I had our largest G20 gathering last evening at ah orh at jalan bukit merah on 20.2.2014.

we had 23pax on 3 tables, a meeting (or eating!) record!

ah orh had mixed reviews & mostly dated. most thought it was expensive for the food (it may still be probably but it often depends on food ordered). anyhow there was a deal.com offer & the organiser bought 3 vouchers of S$150 worth at S$97.50 each – 1 voucher was allowed for each table. :-)

some friends went early to order the dishes. we had in total 9 dishes & the cost came to S$23+ all-in (about S$180+ per table) after redeeming the vouchers, so it was in fact very good value-for-money even considering that we did not order the usual teochew pomfret, cold crab etc.

there was deep-fried fish skin as table starter. pretty good!

#1 the braised duck platter (top photo & above) was good – moist, flavourful. i would say as good as imperial treasure teochew & better than muliangzai liang kee & chui huay lim. :-) the lor bah (braised belly pork was good too.

#2 fishmaw soup was tasty, but maybe just average. the one beng thin we had recently was substantially better.

#3 the ter kar tan (pig trotter jelly) was very good – firm, flavourful. there was also good chilli & “seng ni cho” 蒜泥醋 dip. this was as good as chui huay lim, imperial treasure & crystal jade.

#4 the yam basket was i supposed really excellent for this dish – yam was tasty & very crisp outside yet “sang” inside & very good combination in texture & taste with the fillings. a very good dish though not yam basket not my favourite. :-)

#5 the kailan with ti poh was competent. vegetable was fresh & crunchy. the ti poh (a teochew favourite condiment not so often seen) added to the attraction but perhaps the wok hae was kind of lacking a bit.

#6 not sure about this teck kia fish (竹仔鱼) dish, certainly competent but the fish had more bones than meat. at kok sen, they used some fish head & added chunky fish meat which worked well to accompany the black bean sauce & was much better overall by comparison.

＃7 hae chor was quite ok, competent, nothing special.
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#8 orh luah was pretty good, large fleshy oysters.

#9 orh nee was better than expected, tasty, i liked it no pumpkin though. :-)

company & fellowship were the key in our get-togethers of course, but we did come to eat & overall the food was quite good & the price of $23pax very reasonable after the deal.com offer, not much different from say muliangzai liang kee, and food we had here were better. :-) w/o the offer, it would cost about $30pax which was still not a bad deal, about same as what we had at shin yeh at our last 20pax dinner.

See my full reviews & photos at = http://chefquak.com/2014/02/21/great-teochew-food-23pax-dinner-get-together-ah-orh-on-20feb2014/

See my full reviews & photos at = http://chefquak.com/2014/01/23/great-value-20pax-dinner-shin-yeh-on-22jan2014/

organiser of RI friends’ dinner this month wanted to do it at a taiwanese porridge place & chose shin yeh，a tunglok restaurant. this dinner get-together was the most successful by far – we had initially 22pax, 2 could not attend last minute, still we had 20pax on 2 tables on 22.1.2014.

i had the amex palate discounts – 20% for 5-20pax. the restaurant called & i spoke with the manager who initially said we could not get discounts as we were 22pax. i gently told her it didn’t make sense – the worse case would be that we had our 20% discount for 20pax & no discounts for 2pax – & perhaps we should take our business elsewhere. the manager was sensible enough to say she would split the bill for us but that this was an exception. whatever! its a competitive world out there & business was not that great that evening. in any case as we finally settled as 20pax, no rules were broken!

i went earlier with the organiser to order ala carte from the menu (there was no discount for set menus & as always when festivity is near – CNY – set menus were very ex & often offer poor value).

we usually avoid appetiser & tea as they added heftily to the bill. in this case though tea was S$12 for the table (seemed like same S$12 for another number of diners on a table) so it was just S$1.20pax & very reasonable. we could have done without the S$5 appetisers which were just bah kua but anyway we reduced to 2 a table so just S$10 for 10pax. ok lah…

we picked 10 dishes.

#1 咸水鸡 – a cold dish similar to drunken chicken, was good. meat was sweet & good shaoxing wine flavour.

