A mindblowing dining experience

9:33 PM

HI people!

I'm here to blog about my wonderful dining experience at the Tippling Club at Dempsey Hill.

My boss Derrick kindly invited me to join him and his Wharton professor Zif, along with Eta (a beautiful lady who's in Singapore to do a masters' course at Insead Business School AND she was a former Goldman Sachs trader) and Joseph, a professor in NUS.

We had quite a hard time trying to find the place, but it was worth it.

When I stepped into the restaurant, I honestly wasn't expecting anything much. The decor was simple and modern, and the kitchen (open concept with transparent glass walls) looked like a chemistry laboratory with loads of high tech equipment. There was a bar in the middle of the restaurant, and the ceiling was adorned with liquor bottles of all sorts.

So my first impression was -- Ah it must be a restaurant that's only known for mixology. But boy was I wrong.

We had cocktails before our dinner while waiting for Joseph. My daiquiri was absolutely sour, like pure acid, so please don't order daiquiri.

That aside, all of us went with the "Gourmand" menu which was a ten-course meal. I wanted so much to have just the five-course meal which was the "Classic", but the waitress recommended me to have the Gourmand so that I could have the same dining experience as the others. And I was glad I went with her suggestion. (I partly chose the "Classic" cuz I was trying to help my boss' prof save money. My eyeballs almost popped out of its sockets when i saw the prices)

So we had 3 champagne infused grapes to clear our palettes. It was the best grape I've ever ever had. I wonder how they infuse the champagne into the grape.. At first I thought maybe they just injected it, but I changed my mind when I saw what happened at the table later during our meal.

Course 1: Charred green peppers with Wasabi

The appetizer was charred green peppers with wasabi sauce. The wasabi was mixed with something else, i forgot what it was, but it was SO good. Slightly tangy, slightly spicy and salty, but not like any wasabi i've ever tasted. The charred green peppers looked really scary, but they tasted wonderfully like tempura. When i bit into it, it almost disintegrated into my mouth like ash, but it didn't taste charred at all. In fact, it was refreshing and surprisingly not as carcenogenic as i thought it would taste.

Cold soup with potato and caviar

The soup was filled in a glass spoon, with a potato cube and some caviar balanced on top. Notice I said "in". The spoon was specially designed so that we could suck the soup out of the spoon while we had the potato and caviar in our mouths. It was an explosion of flavour. Everything blended together flawlessly. I just wished there was more than 1 mouthful of soup :P

Calamari with squid ink

Ah, another dish that we had to suck. I was pretty apprehensive when I saw the dark squid ink. But when i sucked the squid ink and chewed the freshly fried calamari together with it, the flavour was just so good. It didn't taste fishy or anything. It was just savoury and absolutely delectable. Eta and I were trying so hard to suck what was left in the straw we looked retarded. HAHA.

Course 2: Chilli Crab

The chef's interpretation of the Singaporean chilli crab. It was made with spanner crab (which earned its name because it has pincers shaped like spanners). The dish was just.. OKAY. because the chilli wasn't really spicy.. and the crab was diced into small cubes.. so i couldn't really savour the unique texture that crab meat usually has.

Course 3: Escargot

It was my first time trying escargot. The ingredients were flew in from all around the world, and VERY fresh. The escargot was pan fried to crispiness (but was still really juicy inside), paired together with fresh asparagus puree. And I usually hate asparagus! The escargot was definitely one of my favourites.

Course 4: Foie Gras with apple

This dish had apple puree, granny smith apple slices and a caramelized gaufrette biscuit that was rolled up, together with the best foie gras puree ever. I once had foie gras puree and I was horribly grossed out by it. But this foie gras was awesome. The savoury taste combined with the sweet caramelized biscuit and the sour apple puree was amazing. Joseph said he liked this dish best.

Course 5: Kingfish

This dish had edamame beans, caramel infused soy tofu and black radish together with a piece of Kingfish that was cooked for 12 hours i think. It's either this or the crab that was cooked for 12 hours. This dish was fantastic. It was Eta's favourite. The fish had been flown in from Australia I think. The beans from japan...

