratio of cream and jelly on the spoon to even it out.

Great individual flavours in this dish from the jelly and mousse were lost by the lack of balance here, and the hazelnut had yet to make its appearance known.

Italian Nougat.

B was slightly disappointed when the nougat turned out to be of the crunchy variety than the soft and chewy French style she had anticipated. I, however, tucked in with gusto. The nougat was actually very crisp and airy, not too dense at all. I tasted pistachio and marzipan, with a hint of lemon.

Attention to detail runs at a very high standard in this class act restaurant. The waiter's were attentive, if not snappy, all evening, and the presentation was beautiful. To be completely honest, if I was picking a restaurant for an occassion, it wouldn't be here again, though I would most definitely rate it worth a try. It was not that the experience as a whole wasn't special fine dining, it was just not unforgettable. The exquisite opening dishes, executed with flair and precision, were muddled by the mains, and I was sorely let down by the trifle.

Rating:

Food: 7.5/10

Service: 8/10

Value for Money: 8/10

Ambience: 8.5/10

O'Connell St Bistro
3 O'Connell St
CBD
Auckland
+64 9 377 1884
www.oconnellstbistro.com

Burgerfuel's Wagyu Burger

2009-09-21T03:14:00.001+12:00

Almost as soon as I returned from Sydney fresh with the disappointment of not having eaten Plan B's Famous $10 Wagyu Burger while I was there, I was surprised by a full colour page ad of Burgerfuel's new Wagyu burger!

Burgerfuel is a New Zealand originated slightly upmarket burger chain. Motorhead themed, they feature burgers with such names as Bacon Backfire and Studnut Stilton. While pricey (the burgers range from $7.90 for the plain burger up to $11.90 for the Bastard - a phenomenal creation including beetroot, mango, avocado and bacon. Burgerfuel really took off when it hit, as people were starting to look for tastier alternatives to McDonalds and Burger King, and many had the money to afford it.

The mention of Wagyu beef in a burger brought back memories of the Plan B special on a previous occassion - the coarse-ground 500 day grain fed beef melting in the mouth and luxurious on the palate. I wanted that experience again.

The Burgerfuel Serving Counter.

Tasty Refreshments - L&P and Lemon Lime Bitters.

Doofers!

Doofers are a Burgerfuel trademark creation - a small piece of card that can be folded in to the ultimate burger eating utensil - eat a burger with your hands, but without getting mess and sauces everywhere! Perfect!

Folded Doofer.

Folded Doofer - Side View.

Three MASSIVE Burgers mmm...

Yes, yes, I know it seems a little opulent, but I ordered a standard cheeseburger to go with C and I's Wagyu burgers, just for comparison. As we shall see, my foresight is unfathomable..

Wagyu Burger Autopsy Shot.

The 1/3 pound ground wagyu beef patty is supplemented by melted swiss cheese, caramelised onion, horseradish sour cream, salad and relish, all served on a smaller-than-standard bun.

The beef patty - griddle-cooked to well done and with a noticeable though not crunchy char on the outside has a clean beef taste at first. Though somewhat obscured by the condiments, I can make out tiny traces of the famed Wagyu intramuscular fat, though there is barely any. The grind is uniform, and very fine, though thankfully not too densely packed, leaving a coarse and chewable texture in the mouth. Though the flavour is very slightly reminiscent of the signature nutty Wagyu taste, and the fat imparts a oily mouth coating, I don't get a beef experience that differs from the norm - the flavour, though tasty, is still too much clean chuck beef, and could easily be confused for this were it not for the 'Special 1' stamp on the burger bag.

The horseradish sour cream dressing is a wasabi-tinged creamy dressing and combines well with the sweet and sticky caramelised onions to form a great foil for the grunty beef. I had at first worried that the combined might of the 3 sauces might have overpowered the delicate Wagyu taste - though as there was none of that taste to begin with, and they seem to have left out the relish, the balance was just about right.

Salad, in Burgerful terms, consists of iceberg lettuce, tomato and red onion rings - all are fresh and crispy as always, and impart a little juiciness to the burger.

