Gordon’s Grill - 18 November 2011

Well, it’s my turn to give a shot on the blog write-up for BMC lunch this week. It was such an effortless affair for the BMC soon-to-be official writer, Billy Choi to pass this responsibility to me, on the grounds that he has yet to be named the “Official One”.

Without further ado, let me introduce this week’s presidential-race candidate, Collin Cheong a.k.a. CC or Cameraman, whom we all knew from the very start would be powerless to mount a meaningful challenge. Why would someone as courteous as me (aka MG) make such a direct and uninspiring comment on an esteemed fellow club member? For this we will have to go back with a little history which needs to be shared with our dedicated BMC Blog followers as well as a refresher to the man himself. CC was initially hoping to be a president elect during our very first round of the bidding exercise for our 2011 presidential race. Back then, he was naive enough to believe that he could pull-off and out-bid all of us for the title with a mere S$480 check, held at Hide Yamamoto MBS. Nonetheless we give kudos to him for the effort given the fact that there were only 4 attendees which, broken down works to S$120 per pax. Soon after in a matter of 7 days, he was single-handedly out-witted (and more importantly outspent) by our current president-in-the-running, Jon Choo, A.K.A Juice with a S$500 check at Don Quixote @ Dempsey. Given the fact that CC even bothered to try, we thus gave him the accolade of “Tan Kin Lian” (aka “presidential also ran”) and this title has since lingered in his mind, and we believe it is likely to stay there for several years to come.

Enough of history lessons, let’s return to our main topic. This week’s BMC lunch was scheduled at Goodwood Park’s, Gordon’s Grill. I must admit that the name and location of the restaurant had already gotten our stomach growling. The restaurant is well and classily-decorated and was not too crowded when we arrived. We were greeted warmly by the staff, and the restaurant manager that served us was rather humorous, as we joked about where the escargots they served came from (pls read below).  

On opening the food menu, you will spot the photo and write up of the executive chef of Gordon Grill, which is interesting though I doubt anyone paid attention to it as we all headed straight to the food menu. Regrettably, the pay-master had his orders - limiting us only to the 3-course lunch set at S$48++, instead of the 4-course set at S$58++. Comfort was provided by CC as he conveyed his next message, which allowed only:

1. the current lead president-in-running (Jon),
2. the current lead VP-in-running (whom is designated as the 2nd highest bidder)
3. and himself (paymaster),

to be entitled to the special 4-course set. This gave me the aspiration to wrestle and retain my position as the lead VP-in-running! Owing to this invaluable recognition, I decided to give CC’s wallet a break and content myself with the 3-course set instead.

What I find unique about Gordon Grill is that their Appetiser and Soup courses come in sampler portions, which allow customers to get a taste of up to 3 different selections. (I’ll skip the bread description since it was ordinary and common butter was used.) 

The restaurant manager recommended us the 3 appetisers, roasted duck foie gras – which was pretty huge in size as compared to a goose’s but the taste was comparable, though we all agreed that Iggy’s still has the finest foie gras so far. Next is King Scallop, which was also pretty big. Though fresh, it was rather flavorless. Finally the Escargot, which was presumably air-flown from France (which I joking giggled mentioning softly that it was maybe picked from the Singapore River. The restaurant manager actually eavesdropped and responded that they were actually picked up from the garden outside.  I was like -_- ). Taste wise it was so-so, similar to chewing rubbery mushrooms and the garlic flavoring was too mild. I would recommend our followers to try Le Carillon’s (at Ann Siang Road) if they prefer stronger garlic-flavored Escagots. 

Out of the 7 Appetiser selections, I had the privilege to try out 6 of them (The other 3 are samplings from other BMC member’s dish). The Pasta was average as I couldn’t really taste any crab meat nor truffle oil.  The langoustine was more impressive, taken raw, it was fresh and juicy. After all they belong to the lobster/prawn family, how wrong can it get? The Wagyu beef was delightfully presented like a raw-beef bun, but I was not really able to differentiate it with ordinary beef, as it was served raw and the portion I had was rather small.

Next up was the Soup Samplers. Likewise, the recommendation given was Lobster Bisque, French Onion and Soupe du Jour (A.K.A Soup of the Day) combo. Personally I like the lobster bisque as I’m not usually a fan of this soup in most restaurants as I find it served rather too salty. The one served here I felt was just nice and drinkable. The French onion was simple yet good, with a few slices of onion within the clear soup.  The Soupe du Jour is a mash potato soup akin to KFC’s whipped potato but of course a much nicer version. The other soup I managed to try was the mushroom cappuccino, which I thought was too watery as I always prefer mushroom soups that are thick with chunky pieces of mushrooms in it. Nonetheless, it was satisfactory. Lastly the poultry consommé, for which the presentation I felt was a little poor, with some childish ball-like carrots and I think the remaining colored ones were corn and onion as I didn’t had a go at it.  Taste wise it was like any consommé, nothing fantastic.

