Breakfast at Blu dinner

Things weren’t that topsy turvey at Shangrila Hotel’s Blu Challenge dinner on Oct 10 as implied by the title of this post.

It’s just that chef Kevin Cherkas named the dessert Breakfast (pix below) even though what he served wasn’t a poached egg sitting on a muffin, with the usual accompanying fried sausages and grilled tomato. Rather, sausages and tomato were optical illusions — just a picture on the plate.

I think the “egg white” was coconut cream and perhaps real cream from the cow while the “yolk” was some mango puree and juice with gelatine. I also think the “muffin” was laced with passion fruit extract of some sort.

Please note I use the word “think” deliberately because I was, and still  am, not sure what went into making up the dessert. The “ingredients” I had gleaned from what the waiter told us would be in the dessert when he was kindly re-organising my menu to avoid serving me beef, lamb, duck and goose.

“You can eat passion fruit, coconut and mango?” he asked, apparently throwing caution to the wind: my five dining companions would be taking the challenge to guess the menu’s ingredients, even tho I wasn’t, and they could hear every word. (or perhaps that’s Blu’s way of dropping hints?)

Pity the wait didn’t also ask whether I could eat cream made from milk, as I’m somewhat lactose intolerant and had a mild tummy upset the morning after the dinner, leaving me suspecting all the more strongly that the “egg white” had at least some cream in it!

Not quite what it seems

The dinner started with something which looked like a mushroom cap (left) but wasn’t. It’s amusing to look at and quite pleasant to taste but it won’t be something I would die-die must eat again.

This was followed by something I’m more familiar with. A generous portion of lobster meat, lightly cooked in a delicious stock (see below). I was less comfy with the foamy clump at one end of the plate and it stayed right there.

 

lobster portion: generous n colorful

Guess I’m not for the sort of cooking a la Fat Duck, molecular cooking, whatever, altho for a once in a blue-moon meal, it’s OK.

Otherwise, give me something simple, clean and natural like Sakura don (at between $7.80 and $9.90 takeaway), and I would be in gourmet (my version) paradise.

The lobster was followed by a soup, which I think looked very pretty as well (below left) but its taste wasn’t particularly memorable. Again, there was the ubiqitous blob of cream!  This brought an end to the “common” items which I was served, just like the others taking the Challenge menu.

 

so pretty!

solid monkfish followed by risotto consolation

 While those in the Challenge ate pan-fried foie gras (very generous pieces, cut heart-shaped and pronounced great by those eating it) I was served monk fish. With plenty of foam again, just as again I couldn’t fault the dish for its prettiness but wish ang mo cooks would learn to serve meaty fish in thin slices rather than like a thick rump steak!

What followed was the main-main course. The competitors were served tenderloin beef cut in medallions which all pronounced great. Unfortunately, I overlooked taking pix of dishes not on my menu.

For me, mains was cod in an emerald sea of pea or spinach puree– I couldn’t make out exactly. But it was avery decent portion, made more so when the restaurant threw in a small but still decent portion of risotto, although I hadn’t expected that. Blu at least made the dinner worth the $139+++, tho I won’t say the same for the Evian we were served, even tho we asked for PUB water.

codfish in a sea of green

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As stated in the earlier post, no one won the Challenge, so we had to pay for our dinner in full, plus all the other incidentals.

However, there was a sweet ending and I don’t mean just the “cotton wool” candy tree which came with compliments of the chef. Rather, it was the 15% we were given off our total bill because TK paid with American Express, though the waiter added, we would get the same discount with an UOB card.

Instead of us having to pay $234 per head for an evening’s indulgence, we found we needed to pay just $198 each. Well that’s why we left Blu in high spirits even tho we didn’t drink ourselves silly and almost choked over the price of Evian!

While the experience at Blu was nowhere near the WOW I felt on our first visit to GOTO, it’s certainly more value for money than Gunther’s.

And of cos at Blu, we spotted a celebrity couple, Dr Susan Lim, Singapore’s first surgeon to carry out a liver transplant. With her equally famous Citibanker husband. Just like we spotted UOB president Wee Ee Cheong at Gunther’s and City Developments chairman, Kwek Leng Beng, at our repeat visit to GOTO! 

Tin Hill Bistro Winebar closed down?

Or merely relocating or refurbishing?

I ask this because yesterday, when I turned into Sixth Avenue from the Bukit Timah Road end, I was surprised, shocked, to see the corner of a stretch of shophouses that was occupied by the bistro as bare as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard.

I tried calling the bistro number — 64633811 — and was answered by a Singtel recorded message to say that it was temporarily unavailiable!

Then I checked Hungrygowhere and found there was the bald word “CLOSED” atop the 18 reviews done on the bistro, with the last one sooooooo negative that even if it wasn’t closing, it would probably have no choice but to close.