I love the fact that this burger is served on a 'Lightweight' bun, as the regular Burgerfuel buns are large and much too bready - always offputting the beef/bun ratio that is critical for a good burger. However, it being lightweight does not serve to alleviate it from the usual Burgerfuel bun misery - it is tasteless and vaguely wholemealy, and with a regular medium whole structure that makes it just average for holding the thing together.

1/3 Pounder with Cheese Burger Autopsy Shot.

The 1/3 Pounder with Cheese consists of the 1/3 pound beef patty, melted cheddar, bread & butter pickles, dijon mustard, relish and aioli on the standard sized bun.

I was glad that I bought this, so I could compare the taste of the beef from each. When eaten side-by-side there was a noticeable difference firstly in the texture of the patty. The standard patty was very mealy and uniform, and a mellow grey-brown colour - the hallmarks of a pre-formed, machine-made, and possibly pre-frozen patty (though I'm sure I read somewhere that Burgerfuel patties are always fresh, not frozen). Asides from this textural wasteland, the beef flavour itself was muted, and somewhat underwhelming. This as opposed to the Wagyu patty, which had a coarser grind, was less uniform, a little fattier, and generally more 'fresh' tasting. Though it wouldn't be easy to pick if you blind-tasted the patties on separate occassions, tasting side-by-side made the Wagyu flavour stand out just the tiniest bit.

The Doofer in Action!

Yes, as expected, the Burgerfuel Wagyu burger was a big disappointment. Burgerfuel CEO Josef Roberts was quoted in the NZ Herald as saying he didn't know what grade of beef it was, but it was definitely "100% Wagyu".

And this really brings us to the debate on what can really be considered Wagyu. The meat for Burgerfuel's Wagyu patty is souurced from Australian growers (of which there are only a handful). I suspect they are taking the offcuts and low grade beef ends, as the flavour is not outstanding at all. Firstlight Wagyu growers in New Zealand considers anything below a marble grade of 4 as not making the grade - this is probably the type of meat that goes into these burgers.

Japan is considering getting G1 status for its purebred Wagyu beef, to protect not only the growers and the cattle's sanctity, but also unsuspecting consumers from eating below-the-grade beef that is flamboyantly named as 'Wagyu'. You can read more about the Wagyu trend in this outstanding editorial from The Age here.

Burgerfuel Parnell
187 Parnell Rd
Parnell
Auckland
+64 9 377 3345
http://www.burgerfuel.co.nz/

Mid-Autumn Festival Family Dinner

2009-09-21T00:44:00.001+12:00

Mmmm.. Mid-Autumn Festival. Yet another date on the Chinese Calendar that forms an excuse for awkward family gatherings and extended gorging sessions. With a group of the usual family members and friends we met up for pot-luck dinner at an Aunty's house. Being highly efficient and organised, everyone was delegated a dish to ensure no doubling up and the like. Drinks flowed and merriment ensued.

I knew there was a reason I still went to these things! This is it, photo-essay style:

Chinese Style Roast Duck.

Assorted Mushrooms and Fungus on Baby Bok Choy.

Malaysian Fish Cake Roll with Water Chestnut.

Seafood Fried Noodles.

Assam Chicken.

Chinese Style Roast Pork.

Baked Salmon with Dill.

Curried Cauliflower.

Beef Mie Goreng.

Thai Beef Salad.

Curry Puff in Homemade Short Pastry.

Sure, we were full up to HERE afterwards, but who doesn't have room for dessert right? We had sago pudding with brown sugar sauce and coconut milk. OH this is SO GOOD! Sweet, calorific and heart-attack-inducing, sure, but worth every sticky, creamy bite. (I should have got a photo but I was too greedy and couldn't wait).

What I also didn't manage to snap was the mooncakes! This year we had an unusual offering: Green Pandan Mooncakes! Crazy! From the outside they looked like normal mooncakes, but inside was a bright green coloured pandan and lotus paste. They taste a little like the regular white lotus mooncakes, but less sweet and with a hint of that beautiful leafy pandan taste. So gutted I didn't get a pic but they were gobbled up so fast! Next time I hope I can show you my friend's mother's pandan sponge cake! Bright green and delicious!