The main I chose was US beef fillet with braised beef cheeks, since we are all-beef lovers (not because we are cheapos who tend to choose the most value-for-money dish) and it was also highly recommended. The beef fillet served was nicely medium-grilled and semi-juicy. For beef-lovers that don’t like fatty parts, this would be a perfect dish as the meat was quite lean. The cheeks were more of a highlight for this dish as it was very tender, resembling a melt-in-your-mouth sensation. Portion and presentation wise it was good, with a slap of mash potato, topped with a pair of carrot and asparagus sticks and brown sauce all-over.

I didn’t manage to try the lamb chops as I wasn’t offered any by our dear “never-look” or rather “unable-to-look-at-girls” member, Dann. For whatever immoral reasons he doesn’t consume beef. This may be the reason why he did not share the lamb with us since everyone else chose beef, and so if he offered, there would be no exchange…. what a realistic world we all live in!

The lunch set concluded with a complimentary coffer or tea selection. As usual, our one-of-a-kind member, Jason, a.k.a. Businessman or BMW 640 man, asked for a soft drink but was rejected (we will always remember the Sin Huat incident). Nothing extraordinary on the tea and coffee that was served, but the raw-sugar stick that comes with the beverage was quite a novelty.

Damage for the week’s BMC lunch was only S$339. This comes to about S$56.5 per pax which given all the various dishes we were entitled to sample coupled with the overall dining experience, was rather worth it. We agreed that this would be a place we would consider returning to, especially so since we have yet to try the Ala Carte menu.

Thanks for reading and I hope I will not be tasked to write again. Signing off…

MG.

Imperial Treasure Marine Bay Sands - 28th October 2011

Under the undefined part of our club rules, the paymaster for the week has to confirm his respective lunch date with the club via email at least 3 full days in advance and the actual venue at least on the morning of the lunch date itself.

So, we were pleasantly surprised at this week’s lunch venue, and were also given a tantalizer that some fantastic crabs have been pre-booked in advance for this engagement. Part of this choice of place and food we suspect, may have been due in no small part to the good’ol “peer pressure” or if the more American amongst you prefer “positive encouragement” resulting from “feedback” on the biopolis misadventures by Jason Lau, aka businessman / BMW640 / club driver number 3.

On the date itself, our hopes were lifted still further by Maigai’s failure to properly diarize his engagements resulting in his inability to be at 2 places at the same time! And although deep in our hearts we longed for his presence, our mouths and stomachs were more than delighted at his absence! Less mouths at the table means more food to go around! Thanks maigai! Hope you keep up your disappearing act next week too!

Jon, aka Juice / Merc E350 / club driver number 1, (although he now demands that he be referred to as President-elect), Collin and I arrived at the venue early and were under heavy duress to order tea by the waitress. I proceeded to select the usual Xiang Pian (reasonably priced and good), but Mr President-elect would have none of it and took the waitress’s recommendation of their superior Pu-er (superior = more ex in my view). We then proceeded to have a look thru the standard menu and special menu/crab menu (pls see pics attached).

And wala! It dawned on me that we could (at least within the businessmanclub) figure out one age-old philosophical question that has blighted mankind… Are the wealthy predisposed towards generosity, or put in another way, is wealth and generosity correlated?!? Should he who has a lot naturally want to bestow some of his good fortune on the less fortunate?!?

Now for those of you familiar with members of the club, it is an indisputable fact that the member who tops the wealth ranking is businessman himself. For those unacquainted, simply inferring from the regular mode of transport of each member of the club… BMW 640, Merc E350, Merc E250, Toyota Mark-X, SMRT (sian…), SBS (lagi sian….) will be more than sufficient to put paid to anyone’s doubts on who’s got more mojo on the asset side of the ledger.

So back to the main story… we knew that crabs were going to be served this lunch, but we did not know which type. Was it gonna be the chilled air-flown flowery crab (strongly recommended by the waitress), Alaskan king crab, hairy crab, Aussie snow crab, etc etc. In any case Jason turned up just in the nick of time together with Dann to make the order.

