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2010-07-06
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I like Saint Pierre far more than sister French Kitchen. For a fish freak like me, a restaurant sharing the same name as a fish (yup, Saint Pierre is also known as John Dory, a small fact gleaned from Julia Child’s My Life in France which, by the way, is a fabulous read) is one after my own heart ha. Service was flawless, the chef charismatic and most importantly, the flavours of the food were so clean and distinct that my palate was doing the happy dance by the end of the meal.The 3 course lunc
The 3 course lunch ($48++) turned into so much more cuz Saint Pierre serves, by far, the most pre-meal nibbles I’ve ever seen, and all complementary too. Besides cheese sticks with bacon (which I forgot to snap a shot of) and boring bread rolls, there’s black olive and sundried tomato chips, and an interesting trio of cod in air dried olive crumble, fried sardine sticks and anchovy dip.
The first amuse bouche of the day: salmon mousse with home-smoked salmon crusted with capers and yuzu zest, ginger dust, citrus and saffron gel, and olive oil powder. Sounds very complicated, yet it’s such a nice surprise to find that it tasted anything but. This succeeded in making me look forward to my first course even more!
Admittedly, the olive oil marinated mackerel fell short of expectations. I like its smooth oiliness but not the bouillabaisse jelly base and dots of rouille dressing cuz they were pretty bland.
The chef sent out another complimentary amuse bouche right after the starters, this time a killer langoustine tortellini with lobster cream, crunchy bits of lobster jelly and rich lobster bisque. This was so good that I wish I wish I could have this as my main!
That said, I still adore my main of white miso marinated black cod! Perfectly cooked and incredibly umami. And it’s a good thing I like fennel too, what with the theme of braised fennel, warm fennel and roma tomato salad and fennel emulsion by the side.
Desserts were decent though nowhere as awesome as the savoury. If I have to choose just one word to describe Grandma Stroobant’s flourless Belgian chocolate cake, it’s “decadent”. Layered with dark chocolate mousse and paired with a scoop of absolutely ferrero rocher praline ice cream, this was so rich (in the best way) that it’s a good thing that portion was small enough to be just right.
I was already feeling ultra happy and satisfied with lunch when petit fours arrived. And gosh, lunch really ended with a bang with the small and harmless looking piece of smoked caramel. I put it in my mouth and bam, the smoky flavour was released as it melted! Potent stuff there.
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