Japa Deli, CBD, Auckland

2009-09-18T02:26:00.001+12:00

The redevelopment of the corner block down at the bottom of Anzac Avenue has tidied up what used to be one of the less pleasant parts of the CBD. A widened footpath, new palm trees and a building redevelopment has poshed up the street side and the area seems to have been given a new lease on life, the little eateries there - including a curry takeaway and raamen bar - see more traffic than before. We were here to try Japa Deli, one of the new entrants to the block, which had been recommended by a friend.

The shopfront and indeed the interior is stylishly decorated with warm woods, soft lights and brick walls contrasting the shiny espresso machine and cafe counter. The restaurant interior was much the same, with polished floors and dark wood tables with beautiful flowers and candles. Though it was 8 o'clock on a Thursday evening, the place was still half full - mostly couples. Soft jazz, pop and cafe beats played in the background. It seems Momo Interior Design company did a great job laying this place out for an inviting and casual atmosphere.

The Cake Cabinet.

Though it's pretty late and near the end of the day, there are still sweets left in the glass display at the front. I spy coffee jelly (!!!), baked cheesecake, strawberry cream sponge cake and cream puffs. The cakes are looking a little sad from sitting in the cabinet all day. I hope they nom these overnight and don't leave them there for tomorrow's customers, but I'm sure with their 'A' grade hygiene rating they wouldn't even contemplate such a thing! I'd love to come back and try some of these during the day time - there are special combo deals for coffee + cake or even coffee + hotdog displayed on the cafe menu.

Salmon Hand Roll.

I was pleasantly surprised to see hand rolls on the menu (here called "corn rolls" what?) as you don't often see these in sushi shops in Auckland. I chose the salmon roll ($4), which was quite plain, consisting of a baton of salmon and one slice of avocado, that tried and true combination. The salmon was passable, and the avocado in prime condition - ripe, creamy and flavoursome. The rice, though, was a little stodgy, and the seaweed soft, as opposed to crispy as fresh nori should be, making the whole ensemble clumpy and sticky in the mouth.

Tempura Prawn Roll.

The prawn in this roll was actually panko crumbed as opposed to tempura battered, and reminiscent of the frozen type. However, it was large, and with the lettuce and mayo to complement, was not half bad. Unfortunately, the same story with the rice and nori was repeated here, letting it down.

Yakisoba.

These fried buckwheat noodles were served steaming and sizzling on a hot plate. The smells wafting from it were so tempting! Pieces of glistening fried pork belly lent a richness that was offset by the tiny sour pieces of pickled ginger. I can't really say much more about this dish - it was so simple yet deeply satisfying and really brought back memories of streetside stalls in Japan.

Prawn and Pork Okonomiyaki.

Again, I was surprised to see this on the menu as its not something I've eaten in Auckland before. Okonomiyaki is a traditional Osaka dish somewhat like a savoury pancake. Okonomi means "what you like" and "yaki" means grilled or fried, but traditional fillings include cabbage, octopus, prawns and pork. The pancake is then topped with mayonnaise, okonomiyaki sauce (like a sweet thick worcestershire sauce) seaweed bonito flakes. This one was filled with small prawns and slices of fried belly pork mmm!! The flavours and textures here were deemed delicious by all. I thought it could have been crispier and the batter was a bit floury in places, but as it's the only place I can get this right now, I can't complain too much.

Karaage Chicken.

I'm a sucker for anything deepfried and so order the karaage chicken set meal which comes with a dish of perfectly golden fried chicken pieces, a small salad, rice and miso soup. The chicken was tender and juicy, it could have been a little crunchier. The relatively tasteless batter was helped by two sauces - natto (fermented soybean paste) and sweet soya sauce. Overall, not bad though.

Teriyaki Chicken.

