Buah keluak pasta from Chef Shen Tan’s pop-up at Joan Bowen Cafe – buah keluak cooked with turmeric, blue ginger, garlic and shallots, minced pork and prawns, twice cooked pork belly. Every inch of well-lubricated pasta is positively slathered with the glorious black paste, which is simultaneously nuanced and forthcoming…
Roasted cod and soba noodle salad from Populus – roasted cod loin, soba noodles, marinated mushrooms, lightly pickled vegetables, broad beans, lime and sesame dressing. Whilst the saltily-skinned cod may have gone a tad overboard in its vain efforts to achieve a Kim Kardashian-esque bronze, the soba noodles were intriguingly…
Kaisen Ninja Bowl from the newly-opened Ninja Bowl – pan-seared Hokkaido scallops, mussels, mixed mushrooms, lemon butter sauce and carrots with added quinoa. The four Hokkaido scallops had a taut, delectable crunch, while elsewhere the carrots possessed the youthful sweetness of a fat smiling baby and the lemon butter sauce…
The Ultimate (Buttermilk Pancake) from La Ristrettos – salted caramel sauce, bananas, pancetta. Essentially the happy McDonald’s hotcakes you had as a kid but now all grown up, with luscious chestnut locks and donning a sleek café apron. The salted caramel sauce would probably make you reminisce for plastic-boxed butter…
Chicken & Waffles from Clinton Street Baking Company – honey-Tabasco sauce, a crispy Belgian vanilla buttermilk waffle and signature warm maple butter. The waffle had a fluffy Holland Lop softness and the tenders-esque chicken, which was dusted with an appealingly salty powder, stripped with the fluidness and natural grace of…
Pepper crab and chilli crab ice cream (!!) on charcoal waffle from the newly-opened Mingle Mangle. The surprisingly enjoyable charcoal waffle had a crispy armour but was softcore within, whilst elsewhere the pepper crab ice cream had an intriguing chewy texture and a gritty pepperiness, and the mischievous chilli crab…
Coconut from Cheek by Jowl – laksa leaf ice cream, pomelo, green chilli. Essentially what you get if bubur cha cha, laksa and vanilla had a head-spinningly scorching ménage à trois on a cushion of roasty nuts. 4/5 This was part of an existing $38 3-course lunch menu, and is…
Cha Yen Krup from Whisk & Paddle – Mövenpick vanilla ice cream, butter sugar toasts, Thai tea macaron, Thai tea pastry cream, old-fashioned butter cake, graham crumbs and toasted almond flakes. The temperature difference between the toasty warm and icy cold elements was intriguingly diverting, while elsewhere the gentle vanilla…
Charcoal waffle with mango lime ice cream, Valrhona white chocolate sauce, maple pecan granola and fresh berries from Double Scoops. The mango lime was happily diverting, but the sparsely-populated charcoal waffle needed some nourishment which its (in one instance, ostentatiously monikered) inhabitants were helpless to do much about. 3.6/5 Double…