#2 we decided to take the staff’s recommendation & ordered 2 sweet & sour soon hock for each table. it was cheap compared with live fish, and the preparation made it quite tasty dish.

$3 another staff recommendation was the prawn with pineapple. this was good too. the prawn preparation was like a wasabi or salted egg prawn, lightly deep-fried. the pineapple added zest to the dish. :-) the staff suggested that this dish was more unique than taking live prawns.

#4 the 三杯中卷 (squid) was good too. 三杯 (3-cup) is a common preparation in taiwan & hakka dishes = 1 cup soy sauce, 1 cup cooking wine, 1 cup sesame oil. & since we already had a cold chicken dish & another whole roast chicken, we picked squid instead.

#5 the whole roast chicken with five-spice salt dip was tasty enough with crispy skin. it was kind of small though.

#6 the oyster egg was ok average dish.

#7 the 元蹄 pork trotter with prawns & squid was good – great taste & texture, uncommon to have prawns & squid in the preparation but an welcome addition.

we ordered 1 tofu & 2 vegetable dishes.

#8 the braised tofu with minced pork was good.

#9 the mushroom dish was quite unique though the price was to me unattractive, S$24 for medium portion c/w S$32 for the roast chicken.

#10 mustard green with dried scallop was small but always tasty dish with the dried scallops (瑶柱)

the restaurant provided a free mua chee (mochi) dessert. we were quite full already so did not add any dessert orders.

food was competent, quite good really. the bill after 20% discounts came to S$594nett for 20pax or S$30pax, so it was really great value. the service staff were great – responsive, polite & helpful. shin yeh though can be quite expensive (e.g. the soup of the day was S$10pax so it really depends on the food & portions you order). we were able to order fish, prawns, chicken & pork trotters that were substantial & not costly, so we had a great meal, enjoyable evening get-together at very reasonable cost.

see my full reviews & photos at = http://chefquak.com/2014/01/20/good-quality-lunch-kaiseki-hachi-on-17jan2014/

had a good quality lunch omakase at hachi with my wife on 17.1.2014. see also the excellent dinner omakase on 9.11.2013.

omakase is like a chef’s table, no menu but usually follows the course preparations for kaiseki. the chef selects the “freshest” ingredients of the day, checks whether you have dietary restrictions & supposedly dishes out an excellent meal to you…well they usually do..

we ordered the S$68pax lunch omakase & the S$88pax ohmi wagyu omakase.

#1 we had a very good amuse bouche of tofu toped with ikura & yuzu jelly.

#2 next we had a sensai (前菜) dish = tofu, sweet black beans, tasty egg plant, some vegetables & nice barley miso.

#3 a sashimi platter of shim aji, tai & hamachi followed. they were sweet & fresh, but not comparable with the sashimi in the superb kuriya lunch kaiseki we had on 16.11.2013.

my wife took the lunch omakase.

#4 a tasty miso flavourful & intense was served, with chicken & kochi.

#5 then came a large oyster sashimi (S$12 ala carte). this was similar to what we had for the dinner omakase & it was very good. :-)

#6 next was tempura, good quality batter, and #7 the gohan set.

for my ohmi wavy omakase, i had-

#4 ohmi wagyu tataki. it was good, very sweet & tasty.

#5 i liked the shabu ohmi wagyu as well. its like the korean bulgogi or gyudon sliced beef but good quality & w/o the overpowering teriyaki sauce.

#6 there was also the grilled ohmi wagyu steak. the wagyu was not very marbled, but still very enjoyable & my wife preferred less marbled wagyu.

#7 the gohan set had wagyu tips, small chopped pieces. a very nice rice indeed. i though maybe i could try this dish at home actually to complete a good meal.

#8 we had the black sesame ice cream – must say i was getting tired of this or the macha ice cream & would have preferred yuzu flavour instead.

