Decadent@ La Strada Singapore

A decadent Birthday Dinner for the January babies, M,SH and me at La Strada (Shaw Centre).
La Strada meaning "The Street" is part of Les Amis group and pride it self in serving exquisite Italian fare. Much to our dismay, the executive chef has left for holiday with her wife and it was its sous chef Haw Poh Poh that took the helm today.

Nonetheless, it is a flight of extraordinary wines.....

Francois Raveneau Chablis Premier Cru 2002@160SGD: One of the top Chablis maker, this baby sings! Nose of buttery oak and citrus. Oyster seashell zing on the palate with great mineral complexity at the backpalate. Very elegant with immense acidity. Good for long term cellaring and it definitely gonna be very complexed when aged. Have a few bucks? Buy a case to cellar!
Dom Perignon Vintage 1975@800SGD: The usual suspect of Champagne, but of vintage 1975. Some broiche citrus nose back with yeast. Fine bubbles. Initial nose of pleasant sea salt which some commented as being Marmite like. After 30min of breathing, elegant honey appear on the nose. Finish was medium

The beautiful cork of the 1975 Dom Perignon. Still holding on!
Thierry Vigot Vosne Romanee Premier Cru Les Gaudichots 1992@250sgd: Light pink body with brown hue. Amazing young sight for such a aged wine. Pleasant nose of cherry with some wetness evolving into some undergrowth tone. A good spicy nose as well. A character wine.
Beaulieu Vineyard Private Reserve 1973@800SGD: The pioneer label of Napa Valley wine and one of the "First Growth" status in Napa. Brownish red, sigh of aged. Big sweet licorice in the nose with some leather. Evolve into medicinal tone after 30mins. A tremendous acidity, it still can hold another 10 years. Amazing for a Napa Valley wine!
Chateau Montrose 1982 St Estephe: Pour straight from the bottle. A big nose a boil egg. Smelly and close. Some barnyard. Edwin suggested to leave it for 45mins and I faithfully follow suit. After 45 mins, a beautiful pencil shavings, elegant big mid palate occur. This sings as well, but you need time and decanting.
Chateau Ducru Beaucaillou, St Julien 1985: Intense pencil shavings on the nose. Elegant mouth feel with long finish. Good acidity. Can still hold for 8 years.This is nice! This is my favourite St Julien wine so far as compared to Leoville Las Casses. Beautifu! Vasse Felix will be a poor man version of this with more fruit and elegance. Drinking well now!
Clos Des Pape Chateauneuf Du Pape 1999@100SGD: This Castle of the Pope wine, born on gravely soil of the Rhone valley is definitely elegant. Slight gamy nose but light mouthfeel. A good freshness in the mouth. Nose are still tight. Needs time!

Louis Roederer Cristal 2000@450SGD: The jewel of the House is Cristal, this champagne is created in 1876 for Russian Tsar Alexander II. Big big erupting bubbles when pour into the glass. Immense gas released and kinda irritates your nose when sniffing it. Some biscuit initially, but developed honey after 30min. A strong mid body with a structure to hold against time. This definitely needs time of another 8 years for it to mature. Infanticide.

Chateau Guiraud 1996 Sauternes@90SGD: Nice golden brown colour showing good age. Immense apricot in the nose and detect some minor secondary herbs beneath. Still can hold for many years to shed the primary fruit. I have a bottle in my cellar and probably i'll pop 1 open in 2020 to celebrate and witness the progress of Malaysia's Wawasan 2020 project.

The food:

French Bean Salad, Deep fried Jerusalem artichoke and Spanish onions. Ok, you have ingredients from all over the world but how's the taste? Well i could not detect any Spanishness or Jerusalem-ness or Frenchiness in it but this dish is light and pleasing to eat. Some sea salts opens up our appetite for more! Demona could have done a similar job ( without the truffles on top ) with Cameron highlands grean beans, potota and Indian onions.. I just have to get her some seasalt! ( Atlantic or Pacific?)
Tagliatelle with slow cooked shallots, pancetta and zucchini: This is quite a let down. The sauce and pasta did not hold together. Disintegrated. The sauce was too light and not holding well. The home made pasta was not fresh and. I could have cooked a much better version at a tenth of the price. FAIL!
Pan fried Mulloway Fish with Jerusalem artichoke in olive, basil and tomato nage: Again, i could not sense any Jewishness in the dish. As i was born and lived in a Fishing Village (near), the fish did not live up to my expectation and i could tell it was long dead before being cooked. Meat was dry and some fishiness smell. Sweetness was gone from the fish. The artichoke olive basil "sauce" did not enhance nor compliments the fish. Disharmony. Fail!

