For photos, please visit Rubbish Eat Rubbish Grow: http://rubbisheatrubbishgrow.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/food-on-fire-capital-square-three/

Featured on 8Days, Wine&Dine, and Exquisite, the decor is canteen-style, so this is really a eat-and-go place but there are several selling points:
1. Guilt-free healthy Indian food! less salt, less oil, less cream, no MSG.
2. “We don’t own a freezer,” says the owner; food is freshly prepared daily.
3. Chefs are from India, so there is a degree of authenticity.
4. The owner’s ancestry is from Gujarat, and it was the first shop in Singapore to sell Gujarati dal dhokli, only available on Wednesdays 12-3pm.
5. Owner’s extended family lives in India so they buy fresh spices, pound and mix them themselves and ship it over to Singapore freshly.

A friend and I shared the angmoh-influenced lamb kebab wrap ($11) with plenty of fresh vegetables, a naan as wrap, and two sauces, a spicy one and a yogurt-based one. This is good lunch food, as I remember fondly of my New York Ah Beng Training Days when I ate wrap for lunch. There wasn’t a stench of the lamb. The texture of hot lamb and crunchy vegetables fit well together. The spiciness of the lamb was padded by the vegetables and the spice left a tingling sensation on my lips. Hot lips! Good to kiss any time!Meat Platter ($20). The food came sizzling on the hotplate and the aroma was mouthwatering. Taste-wise, it was average for us–we thought the spices could be heavier–but the meat was tender and succulent.

My friend and I also had Chicken Masala set ($9.50) and Chicken Makhani (butter chicken, $9.50), which come with a naan each and are popular for lunch. The Makhani is definitely the better of the two. The masala was salty for us but the Makhani chicken has a deep roasted, very smokey taste that I like very much and can’t stop eating. The chicken really absorbed the essence of the tandoor (clay oven). I’d come back for this.

I don’t like lime juice ($2.80), because it’s either too sour or diabete-ly sweet, but here, the balance was superb. This is the only lime juice I can recall that I like but I wonder if it can be cheaper. $2, maybe?

In general, although I love spicy-hot food, I can’t take it but the food here is ok to my palate. Unlike my other experiences of eating Indian food, after eating, we didn’t feel heavy and lethargic. It tasted decent too. The price seems reasonable as the eatery is in CBD area. An eatery that survives 8 years in such a competitive area can’t be bad.

For more photos, please visit Rubbish Eat Rubbish Grow: http://rubbisheatrubbishgrow.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/bronte-bukit-timah/

Although Bronte isn’t named after the Bronte sisters, I think the meaning of “Bronte” (lightning) is very apt for this restaurant. It electrified me. Bronte is named after Bronte beach at Sydney Australia, a place where you get great food at a relaxed environment. This is exactly the philosophy of Bronte: casual dining with fine dining techniques.

But casualness doesn’t mean you can’t have taste! The decor exudes much sophistication, using lots of “raw” materials such as cement floor, wooden tables, and whitewashed brick-wall. A small window opens out to the kitchen, so you can see the team at work. Don’t you love the ramp at the entrance, making the restaurant wheelchair friendly?

Entrees:
Garlic crystal Bay prawns with rocket and char-grilled Turkish bread ($19). This dish didn’t come with just 3 prawns unlike fancy dining places; it came with at least 8-10 huge prawns. The char-grilled bread was incredibly crispy and delicious with butter melted into it. We dipped it in the buttery-wine sauce to soak up all the goodness. This dish tasted very Chinese, exactly like stirred-fried garlic prawn, but strangely, I didn’t have garlic breath, a dish safe for romantic dates. The bitter rocket, not only complimenting the creamy saltiness, made the dish more angmohized. This fusion dish truly reflects Australian culture, with the influence of Asian migration. I love dishes that tell the story of a culture.

I never understood the concept of Beef Carpaccio because I thought it was always just beef with rocket–what can go wrong except salmonella?–until now. But Chef Justin Wong–Australian-Chinese who worked at top restaurants in Australia such as Salt and Forty-one (see my review on Salt Singapore)–made the dish his own by adding shredded egg, capers, gherkins (pickle-like cucumber), rocket and blue cheese dressing. Hookerlily didn’t quite enjoy this but I thought it was awesome. It had an exquisite balance of flavors and texture, from the bitterness of the crunchy rocket, pungent scent of blue cheese dressing, vinegary taste of gherkins, and the meatiness of the beef. Everything on this plate worked perfectly. Chef Justin Wong made me “get” and understand the dish. I felt like I was having an education here!