See my full reviews & photos at = http://chefquak.com/2013/11/24/lovely-italian-food-service-al-borgo-on-22nov2013/

5 of us decided to go al borgo for dinner on 22.11.2013. al borgo charges S$30 for corkage but if you buy a bottle then the second bottle is free corkage. 1 friend picked up a jacob creek moscato & he orderd an italian red feudi di san gregorio.

i ordered a few of our favourite dishes.

portobello mushrooms with crabmeat in pink sauce was an excellent starter. portobello was nicely grilled & flavourful & the crab meat pink sauce was excellent, pretty to look at & tasty.

parma ham pizza was good too. parma ham was a favourite for many of us (a friend commented it was not so dry when served on a warm pizza than as antipasti though personally i liked the latter more). it made for a fine combination of dishes for the evening though i had no special thing for pizza.

we ordered 2 servings of seafood squid ink tagliatele to share among 5pax. they were very good as usual, quite a bit of prawns & squid & the nice flavour of creamy squid ink went very well with the pasta.

next was the florentine steak (we waited quite a while for this item as the restaurant was quite full). this was a 700g t-bone steak (new york strip on 1 side & tenderloin on the other). it was S$60 before, now S$75, just as the squid ink was S$22 before & now S$25.

it came together with very nice grilled potatoes & mesclun salad & a dip of balsamic vinegar & olive oil (maybe with the grilled juices). it was still good though for this night, the meat was a bit tougher than what we had here many times before. being greedy, i ordered a second serving, and though we polished up everything, i thought afterwards i would have done better ordering the S$38 250g ribeye steak instead.

a friend brought a mille crepe, the new hit in town. it was like kueh lapis, with many thin layers of pastry interleaved with cream & custard, very labour intensive to make & obviously very costly. it was not too sweet. we all liked it especially my 2 friends who had this recently at another birthday. for my personal preference though i would prefer a ritz apple strudel which has apple in addition to cream custard & pastry.

the service at al borgo was super! nicola, the restaurant manager (he took over from luigi) was friendly, chatty & constantly at our table & mimo (the chef) came many times & took several photos with us including with his “brother”, my good friend who had the same hairdo as mimo. he even recommended the wine. :-) they also arranged for parking redemption for my 2 friends (never knew they had that, so i parked my car along the road with single yellow line though as there were quite a bit of construction going on, i had to park my car a bit further up the road). & the servers, kumar & 2 ladies, were also very friendly, attentive fun & cheerful (an important trait in service business). my wife was commenting on the generation change in the image of chefs. they used to be cocky & temperamental, scowling in their kitchen fiefdom, now they are reinventing to be like gracious, warm, inviting hosts.

the evening (& the whatsapp messages afterwards) was filled with conversation, laughter & fun.

A very old friend was in town. I tried to get au jardin - super lunch deal, but it was fully booked, so we went to reddot brewery @ dempsey instead on 19.11.2013.

I had been to reddot dempsey several times. they served a 2-course S$22pax & 3-course S$28pax lunch which i thought was already very good value. but it’s S$18pax & S$22pax now for 2-course & 3-course menu! if we exclude maybank’s 1 for 1 promotion at les amis restaurants, this would be a really super deal!

the place was more of a drinking joint with a micro brewery. it was probably quite busy in the evenings but i had no interest in that. parking was free & the ambience was excellent, with airy high roof ceiling & water feature. we had a great lunch & catching up.

i had the prawn citrus salad & my friend had the reddot salad. they were good, refreshing & good portion. both us had the halibut, which was very good, and even came with very sweet vine tomatoes! this dish alone was S$28++ on ala carte previously, and that was not expensive c/w many restaurants. there was also sirloin steak for mains choice, which i had before & it was pretty good too, if ordinary. these days i don’t order beef much when i dine out. :-)

my dutch friend had the ice cream, and i had the chocolate melt cake, & this lava cake was good!

We didn’t go dutch (pun intended!)..haha! it was a very satisfying & cheap meal anyway for the food & ambience & we had a jolly good time. there were only 2 other tables occupied, and we had the huge place mostly for ourselves. i not sure whether it made economic sense to keep it open for lunch & reduce the price but i am not complaining.

See my full reviews & photos at = http://chefquak.com/2013/11/20/great-lunch-with-old-friend-reddot-brewhouse-dempsey-on-19nov2013/