J had the teriyaki chicken set and again the chicken pieces were very juicy. There seems to be a myriad of ways to cook teriyaki chicken - this one was simply wok-fried bite-sized pieces of chicken doused in sauce. The sauce was great - sweet but with enough of a salty kick to make it very moreish. A sprinkling of sesame seeds and spring onions added great texture, along with the dollop of creamy mayonnaise for dipping.

Katsu Curry.

This thick, rich curry was delicately sweet in the Japanese style - but also with a deep complex taste of tumeric and cumin. A pleasant surprise was that, in addition to the standard potatoes and onions, the curry was also chock full of soft stewed pork, falling apart from extended simmering. I didn't try the katsu but it looked great - very crispy and golden! Highly recommend this curry!

Tsuya-Meku-Jelly-Sparkling.

This small placard on the table enticed us with its Engrishy declaration: "Moisturize your stressed heart as well!" And really, who isn't in need of a good heart-moisturizing?!

We were instructed to shake the tiny can ($10) thoroughly before opening, which we did with caution - it looked like a soda! Instead, what came out was a fizzy, peach-flavoured sake jelly! The texture is hard to describe - its something like a not-quite-set jelly, or one that has been made with a higher water ratio - neither solid nor liquid and perfect for drinking! The fizz made it taste like champagne, and the peach flavours rounded off to a light summery finish on the tongue!

Though the menu was not long, I will definitely be back here to try what we missed. Pleasant service, a range of authentic Japanese dishes - and not to mention the great company - made for a relaxing evening out.

Rating:

Food: 5.5/10
Service: 6.5/10
Value for Money: 7/10
Ambience: 7.5/10

Japa Deli
1-5 Anzac Ave
CBD
Auckland
+64 9 303 3924

Kobe Jones $25 All You Can Eat Sushi Lunch, Darling Harbour, Sydney

2009-09-17T17:51:00.003+12:00

All you can eat? ALL you can eat?? ALL you can EAT?!?! Sushi? $25??! You couldn't drag me away with wild horses!

Again, another opportunistic read over at NotQuiteNigella informed me of the existence of this super special uber limited time only umami fest at Kobe Jones, Darling Harbour. I'd often stumbled past this harbourside icon when browsing the eateries along King Street Wharf and wanted to give it a try - only the prices put me off. Well-heeled it-girls and business lunchers make up the majority of the clientele on a bustling Monday lunchtime - there's hardly a seat left in the place. Not being one to miss out, I made reservations, especially as the lunch dining session is only 12 - 2:30.

Sushi Platter.

Clockwise from top - Kingfish Nigiri, Salmon Nigiri, Tuna Nigiri, Prawn Tempura Roll, Salmon and Cucumber Roll, Crab and Eel Roll, Spider Roll, Volcano Roll (centre).

On that note, I'll have to first apologise for the lack of photos. We were seated at 1:30, as it was the only time B could get away from the office, so I was too busy stuffing my face to pose the food. The sushi is served platter style, with the day's variety in quantities according to how many diners there are. The selection varies from day to day, though there is always fresh Nigiri and Kobe Jones' famous Volcano Roll.

The Nigiri was merely passable, all of the fish slightly too dry and slightly too warm for my taste. It definitely could have been fresher and the rice ratio for each portion was a little too much.

Recommendation goes to the Tempura Prawn, which was crispy, warm and very fresh. The roll was fleshed out with a little crab salad as well, which created a nice creamy dressing for the prawn. However, the tempura crumbs sprinkled on top were a little stale.

Salmon in the Roll was a lot fresher than its Nigiri counterpart and married well with the crunchy cucumber sticks.

The Crab and Eel Roll contained crab salad and teriyaki eel pieces. The eel was warm and melt-in-the-mouth tender, with the sweet teriyaki sauce offset well by the salad dressing again.

Soft-Shell Crab in the Spider Roll was average, neither good nor bad. It was warm, but not particularly crunchy, and it lacked in the flavour department. Spices in the batter would have gone a long way here.

Volcano Roll.