Chargrilled 200 day grain fed US ribeye served with thick cut potato fries, rocket salad and natural jus. Star dish for the night. Very very well made steak cook to perfection!! you could taste some fantastic tender beefy flavour from this. NO sauce, no condiments, eat it au natural! Within a month i had tasted 2 very good steak from Italian restaurant (Senso and here), I ponder did the italians forgotten about their roots in pasta and venture more in to big steak? Well made dish, but the disappointing pasta really put me off as i expect Good pasta in a Italian restaurant.
Chocolate cake from Canele Patisserie: S got this from Canele and it is rich rich rich. Thick chocolate fillings with biscotti crumbs, raisin in the middle. Heavenly. Demona would die for this!
Balsamic and peppered Strawberries with light yogurt sorbet: So so dish. Interesting touch of balsamic vinegar but thats about it. It did not lift anyone off its seats or provide good comfort. Fuggehaboutit.


My pressies from P and M. Thanky Whanky!

Cinnamon rolls@Adventist Bakery

Demona: My aunt recently went on a business trip to Penang, which involves a meeting and a tour in the Penang Adventist Hospital. Diplomatic stuff. She brought home a box of cinnamon rolls from the Aventist Bakery, the resident bakery in the hospital.



Demona: I must admit, I am overall, pretty skeptical about hospital food.



Demona: Whaddya know.... it actually tasted good! The dough was fluffy and it was wholemeal based. The little grainy bits here and there, gave each bite a healthy, wholesome feeling, which suited well with a hot cup of coffee on this sunny Saturday morning. Another well deserved brownie point was that the baker eased on the butter/oil content, unlike cinnamon rolls which you get from big names eg: Saint Cinnamon which are grossly, heavily coated with oil and sugar, definitely not for the faint hearted. You can see some faint yellow coloured sugary butter coating on some parts of the dough.



Demona: Instead of purely adding processed sugar, coarsely chopped apricots and mini raisins were added in between of the cinnamon roll layers. I think that this is a good improvisation. Besides that, it gives a nice feel to have chewy bits to bite on in between the dough layer. You can see the fruit bits from the pict!

There is one part that the baker can improve on, is to add a little bit more cinnamon to the rolls, to bring out the smell and flavour even more. In this aspect, the big names definitely win them all.

Nevertheless, I much preferred my cinnamon rolls baked in this wholesome manner. To be frank, I would never buy the cinnamon roll from the big names.

One, they do not attract me, I find them small, overly oily, and costly.

Two, somehow or rather, I feel like I am cheated, to buy these expensive cinnamon rolls which are drizzled over with hershey's chocolate syrup, or pre-supplied blueberries and jam, which .. kinda' like, buying a pathetic, miserable looking ham sandwich, with a tiny piece of lettuce and some butter and mayo from chain bakeries versus two big chunky slices of grained bread, coated with garlic butter, toasted with a healthy portion of smoked ham, lettuce, some cheese, maybe brie, sprinkled over with pepper, salt and herbs as you like, using your humble and loyal tiny toaster, until the bread turns golden brown and fragrant.

Haha. You know, that homey feeling. I apologise. Dogma knows me well, I am a descriptive person.

Maybe I can baking cinnamon rolls next time! :).. Dogma..*winks*.

Baden Baden @Holland V

Y and I went to Baden Baden in Holland V for my Post Birthday Celebration

It was bad bad bad from the start.