Mains:
Braised beef cheeks with mashed potato, portobello mushroom, spinach and red wine sauce ($34). If I were an American Idol contestant, I’d always pick safe songs. That’s why when I go to restaurants, I always pick beef stew or braised beef cheeks. Nothing can go wrong. But out of so many beef cheeks I’ve eaten, Bronte’s has to be one of the better ones, if not the best. It was expected that the beef was smooth, soft and succulent. The mashed potato had more potato than butter, milk and cream, so you could really taste the “potato-ness” of it. The bitter spinach–a very Chinese vegetable–balanced the sweetness of the dish well. But what was truly original and surprising was the mushroom. It was so delicious it made me tear. The first taste you’ll get is the musky taste, which is immediately chased by a sweetness that the mushroom absorbs from the sauce. It’s like having heaven in your mouth. My only complaint is: WHY U NO GIVE MORE SHROOMS? If Chef Justin Wong were an American Idol contestant, the comments he’d received from Randy Jackson the Judge are, “You own the song, dog! You make the song yours.”Crispy skin shredded duck, potato gratin, spinach with orange infused carrot puree and prune jus. The aesthetics for this dish is insane! Is it extremely gorgeous or super extremely gorgeous?? I want to marry it. The bright orange puree with maroon prune sauce – stunning. The structure of the duck confit, spinach and gratin – such symmetry. Yes, I said duck confit. What Chef Justin Wong does is to make a duck confit, debone it, shred the flesh, then put it together with the skin, and pan-fry(?) it so that it joins together. So much effort just because he thinks it’s difficult for customers to eat with bone. How considerate!

What is truly amazing about this dish was how well the puree and the jus go so well together with the duck. The puree tasted exactly like the Khong Guan lemon biscuit and the prune jus wasn’t tart but had a pleasant mild berry sweetness. Imagine this: smooth, tender shredded duck, with a fat, juicy, crispy skin in Khong Guan lemony-bisuit and prune jus. We call this magic.

Desserts:

Good chefs don’t always make good desserts. Having such a wonderful meal so far, I was apprehensive that the curse would be true, that good main courses always mean bad desserts – but the curse is broken!

Kiwi and Passionfruit Pavlova ($8) is supposedly a specialty of Australia. It’s a meringue with a thin crisp crust with airy, ethereal cream(?) inside. When I ate it on its own, it tasted like vanilla-sugared air; the thing just evaporated within my mouth. But if you eat it with kiwi or passionfruit, it really takes up the citrusy flavor without competing with it.

Pistachio panna cotta with mixed berry compote ($8). I was tasting the pavlova and taking down notes, and I turned to the panna cotta – and Hookerlily nearly finished it already!! The texture was similar to Lao Ban Beancurd Jelly: they are solid outside, but in your mouth, they melt completely. The balance of cream, milk, sugar and vanilla was pitch perfect, the most, most perfect panna cotta ever. It was the right kind of sweetness.

I also realized the common thing between pavlova and panna cotta is they are a complimentary substance. If you dip the panna cotta in the berry compote, OMG, there are 712 kinds of awesome-ness in it! The panna cotta absorbs the compote. The compote is, of course, home-made and was super, super delicious. It didn’t have the acidic, sourish nature of berries but it wasn’t extremely sweet either. All things were in balance. Chef Wong should just bottle up the compote, open a factory and sell it as jam. Too bad Chef Wong said he would be replacing the compote with white wine jus. I will miss you berry berry much.

The one negative thing about this restaurant is the location. It’s difficult to get to if you don’t take a cab or drive. Luckily, I have my trusty rusty lorry! Such delish food should be in a better location.

This is truly an AMAZING restaurant, fast becoming one of my favorites. The food is so delicately balanced and exquisite yet simple and unpretentious; it’s so familiar yet at the same time, original. Sunday Roast (includes a dessert) is only $35 per person; and half price for children under 14.

For photos, please visit Rubbish Eat Rubbish Grow: http://rubbisheatrubbishgrow.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/brotzeit-313-somerset/

Two new friends, Mr NGFL and I got down to Brotzeit to try their Game Menu for Christmas, till 31 Dec only. What is game? Not computer game ok?? In movies or books, the aristocrats will gather at someone’s huge mansion, and they will go hunting in the forest. Any animal that is hunted in the wild is called game. It can range from fowl to beasts.