The Volcano Roll consists of three pieces of crab-salad (are we beginning to see a trend here?) and avocado roll with baked scallops in cream sauce on top. The sauce is very creamy, thick and a little sour, almost like a bearnaise, and is topped off by crunchy spring onion slices. The combined textures of the sushi roll, the sweet, tender scallops, and the thick creamy sauce create a very comforting feeling in the mouth - almost like a homemade mac and cheese. We ended up ordering three more plates of this - aren't we pigs!

All up it was a very satisfying lunch. The Volcano Roll really hit the spot with its comfort-food mix of flavours and textures. I felt like I needed a nap afterwards! I was a little surprised that the sushi wasn't of better quality, especially after hearing how Kobe Jones made its name as a sushi icon when it first burst on to the Sydney eating scene. As one of the chic King Street Wharf bunch, it quickly gained popularity and, judging by the crowd today, that $25 deal still draws them in.

I was disconcerted by the poor service we received on this occasion. It took 20 minutes for a waitress to take our order after we had been seated and a further 20 for our food to be served. I understand that the lunchtime rush had to be catered to, but the restaurant was clearing as we received our first platter and we had to hurry to order after that before the 2.30 last-order call. Still, a restaurant of this standard and experience should be able to cope with a Monday lunch setting with a little more finesse.

Rating:

Food: 6.5/10
Service: 4/10
Value for Money: 7.5/10
Ambience: 6/10

Kobe Jones
29 Lime Street
King Street Wharf
Sydney
+61 2 9299 5290
http://kobejones.com.au/sydney

McDonalds' Grand Angus Burger

2009-09-02T19:59:00.001+12:00

So I was really REALLY excited when I saw on NotQuiteNigella that McDonalds was putting out these two new Angus Beef burgers. I was so excited, in fact, that I started raving to my friends almost immediately, and force-showing them what little evidence I could find online. The tension was only heightened when I saw a squashed Mighty Angus box on the ground. You see, NQN had mentioned only the Australian release date, so I was unsure if (or when) New Zealand would get them, so far behind the rest of the world are we. There was no fanfare when these dropped in Auckland, and naturally my friends thought I was bonkers. They even proposed that I had DREAMT about the box I saw as I was fantasising so much..

As it ends up, I didn't have a chance to try until I was in Sydney, where I first heard about it anyway. Here's my take on the Grand Angus burger, and a comparison with the Deluxe Cheeseburger (a regular cheeseburger with lettuce).

Grand Angus Burger and Deluxe Cheeseburger side-by-side.

Open Casket shots.

As you can see, the Grand Angus completely dwarfs the humble cheeseburger. That 'sourdough' bun is HUGE and there's salad poking out everywhere.

The autopsy shot.

This is where things really get interesting. As NQN explains, the Angus Patty (100% prime angus beef, apparently) is a 3-to-a-pound patty, approximately 150 grams. The Cheeseburger Patty, on the other hand is a 10-to-a-pound patty, or about 45 grams. The Angus Patty is, then, justifiably ENORMOUS. It really is about 3 times the thickness and about 1 and a half times the top-down area.

Grand Angus autopsy shot.

The Grand Angus also contains two slices of McDonalds classic cheese, red onion rings, lettuce, tomato, pickles, and the usual sauces - mayo, tomato sauce and mustard, packed into a sourdough bun. Now, this bun isn't really a sourdough as such... more like a slightly denser version of The Boss burger's kaiser bun. It has some pretty track marks over the top, but otherwise tastes pretty bland, and just does an adequate job of holding all the fillings in the burger.

The patty is a real let down. I expected a really beefy flavour with perhaps a bit more ground beef texture. What I got was a big version of the cheeseburger patty. To be fair, when I separated bits of the patty from each burger and tried the patty on its own, I could detect a whiff of something other than standard McDonalds cardboard in the Angus Patty, so it may well be a decent (not really) patty on its own. However, when chucked in with the overwhelmingly rich stickiness of the McDonalds cheese, and then with the salad and sauces on top, it really was indistinguishable from any other McDonalds burger. The fat juicy piece of tomato was the real highlight of this burger for me :D

Deluxe Cheeseburger autopsy shot.