We were quite full and decided to have a glass of beer each. Since they are having a one for one promotion, we decided to order 1 beer and get the other one free. I'd explained to the waiter carefully our decision to share,and he just nodded and says will bring a beer each for us.
Before he left I suspect something was amiss and asked him " so total 2 beers?"
He said " No, 4 beers"

WHAT??? I tot you understood me?!

After prolong discussion and clarification, he finally mentioned that it is the house rule that each of us have to order a beer each resulting in 2 beers per head.
I mean, hey it's fine if you have such rules, but please be upfront about it.

Erdinger Weissbeer and Dunkel@10sgd each: Full of controversy for night. The weissbeer was very floral and slightly on the extra sweet side. Entrance was smooth but lacking in bite and acidity for my liking. The dunkel was fuller body, but the hopness level was low. I would vote for Brewerkz IPA still!
Sausage Platter@15sgd: So so sausage. The white sausages were basically tasteless and soggy. Only the spicy thin red sausage was worth mentioning. The sauerkraut is disastrous. It was dry, not salty and not tangy. Basically just tasteless. Felt like an overnight/overcook sauerkraut. Mash potato was too dry. yucks.
Rosti@8sgd: Pan fried potato swiss style with sour cream. How can you go wrong on a plate of fried potato topped with sour cream? The sour cream was flat and diluted. yucks. The potato slices was well fried but the dull sour cream jsut killed it.

The dinner took a nosedive when i asked for some tartar sauce and mustard to spice up my rosti and sausages.

Waiter: It cost 1 dollar for each servings of the tartar sauce and mustard..
ME: Mouth wide open

Come on, even McDonald's don't charge for extra pack of mayo/tartar and a "boutique" German bar/restaurant in Holland V have to charge me for that pack of tartar?

Down you go you bad baddie bad Baden Baden.
Life is a bitch: Cufflinks from Y as my bday gift.

Rieslings@Clementi

A brief note of the above 2 wines:

Brown Brothers Crouchen Riesling 2004: Syrup like nose. bad. Zero Acidity. No body. Just fatness of the glucose. Too Sweet. Chuck it in the fridge and second day improve slightly. Not that sweet but still sweet. Abit herbal. Still not body/acidity. Throw!

A Schimitt Riesling Mosel Germany 2002: Dead muted nose. Did not open up. Fat body but again lacking in citrus and acidity. Throw! A bad buy

Oriental's The Ming Room Restaurant@Bangsar Shopping Complex

Demona: Dogma and I had very, very fond memories of this place. Hot steam from freshly cooked dim sum, savouring finger licking, yummy-licious char siew paos, sipping hot chinese tea while reading the Sunday news on a relaxing, chilly evening. Gleaming,shy smiles when we caught each other exchanging glances. There was something about this place, which left us feeling, happy and energized after our meals. Maybe it was the scrumptious food, maybe it was the furniture, or the daylight that shined in and brightened up the whole place, or the fusion of all of it.

We have not gotten a chance to revisit this place together since then.

I met my aunts here for a dim sum meal one day. Knowing that it was The Ming Room, I made a quick pit stop back home just to get hold of Dogma's old, vintage, faithful camera.



Demona: This was the prawn rolls, wrapped with foo chuk skin. There was nothing ravish about this dish besides the fairly large, juicy, succulent prawns. The foo chuk skin was softened, giving me the impression that these were pre-made instead of made upon order. RM 6.00.



Demona: This was the mango prawn rolls, wrapped with a sesame seeds coated dough. Yet again, only the prawns gave the kick to this dish. The mango slices used were overly ripe, thus they were too soft and had a funky sweet taste, which failed to blend in with the taste of the prawns. RM 6.00.



Demona: The Siew Mais were gigantic! Each bite was a delicate feel. The meat was beautifully blended giving it a smooth touch at the end. RM 7.00.



Demona: The fried coarsely chopped carrot cake. RM 7.00. Another juicy thumbs up for Ming Room. The carrot cake was spicylicious! Fitted me well. Each chopped piece was nicely fried, with burnt edges, releasing a wok hei feel to it. The carrot cake was not too oily, which helped made this dish much more enjoyable to eat.