Course 6: Vegetable garden

I must say, this is one of the most interesting dishes ever. As seen in the photo, there's soil (ok it's not really soil! it's actually porcini mushroom made to look like soil) sprinkled on top of a vegetable patch. It looked REALLY unappetizing hahhaha. And then the chef told us the garden was in winter, so he sprinkled some white truffle powder on top of the garden. And amazingly, the "snow" actually started melting before our very eyes! It was lovely. Beneath the vegetable patch (which we speculate was turnip), there were lots of flavourful vegetables. Yum.

Course 7: Surf & Turf

(Picture on left)

Surt & Turf obviously is a dish that combines what walks on land and what lives in the sea. In this case, it was lobster and beef. The beef was cooked for 48 hours. Honestly that really amazed me, but i didn't really like the texture of it. It tasted a bit like overcooked pig trotters. But the lobster made up for it. The lobster was cooked to perfection and VERY fresh. We also had some handpicked SEA GRAPES. haha. imagine green grapes that are shrunk to like 1/100 of its original size and in bunches. looks kinda like algae! But very delicious.

Course 8: Pre dessert: Champagne, muesli and raspberry i think

Honestly a super super nice dessert. It had crispy muesli in raspberry sauce, champagne and something that tasted like honey, but i'm quite sure it was some coagulated mixture or something prepared very scientifically. It was slightly fizzy because of the champagne, sweet because of the honey, and sour because of the raspberry. Very delectable.

Course 9: Basil Ice Cream with Aloe Vera

I honestly wasn't very happy with this dish. It was a dollop of Thai Basil (slightly spicy) ice cream on skippy peanut butter crumble. Yes skippy. We were amused. On the side, there were 3 cubes of aloe vera infused with Yuzu. A bit too sour for my liking. Very contrasting flavours which I didn't really appreciate.

Course 10: Chocolate

This was my FAVOURITE dessert. It was a huge piece of chocolate that was infused with orange. my FAVOURITE combination. dark chocolate with orange. it's the best. :) it as crispy on the outside, and soft on the inside. kinda like praline but not THAT liquid. there was distilluted (that's how he pronounced it) orange syrup which was rather bland. but the chocolate was awesomez.

That concluded the end of our meal. We went to society bar for drinks afterwards. their lychee mojito is not bad. :) i wish there was more alcohol in it though.. it tasted awfully much like lychee with mint.

This is our chef btw, he's called Ryan:

Although the bill came up to like 320++ per person (the 10-course meal itself is 230++) cuz we ordered wine and cocktails, the meal was rather worth it!

I would NEVER pay that kind of money for a meal, but thanks Zif!!! :) It's a kind of cuisine everyone should try at least once in their whole life.

Links/photo credits:

http://tipplingclub.com/

http://www.chubbyhubby.com/

http://asiaone.com/

Wensi's adventures in high heels part I

9:09 PM

Today was my first day of work at DBS. Derrick was awesome, P'ing was nice, Sunny was nice, Chait En was nice too.

BUT. During lunch, I went to meet my cousin and his friends at PHILIP STREET.

Inserts map:

While i was halfway there I almost died. It must have been 34 Degrees celsius, and I was in a long sleeved shirt and high heels. All my friends know that I cannot walk in heels for nuts. By the time I got to the place, I was DISHEVELLED.

After lunch, we decided to take the train. Although it was just one stop, but yay, SALVATION. I think, in my past life, I must have been a penguin. I cannot survive without aircon.

Luckily Rash was nice enough to walk me back to DBS, apologizing profusely and listening to me complain about how my feet hurt. Ah, as if complaining helped anything. But thanks :)

Today when i walked home, I felt like dying all over again. My feet felt super mutilated. Oh well, tomorrow I shall attempt to conquer my heels again.

I know this is a very pointless post but I just wanted to make myself laugh by doing the photoshopped penguin thingie. hahahha. For those who are wondering, that's what I looked like in Primary 6! HAHA. That photo never fails to make my day. I hope the penguin version made yours too. :)

a gift

12:21 AM

原来最简单的礼物我也可以学会珍惜。