Catalunya - 22nd September 2012

It was touted by Dann to be the place that will bring the club to new gastronomic heights. To be the be all and end all, to be the alpha and the omega and everything in between. 

So whilst getting an unwanted sun tan walking towards the restaurant which was situated in a round protruding extension of collyer quay sitting nicely by the bay, we were all waiting intently to taste and see if Dann's BML  selection matched up to his rhetoric.

As we arrived, we were escorted by a spanish waitress to a round table at the corner in the lower level of the restaurant. The water level of the bayas we looked out of the windows was just below eye level from where we were seated. 

The interior decor was made up primarily of wood and the colour scheme was of dark earthy tones. We agreed that whilst this was a beautiful restaurant in the day, it would be truly magnificent at night.

Wasting no time, we proceeded to order the recommended olives as a pre-starter, then with the tapas, we ordered the jamon iberico croquette, the calamari andalusian (southern spain) style, the spanish omelete, escalibada and tomato tartar confit. For the mains, we ordered a portion of suckling pig (half a piglet), and the suquet, which was a catalan (north eastern spain) fisherman's soup. For sides, we ordered a portion of "piquillo" peppers and wood roasted pineapples. The waiter had actually encouraged Dann to order more (including the beef), but Dann protested his budgetary constraints and buddhist inhibitions.

We were first presented with the olives, which were I suppose what you may consider a reconstruction of a large green olive. The olives were delicately taken individually out of a clear glass jar which was filled with olive oil. 6 olives were each presented on a spoon for everyone of us, and we were directed to put the whole olive in our mouth in a go. The "olive", was actually contructed with a soft outer shell with a texture somewhat like hard egg whites, and the centre of the olive was infused with a liquid that was flavoured much like an olive. So in all, it was an olive that looked like an olive, tasted like an olive, but was not really an olive. Definitely Blumenthal inspired.

Next we were presented with the fried calamari andalusian style. There was nothing exotic or special in the way this was cooked or presented, but this was really a calamari dish that was done well. The batter was light and crispy, and the large calamari rings were tender and not overcooked. This is how all good calamari should be done.

We then had the tomato confit, which was to be eaten with cracker. This was a putty of seasoned and cooked finely chooped tomato, with accompanying tomato infused foam. This was an interesting dish, with the sweetness of the cooked tomato and foam paired quite nicely with the cracker.

We were then served the jamon iberico croquette. This was again a simple dish done excellently. The croquette was fried till it had a crisp outer layer whilst it still maintained a moist soft potato centre filled with bits of jamon iberico. This croquette was delicious.

Following the croquette was the spanish omelette "tortilla omelette deconstruccion". This was served to us in a martini cocktail glass. It was like an egg and potato mousse. Most of the glass was covered in a white mousse like foam, which was probably egg whites foamed up and when you dig deep into the glass there is a thick puree like potato mash, which was probably mixed with yolks. This was a very tasty mousse cum mash and definitely worth a try for anyone dining in this establishment.

The final tapas we were served was the "escalibada", which was a layering of aubergines, foie gras, peppers and smoked sea eel. This was a fantastic dish in my view. It was beautifully presented, was very tasty, and was a good combination overall. Somehow despite the multitude of flavours, there was still structure in the dish. You could still taste the individual components despite having it all in a go.

Then it was on to the mains, and we were presented with the "piece de resistance"! - the segovian style suckling pig! The handsome (or pretty, as I could not confirm the sex conclusively) looking fella was roasted to a nice deep amber and presented to us on a wooden board. The spanish waiter offered us the luxury of cutting the pig with the plate ourselves (which was used as a cutter), but we declined, deciding it best to leave it to the experts.

The pig was cooked perfectly, with the skin crispy throughout and the meat tender and juicy. The problem however was the flavour. There was all round complaints that the meat exhibited too strong a porcine flavour. Being chinese, everyone started to make a comparison with the chinese version of suckling pig and gave this dish a thumbs down. They argued that good chinese style suckling pig also had a very crispy (probably crispier) skin and that the 5 spice marinade probably was more suitable in cutting the excessive porcine flavour, which a majority of diners do not appreciate. I have to say however that whilst the flavour of this segovian style suckling pig could have been better masked by some herbs and spices, the texture of the meat itself is far superior to our own chinese style suckling pig which tends to be rather much drier and harder.

It was good that Dann had ordered a side dish of roasted pineapple, which was excellent when eaten with the pork, as the sweetness and acid from the fruit sort of cut through the excessive piggy flavour from the meat.