Demona: The Loh Mai Kai. My brother went on and on about the greatness of the LMK throughout our journey home. " Jin Jia Jin Jia Ho Chiak Lor!" (very, very yummy!). The LMK had a slice of abalone cooked along with the pork meat too. RM 7.00.



Demona: Awh. My all time favourite.. and also my No. 1 choice here in Ming Room. The, juicy, sweet sauce mixed with sesame seeds and chopped parsley, coating chunky pieces of char siew, wrapped in a soft, fluffy white dough and steamed into.... CHAR SIEW PAO! I always felt that this place had the best CSP I've ever eaten, and the title still stays everytime I eat them. I may be bias as I am on my weak knees, when it comes to CSP, but this is a definite must try, readers out there! RM 6.00.



Demona: The Har Kaus were brilliant too. The prawns here were definitely quantity and quality based prawns. BIG and YUMMY. The colourless glutinous skin was very thin, but enough to wrap the prawns nicely without breaking. I reckoned this requires great skills from dim sum chefs to perfect this dish. RM 7.00.



Demona: This was pretty interesting. Yam cake chunky slices immersed in a sweet and spicy sauce, sprinkled with delicately chopped spring onions. Another dish which reflects the great skills of the dim sum chefs here. The yam cake was extremely smooth and flavourful, yet maintaining the taste and smell of the yam itself. The spicy sauce added a fiery kick to the yam cake, which... was like swallowing a mini time bomb, the first taste was yam, and when it moved down your throat.. KA BOOM! Spicy finish!



Demona: This was the meat rolls wrapped with foo chuk skin, in a sticky sweet sauce. This was, well pretty average. I much preferred the ones which are cooked with the sweet and sour reddish sauce. Well, one thing is for sure, the size of the meat rolls were pretty big, for RM 5.00.



Demona: My aunt ordered a plate of fried noodles as well, which cost RM 28.00. This dish came last, and we were filled to the tip of our tummies by now. It would have been a better call if we skipped this order, with some other lighter dimsums eg: egg tarts. The noodles, were pretty alright. Light, salty and not oily. However, for the price tag of RM 28.00.. Dogmama and Demonamama could come up with a much better fried noodles than this.

Verdict: The total bill came up to RM 130.40, including the ++ taxes. I thought it was pretty decent, considering that we had 13 baskets of quality dim sum and a big plate of noodles. Tea for 6 cost RM 9.00. ( RM 1.20+ for few tiny, winy cups of tea ? GOSH.)

Anyway, call me cheapo, but if you were to come here on a personal basis rather than official, I would advise you to skip the steamed groundnuts which the waiters offered as appetizers as a small bowl cost RM 3.00. Even when you had declined, do check your bill at the end as they sometimes still charged you for it. You can point it out to the waitress if it happens, and they will deduct it politely without questioning.

These are the hidden costs that many restaurants charge the customers, which if official business, I would pay, but for personal meals, I rather not. Dogma and I had this debate before, and he believes we should give the restaurants some extra money to earn for a good meal with good service. But for certain places which charge you RM 1.50 / towel, or RM 3 to RM 5 for a small bowl of peanuts or pickles, I would rather use the money on a decent dish instead.

Mei Keng Fatt Seafood Restaurant@Kuala Ampang

Mei Keng Fatt (MKF) Seafood Restaurant boasts an unimaginable range of cooking styles and ingredients, you name it, they've got it. This is one chinese restaurant that draws the palate attention of both, locals and foreigners. This was my fourth trip here, and yet, I still saw many tables of foreigners hungrily devouring away their meals.



This was just ONE corner of the big area where they kept all their fresh seafood.



A BIG, BIG, kitchen, with a BIG, BIG group of chefs, to serve MKF's BIG, BIG group of hungry customers.




The 1st course
Demona: My first yee sang for the year. While everyone was busy lou sang-ing up the prosperity yee sang, wishing for good health, luck, will etc., I was trying to keep my hand still to take a good shot, which ended up in vain. Therefore, I had to take it from my own bowl.



The 2nd course
Demona: This was called the " Special Four Dish Prosperity Platter". The dish came with a miniature statue made of orange coloured salt, which got everyone excited over it. The presentation of the four dishes were quite impressive alright, but its taste did not agree with its looks.