Or, if it wasn’t closing down, then Tin Hill’s owners could have threatened Hungrygowhere and the reviewer with legal action, just as Obolo did over Kaelyn Ong’s sincere but not overly flattering review.

Fact is, I had my premonition regarding Tin Hill from the first time I stepped into the place in September 2008. While the first impression was very good, I worried how it was going to sustain itself, with only two tables and four diners the first time I was there.

Also, a question mark hung over the untrained service staff, even if the owner was all toothy smile and helpfulness.

I liked it well enough to return a second time within a few days but then was thoroughly put off by the offhand manner of the owner, to sincere queries.  Perhaps she had already tired of the venture.

My impressions were recorded in these posts: 

http://singaporegirl.wordpress.com/2008/09/24/not-so-great-2nd-time-around/

http://singaporegirl.wordpress.com/2008/09/20/hip-hip-hurry/

I guess the moral of Singapore’s highly competitive food and beverage scene is that it isn’t enough to be hip and happening. If you want to keep the customers coming, you must work hard at pleasing their stomachs and self-esteem!

Challenging dinner at Blu – for starters

My usual dining companions and I went to Blu on the 24th floor of the Shangri La Hotel to try their $139 +++ Challenge dinner on Saturday, Oct 10. If the diner got all the ingredients right from the tasting menu of six courses in a multiple choice quiz, he/she got to dine free.

 The date wasn’t chosen because of any auspicious connotations but because that’s the Saturday when everyone of the regular group was free and more importantly, for four of the much travelling members, everyone was in town.

I must say rightaway that the six courses we had (seven if we included the cotton candy tree at the end of the meal which came with the chef’s compliments; and eight for me, as I had a different menu from the others; explanations in the post after next) were well worth the money, in taste and presentation.

The service was also on the better side of good.

But let me also register some negative points, as starters.

Although we booked for a table for six some 10 days or so be4 the actual dinner, we were informed only late in the afternoon of 10/10 that Blu cldn’t give us a table at the window. The person who called said they just wanted to be “upfront” with us.

Hello, with such short notice, what else could we say but with gritting teeth that we would accept, adding “how so we don’t get a table at the window when we booked long ago?”

“Because we don’t have a table for six at the window. The space doesn’t allow it; it will be too tight; uncomfortable…”

Now, I wonder why we weren’t told all this right at the time we booked? It probably won’t have made any difference but the fact that we were left with Hobson’s choice at the last moment didn’t feel good.

The next piece of “displeasure” was when we were dallying at the cocktail lounge, enjoying the night lights and pre-dinner drinks. All of us had arrived be4 7.30pm (that’s the time we booked) and it might have been a bit after that, but we were chased –not once but twice to get to our table– as the restaurant was quite full and we were having the Challenge menu. Something to do with the fact that the chef had to cook in batches, whatever.

All of us are reasonable pple, so after a couple of under-breath mutterings, we went kwai-kwai to our table. Although we would have preferred to linger a little longer over our drinks.

The next frown-making incident was when we asked for water — PUB water, as one of us put it– we were served Evian. This was despite the fact that one of us pointed out again to the waiter, as he poured, that we wanted plain tap water. But too late to reject, as some of us had begun sipping the water in our glasses. In any case, the waiter made no response.

Later, when we were settling the bill, we checked whether we were charged for the Evian. Indeed we were. $38 for 330ml!! Something that Sparklette who has compiled a list of restaurants that don’t serve water might like to take note of!

But because we generally had a good evening — even after TK was given a sticky dirty fork that he had to ask for it to be changed — we were loath to kick up a fuss and end the gathering on a sour note.

Yes, even after we discovered that the martinis with canned lichi that five of us had cost $120 (before SV + GST). It’s Shangri La after all.

 And the curious thing about the prices was that we had a very decent bottle of Argentinian Shiraz that cost just $120 +++!

Finally, the most curious thing was that the five who took the Challenge (I didn’t because I had a slightly different menu), the person who didn’t cook scored 79 points — the highest at Blu for that night according to Chef Kevin Cherkas — while the person who cooked for us regularly scored only 50 points.

For the Blu record: the chef said no one had had scored 100% and won the complimentary dinner as of the date of our dining. The Challenge is on till Dec 31!

Blog sponsor rules: S’pore mustn’t ape US

Monkey see. Monkey do? Hope where setting disclosure rules for bloggers to tell who sponsors their glowing endorsements is concerned, Singapore won’t just follow what the United States is planning to do, come December. 

It was announced that bloggers over there will have to make ‘clear and conspicuous’ disclosures if, for example, they write a restaurant review after having been treated to a feast there

In response to local media queries, our Media Development Authority (MDA) says it is looking at stricter disclosure rules by which bloggers and users of other new media may soon have to say so upfront if they receive gifts or money for their write-ups.

