Salta

Yes it has been a very "meaty" weekend. Brawn was planned for Saturday and I would have liked to space out the meat out a bit, but my Friday dinner kaki YM was keen to show me this new steak place he had discovered so off we went.

Salta is located at ICON village, near Tg Pagar and a stone's throw from my office. The restaurant's named after a city in Argentina which is famous for beef - apparently the cattle graze freely hence their meat is leaner and full of flavor. Decor was atypical of a steakhouse - black leather and dark wood, nice comfortable ambiance.

For starters, we had the batatas fritas (sweet potato fries $5). Ok, nothing impressive. For mains, both of us ordered steak, naturally. I had the beef skirt ($31 of fatty goodness) and YM had the rib-eye. Check out the pic of my "medium" cow. To their credit, they cooked the beef just the way I like - well done with just a tinge of redness. It was flavorful enough on its own, no need for sauces. I really liked the wine prices too, we shared a bottle of Terrazas malbec for only $55, excellent value.

My only grouse is the lousy bread basket they served, the breads were rock hard - definitely not fresh. Service was a bit patchy at times but they were flexible enough to let us finish up our bottle of wine at the bar which was quite conducive for relaxing and conversation.

Excellent value for decent steak with wine. I'd vote for this rather than Brawn if I had to choose. I will definitely be back since it's right in my hood!

Brawn Steakhouse

I'm a sucker for deals, I am. Brawn is a new steakhouse at Marina Bay Financial Centre which I had walked past a few times and thought looked nice. When I heard about the 1-for-1 Dinner Special with DBS Cards, I immediately grabbed some friends to go check the place out.

The deal was sweet. Free flow of lamb and beef from the spit roast, salads, pita bread, hand cut fries and Charlotte Street Red or White wine at $88++ per set ($50 per pax). Available till 31 July on Mondays-Wednesdays and Saturday (working area no crowd?).

So there we were, on a Saturday night, fine dining (some sort). Ambience was nice and service was attentive - plus. The food itself was just so-so. The cuts of meats were a tad fatty and inconsistently cooked, there were some nice medium rare slices and then there were the dry overcooked slices. Overall, the beef was better than the lamb and I suppose for the price I can't complain. I have to commend the choice of house white and red wine, quite palatable and so we kept topping up haha.

Would I return? Hmm maybe, just to enjoy the deal again before it expires. I wonder if the ala carte meats are cooked with greater care. If not, I will not pay full price to eat here.

Mambo Jambo

For the uninitiated, it's Mambo Jambo night at Zouk on Wednesdays. It's a (somewhat unorthodox) mix of 70s and 80s pop hits. Think Jason Donovan's "Too Many Broken Hearts", Rick Astley's "Together Forever" and Belinda Carlisle's "Summer Rain" immortalized in a sea of bopping youngsters with synchronized dance moves.


Before competition from new clubs such as Butter Factory and more recently, Filter, Mambo used to be THE place to be. These days it's less crowded, though far from forgotten. Mambo nights hold a special place in the hearts of me and my friends. For many of us, Zouk was the first club we went to when we were 19 (I'm a late bloomer). Plenty of memories there. Including a particularly memorable night involving half a jug of long island tea and a toliet bowl.

I really should make my yearly pilgrimage to get my annual year's worth of Mambo Jambo soon. Quite appropriate timing, considering it's been a tough two weeks and it should be a good night to just release my inhibitions and dance to my heart's content with the homies. A lil depressed.

Alto Taberna

Ever since my trip to Spain last year, I have occasionally been dreaming of the tapas I had there and how good they were. Bar Bocaito’s bacalao con caviar (salt cod pâté with caviar). Casa Lucas’ Madrid tapa (canape spread with tomato confit topped with a mixture of scrambled egg, blood sausage, raisins and pine nuts, decorated with fried potato sticks). Love.

I have been trying to find authentic Spanish tapas in Singapore for the longest time. So far, my little Spanish Place ain’t too bad, the food at Don Quinjote was so-so but service sucked, and Serenity Tapas Bar at Vivo was satisfactory. But nothing amazing.