“Brot” means “bread” and “zeit” means “time” and together, it means a homely meal with beer. Haha, you think it’s “bread time” right?? We argued over some time how to pronounce it. ”Zeit” is definitely pronounced as “tsahyt” as in the English word “zeitgeist.” And since I write this blog, I decided to pronounce “bro-tsahyt.” Yo, for the bros, man!

Despite that the restaurant-bar is huge, spanning two storeys, it gives a very cozy and intimate ambience. I love how funky the murals are: Animals found in Germany are in the process of brewing beer in Singapore, signaled by iconic Singapore buildings. The lightning is yellowish, which is how all restaurants’ lighting should be. It’s definitely a good after-work place or just hangout with friends.

For starters, we had the pretzels and, from the game menu, the duck confit with cranberry sauce and Brezn sticks ($18.50). Brezn stick is baguette form of pretzels, which is white bread treated in an alkali solution, according to Chef Claus, the executive chef of Brotzeit. The duck confit took 18 painstaking hours to prepare and cook. I usually dislike duck confit–don’t like overly salty things–but if you stuff the salty shredded duck and sweet berry-ish but not tart cranberry into the bread, the mixture of the taste, a little bit of everything, titillates the tongue.

Although the starters were good, I’d say, go for the mains because Brotzeit gives a very generous serving of mains. We four only ordered two mains because of the starter. I think next time I go, I’ll just kill on the mains and eat one entire plate on my own.

From the Game Menu, there is a choice of roast or stew and we picked one from each.

Wildragout ($38.50), as in Wild-ragout and not wil-drag-out Drag Queen Kumar style, is deer and wild boar stewed till tender with onions, bacon, juniper berries, finished with sour cream. My new friend asked if I could distinguish between the deer and wild boar. So proud of myself, I can!!! The deer is very tender, and comes out in shreds in your mouth, and has a very, very distinct smokey aroma, like it has been on the charcoal grill for some time. The deer was truly delicious. Next time I come, I want to ask them if I can have a plate of just deer because I’m a dear.

The dish also comes with red cabbage that takes 24 hours to prepare and tasted like the Chinese salted vegetables; buttered Spatzle, a seasoned dough poached in boiling water, that tasted like mee hoon kueh; and fine beans wrapped in a piece of bacon.

We didn’t like wildschweinbraten ($34.50), roast wild boar, so much. We know the dish is well cooked but it’s just that we’re not used to the toughness of the meat. Wild boars and Babe (farm pig) are very different. Babe gets fed, becomes fat, and fats give meat the tenderness–that’s why I’m so tender. But to survive in the wild, boars are muscular and have tight hides, so that’s why the meat is tough.

However, the sides were AWESOME. I can’t stop eating the napkin dumplings! It’s white bread treated with paisley and spices and boiled in a napkin. It tasted like mashed potato salad with black pepper. I love potato salad! This dish also has red cabbage and fine beans wrapped in a piece of bacon.We each had a Gluhwein ($14.50), pronounced as “gluen,” which is Xmas seasoned hot red wine served with vanilla ice cream and strawberries and the Heisser Gluhwein ($12.50) itself, which is hot red wine. This truly, truly reminds me of Christmas. When I was at the Ah Beng Boot Camp in New York, the weather was freezing, minus ten degrees. And at Union Square Farmers Market, I bought this hot red wine, and it felt so warm inside despite the freeze.

Ice cream is also very winter-ly. It actually feels very good eating ice cream in winter. So Gluhwein is really a great creation, with the sweetness of vanilla, the woody spice of cinnamon and sweetness of berry (both ingredients are very Xmasy), and aroma of the Xmas wine. I want to go back and eat more of this!

The Game Menu is an eye-opener for me. I’ve eaten game fowl before, but not game-four-legs. The entire experience feels very Christmassy – probably because the restaurant uses many Xmas ingredients, lots of berries, cinnamon, and a winter beer, Weihnachtsbier, a sweet, full-bodied lager that has a berry aftertaste. I think I’ll go back soon before the game meat menu is over.