Not much to say here, except that it was cheaper ($1.95 AUD) than a regular Cheesebuger ($2.10 AUD) and you get a bit of munched up lettuce, a bit of mayo, and I think they take out the tomato sauce, so there wasn't that zingy bite anywhere. Thumbs down boring.

So there you have it. I rate the Grand Angus burger a failure on all accounts. Unless you're looking for something to make you feel sick late at night, don't go for it. In fact, if you were looking for just that, I'd go for 4 regular Cheeseburgers instead, it'd probably taste better going down. To really get a rounded view on the Angus hype, I might have to go back and try the Mighty Angus burger - bacon, cheese, mayo, onion and caramelised onion relish - and see if all that lack of greens makes the difference.. Tempting?

LAZY.

2009-08-19T09:47:00.000+12:00

Sorry ba, I'm lazy and didn't bother to update my blog yet! I've uploaded the pics from two of my recent meals and will finish writing the blog posts in the holiday! For now, some essays and tests to come before I can get away!

Soto - New Style Japanese Cuisine, Ponsonby, Auckland

2009-07-19T15:34:00.001+12:00

So here it is. The Inaugural Restaurant Review.

Let me preface this by saying that I love to eat. I will pretty much eat anything and everything that is set in front of me (some call me the rubbish bin), and though this sometimes infers a lack of taste or persuasion, I like to think my rounded palate leaves me open to experiencing as wide a variety of flavours as the world can give me. My dream is to eat my way around the world. I want to eat bat in Nepal, seal in Greenland, insects in Egypt and everything in between. Burgers in America, pizza in Italy, mutton chops in England, sausage in Germany. The world really is your oyster, delicious, fresh, slimy, and to be taken as you like.

On that rather rambling note, here goes :D

Soto was named Best Japanese Restaurant in the 2008 Metro/Audi Restaurant of the Year Awards. Though I usually don't place much stock in the outcome of restaurant reviews in the New Zealand press, I guess one has to take notice of such laudments ocassionally (Metro placed my favourite restaurant The French Cafe as Best Fine Dining last year i think)..

The restaurant is buzzing and warm at 7 on a rainy Friday night, welcome respite from Auckland's wind and cold. The place looks to be almost full from the front of house. We are seated in a modified tatami room, the style that many of the more upper-class Japanese restaurants reserve for larger groups - no shoes, cushions on the floor, a low table with a space underneath to place your feet. The room is minimally decorated with some light box bamboo displays on the walls, paper lantern-style lights and corner tables. A column oil heater somewhat distracts from this elegance - it kept the room warm, but perhaps they could try something less.. in the way... hmm.

Settings on unadorned wooden table are sparse - chopsticks with holder, napkin and two wine glasses.

We are presented with menus and the drinks menu.

There are a variety of Japanese and local beers, a well-chosen wine-list encompassing classics and a few boutique wines, and a selection of sakes and cocktails. I go for a tap Sapporo nom nom.

After a little hmm and haa we settle on the Soto Share Selections - one of four Tenshin Japanese Style Set Menus. Though the menu says this is for 8 people to share, chef says no problem to us sharing it between 6 people ^.^

I'll now run through the menu dish by dish.

Left to right: Edamame Beans, Japanese Omelette, Spinach Ohitashi.

These were the first 3 of 6 'Japanese Tapas' selections.

The beans were slightly too warm for my taste, though the texture was just right, and extra points for using flaked sea salt to add flavour.

The omelette was sweet and puffy, well done but not particularly special.

The spinach was small condensed blocks of baby spinach covered in a sesame sauce. The sauce, nutty and gritty, and spotted with sesame seeds, added a nice contrast to the crunchy spinach, and was slightly warm to the spinach's fridge cold.

Left to right: Tempura Calamari Nanban, Karaage Beef, Fish Panko Crumb Katsu.

The next three starters were hot.

The calamari rings were tender all the way through, but the tempura batter had become a little soggy because of the saucethat coated them. I could taste garlic, ginger, chives, cayenne pepper, ponzu sauce and Japanese mayonnaise, a heady mix almost like a thousand island - very moreish and complimented the calamari perfectly.

