We wanted to drop by Tavolo since many weeks ago but only had the chance today.
The menu was simple so we chose a set meal $80 and 1 crab linguine..well, french fare is never cheap.
Set meal for dinner:
Appetiser: Foie Gras Cold & Hot (need to add $10 to the cost of set meal)
Main: Braised Veal Cheek
Main: Mushroom Risotto
Dessert: Dessert of the day
Drink: Tea/Coffee
Extra main ordered: Crab Meat Linguine
Overall cosy country style ambience at Tavolo.
The waiter was attentive and asked if we wanted to split every dish from the set meal and linguine into 2 portions and that was what we actually wanted!
Hmm raw tuna with cheese and olive bits. I guess this is part of the appetiser.
All pictures depict HALF the portion of the full size dish.
This appetiser - Cold Hot Foie Gras blew us away. FANTASTIC, RICH stuff!
From left to right: grilled pineapple, cold foie gras, crusty fragrant bread, hot foie gras, banana banana compote.
The black dots were the sauce, which I suspected was concentrated plum sauce.
Cold foie gras with bread was fantastic, it was really rich and fragrant that we rubbed the foie gras against the roof of our mouths using our tongue. The pineapple was sweet and gave us a refreshing feel. In comparison, the hot foie gras was not that spectacular.
Banana compote was quite good, it gave us a change of flavours in between the rich foie gras.
To our surprise, half the portion for each of us was quite filling. In fact, I started feeling something in my tummy when I finished the appetiser.
Next up, mushroom risotto. It's quite filling despite the small portions..this is weird.
Pretty creamy and full of mushroom flavours but I think K's latest attempt on the risotto tastes better.
The crab linguine we ordered in case portions were small. It was quite nice with lots of crab meat but alas we were feeling quite full by now!
And there's the braised veal cheek which was really big despite being halved -_-'
Flavourful and soft.
Ordered cappuccino, it came out of the coffee maker with cinnamon powder and really yummy cookies that complimented the coffee real well. It was thoughtful of them to prepare 2 portions of cookies =D
And dessert..*we were trying to find space for it* was a vanilla ice cream and chocolate cream with passion fruit puree and raspberry, almond biscuit, chocolate stick for additional tastes.
The whole experience came up to about $120+ which was quite ok, considering the portions that were given. I do think that we should have shared the set meal instead cos we were extremely bloated by the end of it.
Excellent service and pretty good food, but the dessert menu needs some serious additions though.
We decided to try this restaurant because of Kevin's recommendation on their dessert called Snow Drop. It was a very busy night for the restaurant, we waited for about 10mins before we had the menu in our hands. And gosh..the menu was hard to read and order -_-'''
Sumiyaki Rock (Coffee and Shochu) for K and Oolong tea for me.
Mix Kinoko(mixed mushroom) not bad but the amount was miserly @ $5
Shishito (Grilled mini green peppers), not bad in terms of taste but $3 for this stick of veggie is...
We decided that we need something to fill us up =( garlic rice, $6.
Some other yakitori items we ordered includes chicken balls, beef with cheese, pork rolled with basil, pork with avocado and duck stick.
Ika Geso(grilled squid tentacles), $3 and beef balls.
Of all these items, beef balls were the best. The rest were mediocre, really.
The reason why we came here, snow drop @ $8.50. Looks pretty artistic with all those sugar art.
There's so much different kinds of tastes going on that we thought it might be overly complicated. Caramelised custard, green tea ice cream, blueberry sauce, mochi skin, banana flavours(from somewhere), almond biscuit. -__-
The bill came up to near $60. Seriously, I have no idea what's good on the menu but the rest of the items are seriously expensive. I would still recommend Yakitori Uma for yakitori cravings.
I was googling on Guan Chuan Street and Moh Guan Terrace in images when I chanced upon Centre Ps, which means Centre Pieces. I was attracted by the reviews on their Macarons and decided to make our way here on a rainy night.
Moh Guan Terrace is a very special place because of the U shaped balconys ahhh~ pretty houses. You can find out more at Tiong Bahru Estate Blog =D
Centre Ps is located in this quiet neighbourhood filled with pre-war flats, it totally stands out with the lollipop colors so you can't possibly miss this. *I love bright colors*
We stepped into the shop and was greeted by the friendly owner, Steven. There are 2 chairs and 1 table in the shop. As we were there near closing hours, I wondered if they bring out tables and chairs for al fresco dining experience during earlier timings.