For photos, please visit Rubbish Eat Rubbish Grow: http://rubbisheatrubbishgrow.wordpress.com/2011/11/29/yong-he-eating-house-geylang/

We five, not full from JB Ah Meng–well, actually I think only Yan Dao and I were the ones who were still hungry–so we went to Yong He for their soya bean curd. I predict the recent beancurd jelly war will bring people back to the roots of eating the traditional beancurd. And of course, we ordered many other things. Price list:

soya bean drink $1.20
Bean curd $1.70
yu tiao $1.10
taiwan noodle (mee sua) $3.80The food was really quite solid. The Mee Sua, which I usually dislike, was robust and packed a punch. The beancurd was quite smooth and the yu tiao (fried dough) was cripsy and very delicious but just a tad too oily. We, adventurous, tried the salty beancurd with cai-po, soya sauce, white pepper and green onions. You’d think it strange but it was actually very appetizing. It’s like eating a healthy alternative of chwee kueh.

Service was Superwoman quick. And the ambience–well, if you want to escape the gangster street of Geylang, this seems to be a good shelter. Quite old school coffeeshop chic. I endorse this shop. Open 24 hours. Eat already can go on the streets to earn back the dinner money some more, unless you’re an old uncle lah, then you’ve to pay. Uncles are the only human species with no market value: women of all ages and young boys have. Sigh, we live in a sexist world, I, an uncle, feel discriminated against.

For more photos, please visit Rubbish Eat Rubbish Grow: http://rubbisheatrubbishgrow.wordpress.com/2011/11/28/khmer-delight-east-coast/

Have been wanting to come here for the longest time because this is the only Cambodian restaurant in Singapore and it serves deep-fried Tarantula spiders! Bought $40 discount coupons for Cambodian buffet for two ($20/pax). Very worth the money!

When we arrived, the waitress very politely told us that the coupons couldn’t be used for Saturday dinners. The waitress gave us Alicia’s, the director, number and I called her. A generalization: The first instinct that Singaporean patrons do when things don’t go their way is to shout at the service staff. I think it reflects very badly on the patrons, but it’s like the patrons are merely venting their work or love or family frustration on the staff. It makes the service staff feel bad and you might not get things done your way. This is what I did:

“Hello Alicia. My friend and I are at your restaurant now and we want to use the discount coupon. It isn’t stated anywhere that we can’t use it for Saturday dinners and when we made reservations, informing that we would be using coupons, the waitress didn’t tell us. We don’t live around here so as a form of good will, do you mind allowing us to use the coupons please?”

She said very sweetly, “Yes, sure.”

See what you can achieve if you’re polite and use reason, instead high decibel, using words like “please” and ending with a question, instead of a demand. Use charm, don’t use force.

For a buffet, the food was pretty damn good! The food tasted like a cross between Chinese and Thai cuisine but without the intense spiciness of Thai food. Special mentions: spare ribs, spring roll, fish amok and eggplant. I liked the fish amok because it was otah using real fish you can see; although the spare ribs weren’t too tender, the sauce was spectacular, like a honey bbq sauce with herbs such as anise, I think. Mao Mao and I both loved the crispy, not oily spring roll, which tasted more flavorful than normal Chinese ones. Mao Mao liked the way the eggplant was cooked, not too soggy or gluey. Another plus point: all the food were hot and freshly prepared.

Of course, my philosophy is no matter how stuff you’re, ALWAYS end a meal with desserts, which unfortunately aren’t in the Buffet list. So we ordered: Banana Sesame Fritters with Ice Cream ($6.90); Durian Paste.No shit jokes about the banana fritters, please. The hot banana on cold ball of ice cream – such a turn on. The D24 durian paste was awesome, probably better than the Merchant Court one, and I ate all of it myself.

The food came out slowly but hey at least they were piping hot and delicious. The service was good, smiling faces all round and they refilled water fast. Best service staff: The waitress. We tried to say “Thank You” in Cambodian to them, and the waiter said, laughing, “I’m not Cambodian.” Hahaha. We saw a couple waiting at the door for a long time but the wait staff was dishing out the food and the couple walked away. I thought the staff could have sat the couple first to retain customers. Not enough servers? The ambience is run-of-the-mill for a mid-range restaurant. Given the value-for-money food, we’d definitely return. Khmer Delight should be renamed Comer’s Delight. Oh, what happened to the tarantula spiders? Didn’t see it on the menu no more.