Karaage is a deep-fried snack, usually of chicken. This beef was amazing, very tender, and coated with a crunchy batter. The sauce was a thickened ponzu, tangy and flavoursome though there was a little too much of it.

The fish bites were a little dense for my liking, a white fish in this style should be flaky and light. The panko coating provided a nice crisp and was perfectly fried, the accompanying katsu sauce was also good.

Yellow Fin Tuna, Snapper & Aoraki Salmon 'New Style' Sashimi. Dressed with a citrus soy sauce and spicy sesame finish. Accompanied with a julienne of Japanese vegetables & baby fresh salad leaves.

This dish epitomised the 'New Style' cuisine Soto so boldy purveys. It was presented more as a carpaccio than as sashimi is traditionally, and without the regular soy/wasabi/ginger accompaniment. Instead, a ring of cucmber slices in citrus soy dressing framed thick slices of fish which centred on a tower of radish and micro-cress.

The fish was so fresh it might have just been caught, firm and tender and fleshy. The soy sauce was reminiscent of a citrus reduction, though without the stickiness. Topping each piece of fish was a spicy, oily, ginger and sesame finish. This dab really made the dish. The combination of flavours was sublime, the oiliness of the finish balanced against the acidic soy sauce and met by the fatty fish. Overall, my favourite dish of the night! Really impressive.

Seared Crusted Tuna Tataki Sashimi. Crusted with southern ocean giant kelp pepper then seared. Garnished with momiji-oroshi, miniature salad leaves & a ponzu dipping sauce.

There was a LOT of tuna in this dish. Huge ass chunky pieces of seared fresh tuna. Topping each piece was a small dab of grated daikon radish with chilli, and a flake of fried garlic. As the tuna was in such thick slices, it was a bit hard to get enough of the ponzu sauce to adequately coat. This allowed the pepper crust flavour to dominate. If you managed to mix the sauces on top of the slice together with a bit of manoeuvring, they balanced better, though it was a bit hard with the tuna being in such large pieces. Nevertheless, I'm a sucker for big portions, and this was BIG!

Crispy Juicy Teriyaki Chicken. Infused with manuka honey. Served with Tawara rice rolls sprinkled with a wasabi furikake seasoning.

I would not hesitate to say that this is one of THE best teriyaki chicken I have ever eaten. Usually teriyaki chicken doesn't really appeal to me; its over-commercialised, boring and more often than not the sauce is just out of a bottle and the chicken is cooked by someone who doesn't care about chicken. This chef obviously cared about his chicken.

It was incredibly tender and soft - thigh cutlets (skin on!!) browned both sides with plenty of fat keeping it moist. The skin wasn't as juicy as it could have been because of the sauce, but the sauce was divine. You could really taste the honey, and it wasn't too sweet or too thick or salty, just right!! The taste was heightened further by strings of fried shallots mmm shallots....

Teppanyaki Angus Beef Fillet Steak - Premium, grain fed, grilled beef, accompanied by sesame marinated mung beans. Served with poached shiitake mushroom, snow peas & a citrus garlic jus.

A good-sized piece of fillet steak, but it was cooked a bit past the medium-rare I usually prefer. I guess you could ask the chef to cook it to your liking, but you might get a stony stare back T_T.. Though tasty, this dish was unremarkable. The beef had a really tasty beefy flavour, as one would expect from this premium cut, and it was enhanced by the earthy garlicky sauce. The vegetables on the dish were merely decoration and added nothing to the flavour.

Paradise Prawn Filo Tempura - Spun in shredded filo topped with tartare & wasabi caviar and a Japanese Worcestershire styled sauce.

Visually, this was a particularly interesting dish. The technique involved in spinning the prawns in the shredded filo pastry would have been intensely difficult!!