Alto Taberna last night, was surprisingly good. In terms of authenticity, it comes up tops. The menu is limited, with only 16 tapas items and maybe another 2 daily specials. Nothing to fault there, as there is only the chef and one waitress there – it’s a small outfit in Holland Village.

We ordered a ton of items (as usual) and what impressed me was how consistently good everything was. I love the excellent olive oil they use! Try the stuffed peppers with mashed salted cod, the gambas al pil pil, meatballs, roasted cauliflower and duck rilette – all very good! Haha I know I’m gushing but of course I’m excited – I finally found the taste of Spain in Singapore!

They should hire more help though. Service can get slow when the place fills up. But it’s a Spanish joint, so go after 8pm – late dinners mah.

Address: 16A Lorong Mambong, Holland Village

Go Watch NDP With Me

I feel a bit ashamed to say that I’ve never attended a single NDP my entire 33 years. Sis was just asking how she could get tickets for her kids so I decided to check it work today. Guess what, my timing is perfect, applications for the ballot start TODAY!

Singapore citizens and PRs can apply, and there’s a choice for either the preview (30th July) and actual day tickets (8th August). Ballot closes on 29th May so hurry. Ticketing application can be done via 4 channels:

1. Online at www.ndp.org.sg or any AXS and SAM stations.
2. NDP 2011 Mobile Application, free download
3. Ticketing hotline 1900-112-4551 to ballot for preview tickets, or 1900-112-4559 to ballot for actual day tickets.
4. SMS: Key in “NDP” and send it to 9395-2855 to start the application process. An SMS reply will be sent to the applicant shortly. Follow the instructions as prompted.

Good Luck!

Limoncello Pizza and Grill

I like this new Italian joint. Valentino’s is still my all time favourite with Bruno’s a close second but Limoncello has its charm – not to mention great value, taste, and an excellent riverside location right behind Rivergate condominium. Yay another Robertson joint to hang out at.

It was a dinner to celebrate “the beginning of the rest of my life” – it’s a long story – and I had 4 of my dearest friends with me.

We sat at the alfresco area and it was nice, with a slight breeze, view of the river and nostalgic (think 80s and Tommy Page) music from the adjourning bar (looks hip) at a comfortable volume. We ordered the second cheapest bottle of wine at $58 a pop and it was pretty good.

For starters, we shared the antipasto combination dishes, and wow it was huge for $39 – large chunk of burrata cheese (oohh so milky), parma ham, grilled mushrooms, vegetables and salad. My only complain is that the bread they served it with was lack luster, no love there.

We also shared a parma ham pizza, the mascarpone cheese and mushroom ravioli and the seafood pasta. The pizza was really good! I like the good balance of cheese, sauce and chewy crust. The ravioli impressed us too. The seafood pasta on the other hand, was quite a disappointment, don’t order it.

The bill for the 5 of us with two bottles of wine came up to $50 each. Pretty darn good value if you ask me. Thank you darlings, for being here for me!

Osia @ RWS

I love restaurants that offer value-for-money set lunches even on weekends. Osia is the brainchild of Aussie celebrity chef Scott Webster whose forte is using fresh Australian primary produce and cooking them with a combination of French and Japanese cooking techniques. It's been on my list of to-gos for a while, so I was thrilled when I suggested it to Aosh and she said yes.

We ordered two flavours of the flat bread to share - macadamia pesto and olive ($9 each). I love the macadamia pesto bread and the eggplant dip. Such a novel idea to have it in a tube!

Set lunches are at $28++ (2 courses) and $38++ (3 courses), including a choice of coffee or tea. I had the cold smoked tasmanian salmon trout for appetizer, the australian asparagus risotto as my main and then for dessert there was the valrhona hot chocolate soup with black pepper ice cream.

Good aussie fare, warm aussie service! I will be back to try the ala carte options.

Shopping for a Wine Fridge

As many of you are aware, I am (aspire to be) a wine geek. Now that I’m getting my own flat, the single important appliance I want to purchase is a wine fridge. A big one, for 100+ bottles. Yes, I have outgrown my teeny 16-bottle fridge!