Finally, we were presented with the suquet, which came in a large black pot. There was 2 fillet's of what I suppose were scorpion fish (since that was what was stated in the menu), which sat on a bed of new potatoes and thick gravy. The fish itself was okay, and I would describe the flavour as a bit of a cross between sea bass and bream. The meat was white, and it went well with the very tasty gravy that sat at the bottom of the pot. The potatoes were also cooked to just the right softness. It would have been good if we had some nice toasted bread to scoop up the gravy, as it had fantastic flavour, from what I assume must have been concocted from fish parts and vegetables.

The final side dish was the "piquillo" peppers, for which we each had a small miserable piece. The peppers were cooked till soft throughout, and topped simply with some seasoning and oil. This was again a simple dish done excellently. The produce was good (and looked good with a magnificent red colour), the cooking was good, and all it needed was a little seasoning and wala! Collin mentioned that he had never known that peppers could taste so sweet! (What a darn philistine!!! This is standard fare in Spain.... you'll get a tapas of peppers for little over 2 euros in any half decent bar with your beer!!!)

After the meal, everyone complained to Dann that we were still hungry. We pointed out that there was no bread and so we hardly had any starch to fill in the holes in our stomach. We invoked our kaya toast rule, to which Dann readily agreed.

Whilst waiting for the bill, we reviewed our collective decision on the meal. We agreed that the tapas were good, but were disappointed with the mains, especially the pig. I suppose its a bit down to the style of cooking as well. Even though we did have many good dishes, we felt that there was something amiss which prevented our lunch from being placed as one of the "greats" in our club's storied dining history. There were suggestions that maybe it was because we were unsatiated from hunger as Dann did not order enough (that is the cost of half measures Dann!), which was plausible. Or as Collin rightfully pointed that had we ordered more tapas and left out the mains and had some fine wine to go with the tapas, this could have been one of the greats. I seconded that comment as Tapas really is bar food which should go with drink.

The final damage came to S$419.50. We then proceeded for kaya toast, coffee and eggs, and this added up to another S$23.80, for which Dann as usual did not have the cash to pay for and had to initiate an on demand credit from Jon as no one else wanted to lend him.

In conclusion, Catalunya whilst good (and expensive!), was not quite the BML dining event Dann had cracked it out to be. The rhetoric definitely did not meet reality. And just like the millions of Americans who voted Obama in 2008 on promises of change for the better (jobs, environment, peace, economy, guantanamo, social services, de-nuclearisation, civil rights etc etc), 4 years later with reality finally meeting rhetoric - reality unfortunately won (as it usually does!)!

By: Club Scribe

Punjab Grill - 17th August 2012

After hearing rave reviews (apparently one of the best if not the best Indian restaurant in Singapore) from some of his Indian acquaintances, Erap II decided to take the plunge on their advice to bring us to Punjab Grill for BML.

The restaurant is located at the extreme western end of the shopping area at MBS, and I unfortunately alighted from my taxi somewhere in between. MBS is a bit like a strip mall, and by my calculation, an end to end walk is probably in the region of 0.8km. So by the time I arrived at the restaurant I was real hungry.

Businessman excused himself from this lunch as he claimed he was pre-occupied. We think it was mainly because we were having Indian food that he decided not to come. So we proceeded to order 4 sets of the non-veg set lunch + 1 set of the veg lunch set for Dann. That’s right folks, Dann had gone vegetarian thanks to his good wife clearly reminding him the very morning that as part of his Buddhist high beliefs and philosophies, that the 17^th of August is to be a vegetarian day failing which all manner of ill fortune may befall him. Dann was not pleased, mumbling that he regretted his wife not exercising selective amnesia.

In addition to the lunch sets, we also ordered a Raan Hari Singh Nalwa, which is the pot roasted leg of kid (a house specialty) and the palak paneer.

We were first served our starters which were the battered fried fish, yoghurt marinated chicken cooked in a tandoor and a lamb kofte. For Dann, it was a large wedge of broccoli, roasted potato stuffed with cauliflower, and a kebab of yoghurt blended with some spices. The starters were presented in a European style dining setting (long white plate), which I personally find unappealing (don’t ask me why). I’ve started to tire of every restaurant (chinese, indian, European etc) starting to adopt such a mode of presentation whenever its purported to be fine dining. In any case, the fried fish was so-so, it was lightly fried and the batter was crispy and not oily, but somehow the flavour of the fish seemed a tad bland. It’s like a good tiny piece of fish from a decent fish and chip shop. I reckon it was partly because of the choice of using sole as the fish, which I think is not a good choice as it is too thin and delicate in flavour and frying it this way may not be ideal. The yoghurt marinated chicken was tender and juicy with a tinge of yoghurt flavour. As for the lamb stuffed with cheese, this was a real tasty morsel, the meat was rich in flavour (for those who like lamb), and the sauce was cheesy and rich. My only complaint here is the texture of the meat, which was minced up so finely that it was almost bordering on being pasty.

