Dibs Restaurant and Bar

I love it when we have a precious restaurant find, especially when we least expect it. It was the eve of Labour Day and we were looking for dinner options at the Duxton area. B had suggested another new restaurant, Life is Beautiful, but it was fully booked. Serves us right for not making early reservations on the eve of a public holiday. I suppose it was a blessing in disguise because then we wouldn't have gone to Dibs and discovered just how good and good value the food was. 

The restaurant itself wasn't much to shout about. Grey walls and sparsely decorated, the semi-open kitchen was partitioned from the seating area and you can't see the chef cooking, unlike other tapas places. Note, I use the word "tapas" loosely, you can look at the menu and decide for yourself. 

The food is definitely fusion, and 29 year old Singapore born chef has done well incorporating asian ingredients and flavours into western dishes. 

We started off with 2 appetizers to share. Now, escargots and bone marrow are very standard western (even french) dishes you say? Check out the clever twists! For the escargots, the chef used wheat beer and salsify (a type of root vegetable), which I thought made the escargots taste meatier and gave it a bit of an oyster taste. On the bone marrow (they called it "meat butter" on the menu, what a delicious name), the chef added Japanese touches of teriyaki and bonito flakes which I thought was ingenious as it helped cut through the richness of the bone marrow. B and I polished off the meat butter on warm slices of bread within minutes.  

For mains, I ordered the crab cakes in bisque which wowed me with the innovative use of fried red threads of togarashi (japanese capsicum) to give the rich crab dish an additional dimension. I'd recommend ordering this main to share though, as it can get quite jelat.
  

I thought B's order of the steak and radish made for a more well balanced main. Oh dear, the daikon fries were so addictive (happy problem)! The steak was perfectly done and my oh my the bovril sauce was delish. I would order this again. 

For a young chef coming out on his own, I must say I was impressed with the quality of the food at Dibs. I was pleasantly surprised to see that our bill for 2 appetizers and 2 mains only came up to $106 - by today's standards (look to all the many "tapas" places out there) that is really cheap! I liked that the service staff there were attentive and friendly, keeping B's ice water and my hot water glasses filled up without us asking. 

I will return with friends to try more dishes and I think you ought to go check it out too.

Dibs 

51 Duxton Road