The fish and meat ball dish were pretty normal, quite salty. The yam based bowl filled with vegetables and cashew nuts were not bad. The yam was quite smooth, salty, with a deep fried crunchy outer layer. The baby octopus was similar to what you get in a Japanese restaurant, but they should have chilled rather than freezed them. Each bite gave a sudden sharp intense ache to my teeth. I needed... SENSODYME!



The 3rd course
Demona: This was the braised shark fin's soup with crab meat. I actually felt a bit bad eating it because of the way the shark was killed for its fin is too cruel. High demand from consumers will encourage higher rate of trade for shark's fins.

Anyway, this dish was extremely delicious, with a big brownie point on its quality. I could see ample crab meat (take a look at the pict. I dug the crab meat out to make the pict looked more yummy!) and numerous strips of shark's fin in just one tiny bowl. The soup was also thick and sticky, unlike the lousy ones which you normally eat in most chinese weddings.



The 4th course
Demona: This was the steamed river patin fish with orange peel and black bean. I love eating fish meat that requires my minimal effort, eg: few bones, chunky meat.. preferably cut nicely already (I confess.. I'm lazy!) The fish meat was already cut into squarish chunky pieces and individually deep fried before coating them with orange sauce.

The taste was strange! It also had a funky smell. I am not sure if the cause was the cooking oil being not fresh or the batter used for frying contained too much butter in it. It totally covered the taste of the fish meat.



The 5th course.
Demona: Baked prawns with creamy butter milk and corn. I love prawns, and I love butter prawns cooking style, but I absolutely LOVE BIG, FAT, JUICY butter prawns! Ok, Dogma.. not to worry.. the prawns did not win you.

This dish was yummylicious! The butter milk was salty, spicy and they were all glued onto the prawn shells, thus it made the shell peeling so.... delicious!



I took a long, painstaking 90 minutes walk on the treadmill, burning a whopping 600 kcal and all efforts were gone to waste with a spoonful of .... THIS! The pure creamy, butter milk bits and corn cooked with the prawns... horribly sinful but horribly addictive! My ambition to mould myself into Jessica Alba's body suddenly became more vague, and I breezed flights of steps nearer to felicity. HMMM ? !



The 6th course.
Demona: Fried mix vegetables, which included broccoli, cauliflower, mushroom, baby corn, carrots, and "foo chuk" (bean curd skin). There was nothing to shout about for this dish. It was a typical vegetable dish, drizzled on with a fairly sticky salty sauce (similar to oyster sauce).



The 7th course.
Demona: Each of us had a small bowl of noodles fried with some asparagus, pork slices and bits of squid meat. The noodles were just too oily for consumption. From the pict, you could see how glistened the noodles looked! I did not like it at all. I gave my bowl to my brother. A growing boy can afford to earn some extra calories.





The 8th course.
Demona: Dessert time! The sinfully, buttery, pan fried sweet lotus and red bean paste pastry and a bowl of sugar syrup with longans and sea coconut slices. Although all of us were so full that our gastrointestinial tracts would burst anytime soon, we managed to stuffed these last few bits in. KA-POW! *burst*



My eccentric uncle always seemed really hyped whenever I'm taking picts of food. He insisted that I took the pict of his submerged mandarin orange tea. I had no idea why he threw the orange in anyway, oh well.. his eccentric persona is what makes him, my funky 3rd uncle.

Verdict:
This course meal was quoted at RM 568 / 10 pax. On top of that, tea cost us an extra RM 20. OUCH! The total bill came up to a whopping RM 617.40, after addition of the ++ taxes. I'd much preferred the dishes which I had on my previous trip here. We had a crab dish and the claw was as big as my palm! I was giggling away deliriously, as if I was high on magic mushrooms while chewing down the juicy, chunky crab meat. Although the number of dishes were less, the bill was around RM 500 and it was definitely more satisfying than this one.

All in all, MKF is a pretty decent chinese seafood restaurant but I strongly believe there are many out there which can put up a good fight or even win MKF!