So I've been doing some research. Here’s sharing my two cents on buying a wine fridge:

Some Things to Consider

1. First of all, you gotta decide how many bottles you want to store. As a rule of thumb, I would recommend more capacity than you think you need. Think about it, most wine distributors only deliver free above a dozen bottles, so the bottles accumulate very easily I tell you.

2. If you enjoy both red and wine wine, you can consider buying a fridge with dual temperature zones. I thought about it but decided this feature wasn’t worth the extra cost. I figure it’s no trouble storing all my wines at red wine temperature and then popping the whites into my normal fridge just before I want to drink them.

3. The experts recommend wooden shelves instead of metal shelves. Something about the former having more vibration control. But anyway most of the wine fridges have wooden shelves, so I wouldn’t be too bothered about that.

4. Another factor is humidity. Most wine fridges (versus normal fridges) maintain the proper humidity level, but the fancier ones still circulate the air within to prevent mold and mildew.

5. Insulated glass panes are important to help maintain a constant temperature but again, most wine fridges come with them.

6. Singapore is hot so if you can, get a fridge with an opaque door. I hear from friends that glass doors tend to have very bad condensation.

7. My vino shifu advises me to get a unit with more shelves so that I need not stack the wines on top of each other. Not only is it difficult to take inventory, it's hard to get out the bottles from the bottom. He’s drunk many bottles, so I say, listen to the man.

Some market intelligence (prices correct as at May 2011). Please note I only listed the (few) brands within my budget and these are the models with many shelves, which is ideal:

Vintec V110 SGESS (110 btls) - Hong Liang (tel: 62736109/ 62783331) $2,000
Kadeka KA 110WR (110 btls) – Hong Liang $1,430

Europace EWC 1108 (111 btls) - Europace (tel: 6457 3678) $1,740

In a perfect world, I would splurge on a Miele 187-bottle fridge without batting an eyelash. Unfortunately, my pockets are not deep enough. In fact, my budget for a 100+ bottle is less than SGD 2K - quite a stretch, considering what’s out there in the market. Luckily for me, I eventually got the manager of Cuba Nueva to sell me his old unit cheap - $500 for a (model to be inserted) is one sweet deal, thank you Trevor.

Beerfest Asia 2011

Beerfest Asia is back! Gather a group of booze-minded friends and prepare for a fun night out.

I attended it last year, and the year before, and I want to go again this year. It's like Oktoberfest in summer, only better. So many types of beer, be prepared to be spoilt for choice.

Dates: 16 - 19 June 2011 (Thurs - Sun)
Time: 6pm - 1am (Thurs)/ 6pm - 2am (Fri& Sat)/ 12p-9pm (Sun)
Venue: Marina Promenade
Early bird price: $20 - 28 (depending on day)
Normal price: $32 - 37 (depending on day)

Tips
1. There are discounts if you book with OCBC cards. For the hard-core beer guzzler, there's also the OCBC 4-Day comb ticket at $50. You can buy tickets here. There are limited early bird tickets so hurry.

2. Ticket price includes 2 free beers, remember to redeem! There's a choice of lager, cider, stout, weiss beer, ale and fruit beer available.

3. Additional beers are purchased with tokens. Don't get carried away by buying too much tokens. Although they may be cashed back, there is a 10% charge.

4. The beer list is not out yet but there were a lot of exotic beers we tried last year. Some weren't cheap, so find an adventurous friend to share with you.

Importantly, it'll be a long night, so go easy and try to remember most of it the next day!

Hubers Food & Wine Fair

If you are looking for a place to hang out on weekends, this might be worth checking out. In conjunction with the Straits Wine Company, Huber's Butchery at Dempsey is having an outdoor food and wine fair. Up for sampling are a selection of meats, cheeses and antipasto, with (they say perfect) wine pairings no less.