For starters, we ordered 2 plates of the usual roast pork. No complaints here as with all the other imperial treasure branches. The skin was crispy but not burnt, and the meat was succulent. None of the porky smell/flavour that seems to sometimes bedevil western variants of roasted pork with crackling. This dish was all but cleaned out in less than 60 seconds. Actually I think we ordered 2 plates because we forgot to take a photo of the first plate before eating.

Our next dish was the soup of the day. (There were some minor requests for Buddha jumps over the wall, sharksfin soup, etc etc, but all requests were flatly denied.) Unfortunately, we missed out on the name of this soup, but suffice to say it had the usual ingredients of pork ribs and black beans, which somewhat thickens the soup and gives it a cloudy nature.

There were also what I think were 2 varieties of kelp, a darker brown variety with smaller leaves and the more commonly seen greenish version which you often get in Japanese soups. The soup on the whole was fairly tasty and somewhat hearty despite its rather unattractive lower Ganges river sort of colour. There was also a noticeable absence of any sort of dried seafood (i.e. scallops, oysters, clams etc), which probably explains the competitive pricing of this dish. On the whole it was a decent soup especially given the limited number of ingredients the chef worked with in its creation.

Our 3^rd dish was the cold crab. When it came, we were all a little underwhelmed mainly due to its size. The main shell was smaller than the size of a gentleman’s palm. Taste wise it was fresh, with firm flesh, although the flavor was a tad bland. The soft creamy yellow roe was quite pleasant, although not as richly flavoured as the roe of hairy crab. For the eagle eyed amongst you, you will notice the absence of some of the crab’s legs in the photo. (Don’t worry, Imperial Treasure MBS does not import its crabs from the Tohoku region in Japan which was recently made famous by a little accident in a town called Fukushima.) As usual in our rush to tuck in we forgot to take the pic, and so we had to reassemble/reconstitute whatever parts we had to make the picture.

The 4^th dish was the roast chicken. This is arguably one of the best dishes of the day. The meat was tender, succulent and juicy even at the breast area. The skin was crispy and the chicken was flavourful throughout. It can sometimes be difficult to find really good roast chicken. Mostly when the skin is crisp, the meat can be dry in some parts, or the meat is bland. This chicken could possibly have been free range, although at S$19 for half a chick, no one would say it was a steal.

The 5^th dish was the beef cubes. The seasoning was good and was not too salty, and the fried garlic slices accompanying the meat was decent. It was not over-fried which if you do encounter would result in a rather bitter aftertaste. The cubes were medium done and were tender. Thankfully for this dish we were 2 men down as MG was out and Dann is a Buddhist. (How I wish everyone was Buddhist)

The 6^th dish was the hot steamed crab. Taste wise broadly similar to the cold crabs, but on balance we decided that this crab is probably better eaten cold.

The 7th dish was the salt and pepper pork ribs. The meat was somewhat chewy owing to its chunky cut. Taste and flavour was good, and despite the seasoning style, it was neither too salty nor peppery, and yet the seasoning did permeate through the meat.

The 8^th dish was the steamed spinach with 3 eggs (salted, century and standard). This dish is common throughout many Chinese restaurant establishments these days, and I suspect this order was more of an attempt to maintain a balanced diet for club members. Standard fare overall here.

The 9^th dish was I think the gong bao xia (prawns done kung pao style, which is with dried chilies, cashews and onions). The prawns were fairly large and they were fresh and crunchy. Unfortunately taste wise they were quite bland, which seems to be the case for most farmed prawns these days. Fresh but bland. The kung pao seasoning was well done. Not too spicy or oily (ahem… unlike at silk road).

Our final dish before desert was the crab meat fried rice. The rice was fragrant, grainy and tasty. It was not too oily, although it did seem to lack a little bit of salt. This feeling could have been partly due to the earlier dishes, which might have numbed our taste buds somewhat. On the whole this was a good dish.

There were 3 desert dishes selected. Almond cream, Or-nee (mashed up yam/taro with gingko nuts) and double boiled hasma with lotus seed. Unfortunately again, we forgot to take a pic of the almond cream before finishing. But it looks a lot like a bowl of diluted off-white paint, so you can imagine.

The almond cream served at Imperial Treasure in my view is one of the better ones you can find in Singapore. It does not have the starchy flavour that you find quite often in other places that serve almond cream. As for the Or-nee and Hasma, I cannot comment as I was not offered even to have a spoonful, so I suspect it must have been way better than average.

So rounding back to our little experiment mentioned earlier, the answer to our question can be found by figuring out the details in the pics…. And if you can’t, let’s just say Ebenezer’s still stuck in Christmas past!

By: Club scribe aka Veg or Guru