Saturday, November 9, 2013

Zafferano @ Ocean Financial Centre

0 comments
Located at Level 43 of Ocean Financial Centre, 10 Collyer Quay. This place is near Clifford Centre and Republic Plaza. My friend parked at Republic Plaza II on a Friday evening, after 7pm and parking was $3 there. Or one can choose to park at Ocean Financial Centre. Was informed by the restaurant staff that parking there is about $6.

Reservation was a breeze via online reserveit.sg, or one could just call up the restaurant. Got a call from the restaurant to remind and to confirm the reservation on the day of visit. Not bad.

One gets the ear pressure when going up to the 43rd floor (240m above ground). The restaurant is quite spacious. Indoor dining area is quite lovely, but rather noisy.

centerpiece
table setting

To start off the evening, we got ourselves a glass of prosecco at $8++ during happy hour (till 8pm).

prosecco with a red sticker (to indicate HH glass?)

If one is interested to bring own wine, the corkage charge here is $45 per bottle. That amount could nett you about 5-6 glasses of prosecco during happy hour.

"Sparkling or still water?"

"Just tap water."

regular tap water

The food menu has tiny fonts and can't really read much since I didn't have my spectacles so left the ordering to my friends.

Meanwhile, let's munch on some bread. Warm loaf of bread that's soft but leaves so much crumbs when cutting it. Request for balsamic to go along with the olive oil.

warm bread by the loaf
lovely bread
olive oil with balsamic vinegar

Amongst the five of us, we had 2 loaves of bread! Didn't order any appetiser and restaurant staff did inform us that the waiting time for the mains to arrive is about 15 minutes.

While waiting for the food, went exploring its alfresco area. If the weather is good, then one can choose to have dinner or drinks at its outdoor area.

outdoor seats

susceptible to weather conditions
view from Level 43

Ordered 4 main courses to be shared amongst the 5 of us. But that's because one of the main course, feeds two.

risotto al nero sepia (squid ink risotto)

Would've preferred if the risotto can be cooked that bit longer. Felt that the taste in the rice was somewhat lacking. Baby squids were nicely done though.

Guancietta di maiale Iberico (slow braised iberico cheeks)

Loved the taste of the slow braised iberico cheeks. Tender, warm and comforting. Very much home-styled cooking. The bright yellow polenta stack was interesting too. Thought it was a bit unusual to have the polenta served in its tin container?

We're very fond of meat. So another meat dish, which is the Filetto di manzo, grilled U.S prime beef tenderloin, pan-fried goose liver, celeriac puree and orange scented morels.

Filetto di manzo (beef fillet with foie gras)

Ok, what are morels? Fungus. See that black thingy that's sitting atop of the mashed blob. Has texture like bamboo pith but denser. That blob tasted very much like pureed liver though...I must be hallucinating!

medium rare

The meat dishes portion were rather small. Fortunately, our last main course, Astice allo busara was of a good enough serving for 3 pax.

Astice allo busara (Boston lobster with chili tomato sauce, pine nuts and raisin pilaf rice gratinated with creme fresche)
best dish for the night

Liked the pilaf raisin rice smothered in gratinated creme fresche. Prefered this much more than the risotto, texture and taste-wise. Lobster meat was firm and fresh. The sauce was sweet, thick and has a slight seafood umami to it.

We were there to celebrate our dear friend's birthday, and the restaurant kindly allowed us to bring our own cake. Ontop of that, Zafferano gave the birthday girl a complimentary birthday dessert. Nice gesture and thanks!

bursting with sweetness (both the cupcakes and birthday girl)

birthday dessert, complimentary

Overall, service was good. Water was topped up every now and then. Dinner was a leisurely affair, and we stayed till late, catching up with each others lives. Happy Birthday Cherlyn, the youngest in our group. Have a good year ahead! Cheers~

one more






Thursday, November 7, 2013

Curry House CoCo ICHIBANYA 壱番屋 @ Star Vista

0 comments
This top curry rice restaurant chain from Ichinomiya, Aichi (Nagoya) Japan, is also known as CoCo Ichiban or CoCo Ichi. According to wiki, カレ (karē) is one of the most popular dish in Japan and カレーライス (karē raisu) is a ubiquitous dish in Japanese household. It is quite amazing that CoCo Ichi has a thousand over branches in Japan alone, and another thousand over more worldwide!

restaurant


Such popularity! Makes one even more curious to try it. The chance came, in the form of an invited tasting session, much thanks to the good people from Imagine Consultancy and CoCo ICHIBANYA.


good curry, good taste

The restaurant was moderately busy on a mid-week evening. I do like Japanese curry rice, especially beef curry. But I've never had omelette curry rice before, and CoCo Ichi has it, so right from the start, I knew what I wanted. Target locked.

show me the curry!