The prawns themselves were huge and tender, and the coating fried til crispy - perfect execution. Two things prevented this dish from being outstanding. The pastry layer was too thick. This reduced the ratio of prawn in every bite and was a little dry in the middle. Secondly, the prawns were shell on. I don't mind this, cos I'll eat anything, and I'm usually too lazy to shell prawns anyway so I'll eat the shell - and I did, tail, head, everything. However, this might make it a bit tricky to eat for some who want to avoid those crunchy sharp bits.

The tartare / wasabi combination worked well but the Worcestershire sauce was a little too much clash in flavours. It would have been better without it. The abundance of sauce helped prevent it from being tooo dry.

Chef's Dessert tasting plate, Left to Right - Vodka poached mixed berry 'ima shochu' with coconut Kanten jelly; Black Sesame Ice-cream, Ginger and white miso Creme Brulee.

The dessert menu at Soto actually consists of a whole lot of different and interesting 'themed' classics. Things like pannacotta and millefeuille with a twist. Also interesting is that when dining a-la-carte, you choose any three desserts to create your own tasting plate - for $14! Bargain!!!

The poached berries were tender and saucy, though not much of a hint of shochu flavour was left. The little cubes of kanten jelly were a little strange, like cubes of Jello, but with a slightly creamy, coconuty flavour to them.

The ice-cream was DREAMY!!! God, I can't really say how much I love the flavour of black sesame ice-cream. I've never eaten a bad one! Ever!! Perfectly sweet, smooth and moreish with a delicious slightly burnt sesame flavour. I could go on about this for ages. I licked that little box clean.

The brulee, too, was excellent. A really strong hit of ginger in the burnt sugar top, with a silky smooth brulee underneath. I didn't actually realise that this was 'white miso' brulee.. though I've only ever had white miso in soups and have no idea how it would taste sweet. Regardless, while I didn't catch any of that flavour, this was a top notch brulee with a lovely ginger finish.

We left Soto feeling fuuuuullll after this heavenly dinner. Portions were perfect size for sharing, and the price ($58 pp) was absolutely reasonable considering the quality produce and thoughtful preparation. This is far from your average in Auckland, each dish has had time and effort, as well as some creativity put into it. The service, as with Japanese restaurants of this high a standard, is attentive and always obliging, the waitresses always hovering at just the right distance to refill your drink, bring you another menu, or even crush your lime into your drink for you (as we found)!! Soto has to be one of the leading Japanese dining experiences in Auckland. Trendy, sophisticated, and creative, the food really does highlight a 'new style' of Japanese cuisine.

Rating:

Food: 7.5/10
Service: 8/10
Value for Money: 8.5/10
Ambience: 6.5/10

Soto
13 St Mary's Rd
Ponsonby
Auckland
+64 9 360 0021
www.soto.co.nz

The bane of my existence, the reason I breathe.

2009-07-19T13:31:00.000+12:00

I've been thinking about writing a blog for a while. Not aimed at any particular genre or demographic, just a place where I can jot down my astounding philosophical thoughts on life. Ah also, I like to review stuff, I think I'm a bit of an expert on lots of things so there might be restaurant reviews and the like here. I always find it's hard to find good, meaningful reviews. And really, that's the purpose of the Internet isn't it? A collaborative, free information world where anybody can know anything. Well, that's my take on it anyway.

So why is this blog called 'nom nomz'? I like food. No that would be an understatement. I LOVE food. Love as in if I'm away from it for more than a few minutes I start to die a little. Love that I would walk a thousand miles for. Love that sucks at my wallet, my time, destroys friendships, breaks families apart, and yet I still come back for more. Mmm food.. So, though this wasn't really meant to be a 'food blog' as such, I'll be posting a lot about food. Well, as often as my wallet can handle anyway. Apart from that it'll be the kitchen sink, the larder and everything in doraemon's backpack along with it!!

[EDIT: In case you didn't know (wtf have you been living in a cave?) 'nomnom' or even 'omnomnom' is the sound one makes when eating. Well at least I make it when eating. Cows may also be seen to make this sound when ruminating. mmm... rumination...]

Bon appetit.

A seed.

2009-07-17T13:28:00.001+12:00

Everything starts with a seed.