I particularly love this Macaron lollipop stand @_@
Some media coverage on Steven Ong, o.O 20years of experience.
We ordered one Citrusphere, $7. It consists of whipped meringue on the outside. So its kind of foam like with citrus flavour.
The inside is some Hazelnut praline and mini chocolate balls.
And two macarons at $2 each. The chef is famed for his macarons and that makes us excited hee~ We chose 2 flavours, Caramel with Fleur De Sel (Brown color) and Passion Banana(Yellow and Orange color). The chef then advised us to allow the macarons to return to room temperature before eating *well the freezer was set at 3 degrees celcius*
While we were having our meringue, the chef brought out 2 sample sized "Martel"(Les Verrines Collection) from his kitchen, citing that they were about to close and this is for us. Awww how nice of him!
The white cream had cognac inside, but it was not too overwhelming and a non drinker like me actually found it pretty nice especially when eaten with the chocolate cream and coco powder. The chocolate was in a semi soft state so everything pretty much compliment each other. There was also some bits of crunchy "crik crok", ok we have no idea what that is..either nuts or biscuits.
Finally, Passion Banana Macaron. One bit into the macaron, I tasted Banana flavouring and then some sourness from the Passion fruit flavouring in the buttercream filling. What macaron shell??? I didn't have to chew any, it melted. Ok now we both know, Canelé and Bakerzin are selling crap macarons.
Caramel and Fleur De Sel Macaron. One bite into it, K tasted the saltiness from the grains of Fleur De Sel then caramel buttercream. This combination was really good.
It was so good that K was sold for $0.00
Oh~ an award for their Macarons..they certainly deserved the award.
What satisfying desserts we had...YUMMY~
Note that Centre Ps does not open on Sundays and closes at 9pm from Mon to Saturday.
We are here at a "new" Japanese Restaurant, Yakitori Uma. We peered in through the glass and saw that there were only 2 tables of customers on a Thursday. Actually I was afraid that we will 'tio tok' at this restaurant located at a secluded spot.
There's alcoholic K with his Sapporo Draft Beer. He says its fantastic.
A comprehensive list which introduces their dipping sauces.
It didn't take us too long to place our orders.
Food: 1 set meal, 1 kamo stick, 1 Japanese stew.
Drinks: 1 Calpis and 1 Sapporo Draft.
Ordering a set seems the best choice as we get to try abit of everything.
Soon the sauces arrived.
Yellow colored sauce: Karashi (Mustard)
Brown colored sauce: Yakitori Tare
Set C 1st dish: Vegetable stick. Crunchy veggies with Japanese mayonnaise is great.
Up next: Kamo stick. We rarely see yakitori duck dishes, so we ordered this item.
Succulent duck meat with yakitori spices and abit of salt...SLURP!
And Japanese stew came, which consists of cabbage and meat cooked in sukiyaki sauce. Hmm quite an average dish although it was quite tasty.
Set C 2nd dish: Deep fry items.
Lotus root, onion and quali egg. This is to be eaten with the Kya Tare Sauce.
One thing to note was that the batter was thin and crispy *slurp*, meaning it coated the food nicely before it was fried.
Set C 3rd dish: Tender chicken stick and tender chicken with onion stick. Surprisingly, two sticks came for these 2 items, just nice :D The chicken meat was really tender and full of BBQ goodness.
Set C 4th item: Rice and Szechuan Veggie(Za Sai).
These two items were already a good combi for a meal.
Set C 5th dish: Pork neck and pork belly. Pretty good except that it was fatty -.-'
Set C 6th dish: Ginko nuts and mushroom. Quite interesting except that the ginko nuts had salt ~_~ which wasn't quite matching.
It doesn't look like we had alot of food but we were surprisingly full.
The total bill came up to around $60 bucks which wasn't too expensive for yakitori. We soon found out why..cos there was NO GST! Wee~ GST makes a great difference -.-
K says he will be back.
While we were waiting for the bill, we discovered that they actually had versioning tracking for their menus. Ver 2.0~
Ver 3.0 o.O'
Extra: 杏仁瓦片
Today's Dinner Menu
Sides: Baby Portobello
Soup of the day: Vegetable Minestrone
Main Course: Plain Risotto with Braised Lamb Shank
Dessert: Mango and apple in yogurt
I was supposed to do the almond biscuits last week but we totally forgotten about it -.-'
Receipe was taken from here.