Food tasting and curry rice. Hmm. Overload of carbs? No worries. For small eaters, the menu here is pretty customizable. Prefers less or more rice? Yes, you can. Choose level of spiciness? Yes, you can. Add toppings? Yes, you can.

more or less

Started off with mini-salad. Nicely refreshing with crisp greens.

mini salad (available as part of Set Menu top-up @$3.50++ for 2 items of either a drink or dessert)
dig in!

Omelet Hashed Beef Rice (non-spicy @$14++)

Hashed beef rice is also known as Hayashi rice. Western-styled and its sauce is a demi-glace with tomatoes. Non-spicy and some sweetness. Not too thick and quite yummy. Prefers slightly fattier beef slices though.

fluffy omelet and sticky japanese rice

Next, pork curry rice with Level 1 spiciness. Very very mild, slightly thick curry and enjoyable. This one would be the Indian-influenced curry.

pork curry rice

Ordered Pork Cutlet Omelet Curry Rice with a Level 3 spiciness for comparison, and the verdict? Had some heat but still manageable. In fact, it was not easy to break out a sweat. My bro preferred Level 1, while I thought Level 2 and 3 were pretty similar. Unfortunately, the pork cutlet was rather lean and slightly tough that day.

pork cutlet omelet curry rice

If your tongue starts to tingle from too much heat, then perhaps a smoothie to cool it down? Mango flavour was definitely much stronger than orange! Nicely cold.

mango orange smoothie

The chicken karaage omelet curry rice had very good karaage. Tender bite sized chunks, freshly fried but limited edition with only 6 pieces!

karaage omelet curry rice

How about some desserts? Ice-cream and cheesecake!

vanilla and strawberry ice-cream
green tea cheesecake

The green tea cheesecake has three layers; cheese, red bean and green tea base. Most prominent was the slightly bitter green tea base. Most surprising was that there wasn't any cheese taste in this dessert. More like tofu pudding with dense green tea base. The red bean layer was useful to offset the bitterness by having some sweetness to it.

Special thanks to Glenn, Taisong and CoCo ICHIBANYA for the invite.

CoCo ICHIBANYA

Address: #02-06, Star Vista, Buona Vista
Tel:  (65) 6570 2457
Website: www.cocothailand.com , or 
http://www.ichibanya.co.jp/english/index.html



Fish & Co @ Novena Square

0 comments
Located at Level 3 of Novena Square. Visited on a weekday for lunch and it wasn't crowded.

signature tabletop accessory
ample seats

It must've been awhile since I last visited Fish & Co (any branch). Just realized that they've implemented iPad ordering system. But no, they didn't do away with service charge.

order here

For students, one could get the Student Specials of a Fish & Chips and a drink for just $9.50. Need to show the student pass for verification.

whitebait (@$5.95++)
prawn fritters (@$5.95++)

The whitebait portion was quite small. Preferred the prawn fritters. No doubt it was quite oily, but the batter was crisp and the prawn wasn't that tiny. The chili dip was nicely refreshing.

Seafood Platter for 2 (@$40.95++)

The platter was good, lots of chips and we had taken a liking to the sauce that coated the mussels.

black pepper cod (fingerlings portion) @$9.95++

If you happen to see 'fingerling' mentioned in the menu, it means a smaller portion. Was quite dissappointed by the grilled cod fingerling. The fish was tough and tasteless. One wouldn't have expected this from a 'cod' fish.


Payment via Citibank card would get 10% off on ala-carte items.
 
All Rights Reserved. © Purple Taste
Blogger Theme by BloggerThemes| Theme designed by Jakothan Sponsored by Internet Entrepreneur