Wine. Cheese. My two favourite things :)

Event details
Date: 28 - 29th May, Sat & Sun
Time: 9.30am - 6pm
Location: Huber's Butchery, 18A Dempsey Road
Price: $25 (Full access for 1 day, rain or shine)

Get your tickets at Huber's Butchery or the Straits Wine Company.

Kaiho Sushi

Ever since Sage closed down, I have been on the hunt for good BYO free corkage restaurants. Places such as Saint Pierre, French Kitchen and Table 66 offer free corkage on Mondays or Tuesdays which are schoolnights, so that's hardly convenient. The chinese restaurants fare better - many of them such as Cafe de Hong Kong, Ming Kee and Wo Peng offer great value for money food, air-conditioned comfort and good stemware, even on weekends.


Last saturday I found a gem of a Japanese restaurant which also waives corkage charges. Kaiho Sushi omakase dinners has had good reviews so we gave Chef Benard a budget of $80 each, requested aburi sushi as part of the meal and left him to decide the other courses.



First up was a generous serving of sashimi, followed by a very flavourful bowl of mushroom soup. The third course was the highlight of the meal (for me at least) - 4 different types of aburi torched sushi. I took a bite of the hotate sushi and immediately went "omg this is so good.." Mental note to self to get another piece if stomach permits at the end of the meal (we did haha).


After the sushi came a whole grill fish (don't know what fish it was) for each of us. Shiok! We demolished the fish in record time and looked expectantly at Chef Bernard. "What's next?" we smiled gleefully. The next course was a daikon radish and carrot dish, which was simple but enjoyable. This was followed by light fluffy fish tempura served with mustard, which I enjoyed very much. By this time, us 3 girls were quitwe stuffed. Luckily, there was only dessert to go - strawberries with cream :) All in all an excellent meal and pretty good deal, considering we can bring our own wines.

Blu Restaurant

For my birthday, dear K offered to take me somewhere fancy for dinner. It was a happy dilemma, deciding between the various places marked on my foodie wishlist. It finally came down to Saint Pierre and Blu Restaurant - I'm so glad I picked Blu in the end - it could well be my best meal of 2011!

As mentioned in my earlier post, there's a 40% discount promotion going on. At full price, the Degustation Menu is $148++ and wine pairing is an additional $80 per pax. With the (40 is fabulous) discount, the bill for the 2 of us came up to (dare I say ONLY) $322. Sounds still expensive I know but trust me, for the food, ambience and service, it was totally worth every dollar. Both K and I were swept away.

There are 6 plates in all, 4 "appetizer" sized, 1 main followed by dessert. The Chef recommends based on what's freshest for the day. Me being me, I already researched Chef Cherkas' signature dishes I wanted to try. The menu they planned for us:

1st course (champagne served) - caviar buckwheat waffle for me, oyster for K

2nd course (white wine served) - lobster thermidor

3rd course - eggs came first

4th course - seabass for me, foie gras for K

5th course (red wine served) - tenderloin beef for me, ribeye for K

6th course (icewine served) - "breakfast dessert" for us both

Every plate was delicious. No, I am not exaggerating. The star for K was the lobster thermidor. He had his first bite and told me "I think this will be my favourite dish of the night". I am not a big fan of beef but I loved and savored every bite of my tenderlion.

The breakfast dessert too was a stunner - very novel idea of putting the "egg" on a plate with pictures of bacon, baked beans etc. The "yolk" was mango sorbet, the "white" was coconut and passionfruit mousse.

Sorry for gushing but can I backtrack to say that I also loved the warm onion loaves they served before the meal started? And the petit fours was candy floss cherry blossoms on a "tree" with dark chocolate chips as "soil". I regret not catching the names of all the wines we had but I was just too darn distracted by the food.

Thanks for the lovely dinner treat my dear!

Cafe de Hong Kong

Last Friday I gathered some vino-minded friends for a riesling-themed wine dinner. I organized it at 新天地小厨 Cafe de Hong Kong, having heard good reviews on the food, no corkage policy and excellent service which includes providing proper stemware.