For the vegetarian starters, the broccoli was cooked just right. It was cooked right through yet still crunchy. Dann claimed that he could tell it was an Australian originated broccoli as opposed to a chinese one. According to him, the more luscious head and higher head to stalk ratio was indicative of the species (we’ll have to check). As for the potato cake and yoghurt kebab, I would say that they were tasty, but I cannot make much of a comparison since I haven’t had anything similar to this before.

We were then served the roasted leg of kid. My my, this was surely one wonderful looking dish. It came on a metal serving dish, a whole leg covered in marinade and spice. The photo here does not do justice to what it looked like when it was served. The meat was really tender and the marinade soaked right through. It was hearty and delicious, although someone commented that it was a tad on the salty side. I suppose this should be eaten together with some naans or white rice, but somehow the starch had yet to arrive in this instance. The waiters probably weren’t expecting the lot of us to simply gobble down whatever was portioned out on our individual plates before the rice was to be served.

Just before the mains we were served with a mango sorbet as a palate cleanser, which was nothing out of the ordinary.

Next up were the mains, which were the chicken tikka masala (apparently one of the UK’s favourite national dishes), the river sole cooked in a plum and tomato gravy and a 5 lentil combination, which was cooked into thick gravy like broth.

We were also served the rice, naan and roti together with the mains. The naan was cooked just right with crispy edges yet un-burnt throughout, and unlike some naan’s there were no chewy uncooked bits in the centre. 

The roti was also done well and had just the right amount of crispiness to it.

The chicken tikka was excellent. The meat was tender and the masala was not too spicy and full of flavour. It was an excellent accompaniment to the lovely rice.

But the river sole cooked in a plum and tomato gravy was my favourite dish here. It was cooked perfectly. The chunky pieces of fish meat were still moist when I took a bite, and the gravy it was cooked in was excellent. It was creamy and tasty but not overpowering. My only complaint was that there was not enough fish to go around.

The 5 lentil broth was also tasty and is perfect for eating with the roti. It was rich and filling. In fact it was too much that we couldn’t finish.

We were also served our palak paneer, which was very well done. The spinach was fresh and there was no use of any artificial colouring that you sometimes find in other palak paneers. It was thick, almost like a marinade paste, whereas you get it more gravy like in some other establishments. It also had just the right amount of saltiness, with a good proportion of cottage cheese. This is one of the better palak paneer’s you can find in Singapore.

As for the 2 other vegetarian mains, namely the button mushroom with corn, and the bell peppers with cottage cheese in tomato gravy, I suppose they were ok as they did not elicit any particular reaction from our reluctant one-day vegetarian.

Finally we were served our desserts. This was a trio of (left to right) apple and walnut kheer, gulab jamun, and a mango saffron crème brulee. I thought all 3 desserts were wonderful, in particular the apple and walnut kheer and the mango saffron crème brulee. However Jon and Erap II were not in agreement with the kheer. As for the gulab, jon also gave it a thumbs down. My personal view was that the kheer was fantastic. What everyone felt tasted like rice grains were the finely chopped apple pieces, but owing to the rich sweetened cream sauce, you could not really taste the apple. I figure this was more to provide texture to the dessert. The sweet milky sauce was a real treat, and I readily lapped up Erap’s surrendered portion whilst Collin lapped up Jon’s.

As for the gulab jamun, I suppose you could say that the round ball (jamun) of dough made with milk solids was a little stodgy and the sweet syrup (gulab) that it was wallowing in may not be to everyone’s liking. But I think having such a massively heavy lunch may have worked against it. I thought it was not bad.

But the real star of the dessert show was the mango saffron crème brulee. Everyone around the table voted it best dessert. It was cooked to perfection with a crispy caramelized top and a soft pudding like interior. The taste was also exquisite, with a not overpowering mango taste and a tinge of saffron. Dann commented that he’d rather have this anytime over a standard crème brulee, and I’d say I’ll probably agree with that.

Overall, this was one massive meal in terms of calories, but somehow despite the quality and standard of the food, we were unable to finish all that was served. After a 3 second investigation, we realised that Jon who is the usual wolf with a voracious appetite had somehow turned into a sick puppy. Was it illness, the food, the ambience or the company???? Alas, it was the overhang of work related angst which manifested into his poor performance at the Punjab grill. Poor Jon…. But we do hope you keep it up ol’boy, so that the rest of us can continue to have more to eat at our next outing!

The total damage for the meal came to S$326. We came to the conclusion that most of the gravy based dishes here were probably better than at the Song of India but that the grilled dishes (leg of Kid) were actually tastier at the Song of India. So if it is grilled Indian dishes you are looking for, please go to Song of India, but if it is the gravy based ones, do head down straight for the Punjab grill!

By Club Scribe

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