Simple ingredients: Egg whites, cake flour, icing sugar/ sugar powder, melted butter.
Top left: Mix melted butter + icing sugar
Top right: After above is mixed and cooled, mix in flour and egg white. Lesson learnt here is flour should be sifted and added separately into the first mixture else there will be flour clumps -.-'
Bottom left: After everything except almond flakes is mixed in.
Bottom right: Impt! Toast almond flakes in pan till browned then mix into mixture gently.
Tips:
- Remember to separate each almond flake so that they don't overlap each other.
- Remember to bake till brown else the non-browned portions are going to taste chewy and elastic.
- Use non stick baking paper else you will have to eat paper biscuits.
Baking time 10mins at 160 degrees celcius.
Indeed using non stick baking paper is great, the biscuits slided off the paper easily =D
Close-up. I think the recipe lacks vanilla essence as the biscuits taste sweet and eggy..but not really "fragrant".
At the same time while I was making the biscuits, K was starting on the soup broth. So I was doing my biscuits, watching the oven and taking pictures of my stuffs and his. @.@''
Ingredients in veggie broth: Celery, carrots, leeks, onions, garlic.
First sweat the garlic and onion till slight brown, then add in all the other veggies and stir fry.
Add in water and boil till..you are satisfied with the taste?
After 2hours of boiling...
We bought the lamb shank from MMMM at about $6.50 which was a steal considering a fresh one would cost twice as much. Whilst the broth was boiling, K started removing the fats from his lamb shank and coated it with flour and seasoned it with salt and pepper. He says this process serves to seal in the juices for the lamb shank.
Top left: Seared the sides of the lamb shank.
Top right: Sweat garlic and onion.
Bottom left: Add in diced tomato and bay leaf. Do note that salt may have been added to the processed tomatos, taste before deciding whether to add salt.
Bottom right: Add abit of red wine, some veggie broth and black peppercorns.
Simmer for awhile before sending lamb shank into oven. The broth was added as there was not enough liquid.
Cooking time approx. 3hrs at 180 degrees celcius. The whole pan went into the oven covered with foil(top). And this was how the lamb shank looked after 1 hour, it's important to "turn" the lamb shank over every 1hr or so. Oh and we removed the bay leaf before it got overpowering.
After 2nd hour of cooking.
Now its time to prepare for tonight's soup: Vegetable Minestrone.
Ingredients include: Onion, tomato, celery, carrot.
As usual, sweat the onions then stir fry the veggies.
Add in water and tomato paste. The picture below was how it looks when we added half a can of tomato paste. We added one whole can of tomato paste later on cos the colour seriously doesn't look right. On hindsight, I think we could have added one piece of chilli in as well.
After we were done with the soup, its time to make the risotto using the veggie broth we made earlier on. It is K's second attempt on risotto, this time he had some good tips from the internet.
Tips:
- Cook risotto rice grains with onions till grains looks 'glassy'
- Make sure the wine/broth is heated to boiling stage before adding into the rice. Food science has it that ingredients of similar temperature mix easily together.
- Ensure wine is fully absorbed before adding stock to the risotto.
- Do not over-stir risotto.
- The last ladle of broth to be added to the risotto is the hardest estimate, too much of it results in a watery dish while too little of it ends up taste dry. Do note that cheese and butter thickens the risotto.
Top right: Heated wine goes into risotto.
Bottom left: Cheese and butter added to semi final product, the risotto instantly thickens.
Bottom right: End product looking yellow and creamy.
Finally dinner is ready at 8pm+. The braised lamb shank with tomatos *slurp* It's really fantastic with fall-off-the-bone meat and the tomatos absorbed the essence of the lamb juices.
This time the risotto tasted so much better. It's now softer and it has this nice creamy, fragrance to it. We cooked 3 handful of rice grains and it was actually enough for 2 persons o.O
Portobello mushrooms with parsley and garlic, to be eaten with olive oil + balsamic vinegar dip.
This is done by me *heh*
Dessert at about 1 hour later: Mango cubes + apple slices + plain yogurt. Yum Yum~
I would give the dinner an overall of 8/10 =) *K says I haven rated his cooking for sometime*
It would have been higher if the soup was more sour or rather something was lacking in the soup taste..maybe MSG? LOL~
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