Wine

We had 4 rieslings that night:
1. Frey – Sohler Riesling 2006, from Alsace (France)
2. Rheinhessen, Weingut Georg Julius, Gundheim Riesling Kabinett Feinherb 2008 (Germany)

3. Weingut Johannes Hirsch, Riesling Gaisberg 2007 (Austria)
4. Grosset Polish Hill Riesling, from Clare Valley (Australia).

Of the 4, the Gaisberg riesling from Austria was a winner - attractive apricot peach nose with a touch of ginger, juicy minerality and nice finish. No wonder it beat the French and German rieslings at the international tasting. I plan to stock up on this one once my wine fridge arrives!

Food

In usual fashion we over-ordered:

1. fortune seafood roll - deep fried but light on the palate and not oily, liked this very much
2. steamed fish head in black bean sauce - tender but nothing impressive
3. coffee spare ribs - loved the coffee flavour infused in this
4. roast chicken (need to pre-order) - this was excellent, very tender and juicy, the crowd loved it
5. braised lamb brisket - so-so only

6. pumpkin paste and salted egg prawn - my favourite dish of the night but the others found it too heavy. hee hee all the more for me!
7. steamed coral tofu8. fish roe fried rice - loved how the fish roe bursts in the mouth, very tasty
8. french toast - we were already stuffed but we HAD to order two servings of this to share. Very very good.

Value
Excellent. We ordered a truckload of food and total bill came up to $150 for the 6 of us. I will definitely return for more.

Starbucks Promotion

I love the frappuccinos from Starbucks but at $6 a pop they cannot be a daily affair. They are also sugar-laden and that can't be good for me. So imagine my happiness when I heard about this promotion.

As part of their launch of the However-You-Want-It Frappuccino, Starbucks will holding Happy Hour event from 16th to 20th May 2011, 3pm to 5pm, at all their outlets. Customers can enjoy their personalized Frappuccino for half price.

Brussel Sprouts at East Coast

To mark my last day of being 32, I decided to check out the new outlet of Brussel Sprouts at the Playground, East Coast Park. We had earlier tried going there two months ago but it wasn't opened yet. They are one month old and I'm so glad I don't need to travel to Robertson Walk to satisfy my mussel cravings anymore!

It's a lovely location, overlooking the sea and the place has high wooden beam ceilings with a long bar at the corner. Perfect to chill out at on weekends. Service was a tad slow because it's a new outfit but the staff were generally attentive.

Tips

1. A must-order is the mussels in poulette broth (mushrooms, chicken stock, cream, butter, parsley) - it's so good I slurp up every drop while K looks on mildly embarassed. The free-flow fries are soooooo good, we polish off the whole lot and ask for more. I like the salad liegeoise (warm salad with green beans, bacon, onions, potatoes and poached egg) too.

2. Happy hours are daily till 8pm, I heart the leffe beers. They also do mussel promotions on weekdays and weekends.

3. Parking space is aplenty although if you are a beer guzzler I'd advise you not to drive :)

iPhone Repair

I decided to repair my cracked iPhone instead of buying a new one. These guys are way cool. Get a shop space at a nondescript location which is centrally located but not expensive, start a simple webpage which shows up whenever people google "iphone repair singapore" and forget about having a shop name or a signboard. Genius how they took a single product and cornered the niche market.

Other than the initial wait in the queue, these guys were efficient and professional. I wonder how they got the lobang for original iphone parts. They do a whole spectrum of repairs, from cracked screens to water damage to jailbreaking the phones. Impressed!

Address: 261 Waterloo Street, Waterloo Centre, #02-21. Take circle line alight at Bras Basah MRT. Exit Queens Street, Walk straight 100meters, Waterloo Centre is on your left. You can call Jeffrey at 9245 6545 before you go.

Tips

1. I paid $90 to replace the screen for my 3GS. I think it's more expensive for the iPhone 4 because the LCD and screen needs to be replaced together.

2. Bring cash. They don't accept cards.

3. Bring a friend or something to entertain you while you wait in queue. I was there on a Sunday afternoon and waiting time was about 45 minutes.