Collin Cheong
had made an interesting choice for this week’s BML. Cocotte, which serves
rustic French cuisine is an eatery housed in the charming wanderlust hotel near
the serangoon road/jalan besar area. I suspect it must’ve been because he
rummaged through the dining treats and discounts offered on the various credit
cards he owns. I’ve concluded that Collin has an “auntie” side to him, just
like Dann, with the multitude of credit cards just to squeeze the last couple
of bonus points, air miles, grocery rebates and dining discounts and deals.
So, upon our
arrival at the venue, we were advised by Collin that we are all allowed to
order the more expensive executive set lunch. In fact, we were “ordered” not to
order the cheaper standard set lunch at S$29++ for obvious reasons. In fact,
with his DBS credit card, we needed to only pay for 6 sets and our 7th
would come free. So without going into the math, Collin clearly stated that we
will all order the executive set and he will further throw in a couple of Ala
carte dishes to juice up the meal experience for the members.
For the set
lunch starters, we collectively ordered the Frisee & Lardon Salad, the
Rosette, the Escargot and the Foie Gras. For the mains, we had the Stead
Tartare, Moule Fritte, Steak au poivre and the Seared Chicken Breast. And
finally for dessert we had the lemon tart, crème brulee and 2 types of homemade
ice cream, one being the citron flavoured and the other peanut butter and
jelly.
Collin then requested
for a few additional items from the ala carte menu, but was told unfortunately
that this was not possible as the establishment only served set lunches during
lunch. At this point he freaked out for a while knowing the financial penalty
of not being able to breach the minimum spending, and after the fiasco of MG at
Osvaldo, the club has already agreed to certain “steady” rules to avoid a
repeat of the MG “I’d rather tell the restaurant don’t give the discount lor”
syndrome. I offered a suggestion to Collin to consider opening a bottle of fine
red wine in place of the ala carte dishes, but he decided against it (knowing
that it will be costly) and begged the waitress to consider if some of the ala
carte starters could at least be ordered. Lucky for him, the establishment
agreed to let us order 2 pork rillettes and a fried tripe starter. These 2
orders thus allowed Collin Cheong to breach the danger zone.
Proceeding with
the starters, the escargots in pastry were a little unusual. The texture of the
snail was much softer than the chewy version you usually encounter with oven
baked snails which are a more common preparation for escargots that you find in
other establishments. It was not a bad starter in terms of the overall taste,
but texture is quite an important aspect to consider when eating snails for me
personally, and I do prefer a chewier escargot than this. Having had this dish
for the first time, I was not sure if it was meant to be a hot starter or a
cold starter as it was right bang room temperature, which was a little weird.
The Frisee and
Lardon Salad was a simple dish of salad greens with special smoked bacon bits
that had a rich smokey flavour, topped by a perfectly poached egg. There is
nothing surprising or exceptional about this dish, as what you see is what you
get. A little addition of cracked black pepper would have worked well, but we
forgot to ask for it.
The Rosette was
a nice starter if you like cured sausages. The sausage had a good balance of
flavours, neither too salty or porky or oily. It would have been perfect with a
glass of white wine actually.
As for the foie
gras, (we always order it, cos every darn restaurant makes it…. Arghhh), the
liver could have been pan fried a little longer for a crisper outer layer. But
the cherry sauce that it came with was a perfect match. Overall we felt that
this foie gras dish was better than the one we had at il Lido but not quite the
standard of Saint Pierre
The fried tripe
was quite a treat although there were some amongst our party who were comparing
it to the fired intestines they had a few weeks ago at the old airport road
market. I reminded the fools that tripe comes from a cow’s stomach and the
intestines we had that were fried were the small intestines of the pig, so
making such comparisons is like comparing beef tongue to fish eyes. Overall, I
thought the fried tripe was battered and done quite well; it was tasty and not
overly oily. But being fried and being tripe, you can’t eat a whole bowl of
this alone, unless you have some wine or possibly beer to accompany it.
The pork
rillettes was a good dish, it was oily, meaty, and slightly salty, and as with
most good rillettes, absolutely wonderful with toasted bread. However, some in
the party commented that it was not as good as the complimentary rillettes that
were offered with bread at Le Nicholas. It was possibly true, although I think
both were close in terms of taste and quality. The best rillettes I’ve tasted
in Singapore Prinsep Street
Moving on to the
mains, the Steak Tartare was prepared well. The meat was fresh and lean and the
condiments gave the beef added flavour, with the raw egg adding to the
smoothness of the texture. The fries that accompanied the steak were very tasty
as well.
As for the Moule
Frite, the party agreed that the mussels were of high quality being really
fresh and fat. The cream sauce was tasty and not overly heavy, although I
personally prefer mussels steamed in white wine and parsley, this was good for
a change especially if one likes cream based sauces.
The steak au
poivre was given a so-so response by the gang. There was nothing special in the
way it was done, and neither was the cut any special as well. The sauce was
ordinary too. It was all round ordinary, not far improved from a steak you get
at some of the better western stall joints in some hawker centres.
The seared
chicken breast with black trompette mushroom cream was not too bad, provided
you like cream based dishes. The breast was not overly done and so was not dry
and the generous cream sauce did have a good infusion of mushroom flavour. It
was a good pairing overall.
For the
desserts, the crème brulee was so-so in my view. I don’t consider myself a
crème brulee expert, but most of the group felt that they’ve had better tasting
crème brulee’s. Somehow, I felt that the custard had quite a bit of kaya taste
to it. I actually thought it was kaya infused crème brulee when I first took a
spoonful.
The lemon tart
was something different, and was lemony with enough tartness. It was a pretty
decent dish although Dann pointed out that it was a far cry from the lemon tart
which we had quite some time back as a dessert set lunch at Au Petit Salut, which
we all agreed.
Finally, the
homemade ice creams, i.e. the citron version and the peanut butter version were
both good. The citron version was refreshing yet creamy, and the peanut butter
version was rich and creamy.
I personally preferred the peanut butter one which
I chose, although I somehow felt that the jelly topping they added is not quite
the perfect accompaniment to the peanut butter ice cream. In fact I felt it got
in the way. It would have been better to have the peanut butter ice cream on
its own or possibly with some chocolate or maybe even hazelnut sauce. I think
it would’ve been perfect.
So having
finished, we were all sitting around admiring the ambience of what is quite a
warm, friendly and eclectically decorated restaurant, whilst waiting for the
bill. When it arrived, it was at this moment that Collin started to rummage
frantically through his wallet. He then realised that the auntie in him
absentmindedly left the credit card at home despite his best efforts to take it
out specifically from his multitude of cards and paraphernalia that was
probably stuffed in his drawer. He then looked anxiously (knowing his odds were
poor) towards Dann to ask his fellow Auntie if he had a DBS credit card with
him, to which Dann gave his standard customary answer… “I did not bring my
wallet with me”. Immediately the anguish in his face appeared like so many of an
auntie defeated at the NTUC checkout for forgetting to bring the link-points
card or wat not, although in this case the damage to his personal treasury for
such a mistake amounted to about 50 bucks.
Total damage was
about S$435 although Collin was probably aiming for S$385. Overall the food at
Cocotte is fairly decent given the prices they set. The best options for lunch
were probably the pork rillettes, mussels and peanut butter ice cream. But if
you were to pick only from the set lunch starters, it would probably be the
cured sausage if you had wine to accompany, if not then the foie gras.
By: Club Scribe
By: Club Scribe
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