At least that’s what the Straits Times reported on Oct 12.

IMHO, I think MDA shouldn’t blindly introduce rules just because the US is doing so. Rather, if we want rules, we should have them, whether the US does so or not.

Moreover, disclosures shouldn’t just be imposed because they go to show a blogger’s bias. They should also be there to help IRAS track income, if indeed, as boasted by the occasional blogger that he/she is pulling in a 4-figure monthly income through blogging.

And more controversially, what about bloggers who damn all things about Singapore, all the time? Shouldn’t they be made to confirm that it’s just that they have a negative disposition; not because someone is sponsoring their ascorbic outpourings?

Little ironies

It was thru a website aggregator, http://www.myapplemenu.com/singapore/, that I discovered a blog called Singapore Recalcitrant, which claims to be run by an 82-year-old Singaporean.

It’s a rare fine for how many 80+ year old Singaporeans are blog writers, even if they are proponents of active ageing?

But that’s not the biggest surprise. Rather, the blog gives the writer’s name in full and that is Yoong Siew Wah. Might not ring a bell with all and sundry but a quick google yielded me the following information posted on the Singapore Police Force’s website.

The Laju Incident

On 31st January 1974, a team of four terrorists comprising two Japanese Red Army (JRA) members and two Popular Front For The Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) members made a futile attempt to explode three oil tanks containing 5000 tonnes of crude oil each in the Shell refinery in Pulau Bukom. The aim of the JRA was to overthrow the Japanese “imperialist” government while the PFLP wanted to retaliate the “imperialist countries that were oppressing the Arab masses”.

 In their bid to escape, they hijacked a passenger ferry named Laju and took the Singaporean crew members on board hostage. After six days of intense negotiations, the terrorists agreed to release the hostages in exchange for free passage to Kuwait with a party of guarantors which included Mr S R Nathan, the director of MINDEF’s Security and Intelligence Dept, Mr Yoong Siew Wah, the director of Internal Security Dept and Supt Tee Tua Ba, OC Marine.

On 8th February 1974, the four terrorists boarded the plane for Kuwait, together with the party of guarantors, thus ending the hijack incident.

After a review of the incident, it was decided that security at various vital installations had to be intensified and SPF was given this task.”

The first name is a familiar name in Singapore. Mr S R Nathan is Singapore’s President, serving his second and last term.

The other name, Mr Yoong Siew Wah, has faded from the memory of most. Till “he” suddenly burst into blogosphere last year, and stepped up his commentary and revelations this year: http://singaporerecalcitrant.blogspot.com/

Is it the real Mr Yoong?

Who knows?

One thing’s for sure. If you can’t make it to the Istana, you can always make it to the Internet, whether as yourself or as an imposter.

But is Singapore Recalcitrant really the Mr Yoong?

We’ll see.

Make Jobs Credit Scheme a PR

Please, please, please, pretty please, PAP Government, please make your Jobs Credit Scheme a permanent resident in Singapore. This is because Jobs Credit is the best invention since sliced bread.

Not because I’ve benefited directly from it; nor anyone else whom I know still in the workforce. But indirectly, everyone must have.

Let me list the beneficiaries.

The employers:

•  those in a bad shape were given a gentle helping hand, enabling them to run on empty a little longer and have the chance to see a new dawn. Something not wanted by those rooting for Darwin’s theory to take its ferocious course. But then, these root for restructuring only because they are not the candidates to be eliminated to prove survival of the fittest survive theory. They will sing another tune, if the bootie is on the other footie.
• those in good to decent shape: Jobs Credit boosts their coffers, albeit indirectly. When the Govt picks up part of your wage bill, there’s even more for the bottom line or more to reward employees even more; or both.

The Government:

• Jobs Credit helps to give profitable employers more for their bottom line, without needing to tweak the tax rate downwards
• Jobs Credit helps to lower the cost of doing business, a relief that businesses cry for all the time
• Jobs Credit makes Singapore more competitive by indirectly lowering costs and tax rates
• Jobs Credit helps to provide unemployed benefits by enabling many who might have been unemployed stay employed. Employers who might have had to shed labour become in effect unofficial “dole” distributors. But because workers stay employed, they don’t feel the stigma of unemployment or loss of self-esteem.
• Jobs Credit helps to contain the jobless rate so that confidence among the people and in the country and economy remains postive.
• Jobs Credit helps make Singaporeans generally more happy than they might otherwise be.

You and me:

• In general, the $4 billion pumped into the economy has a multiplier effect. A Jobs Credit $ in the pockets of people still with jobs is worth more than the dole $ in the pockets of the unemployed.
• In any case, Singapore doesn’t dole out dole to the unemployed. What help that goes thru CDCs and Comcare doesn’t generate confidence but something akin to desperation.

Jobs Credit may have started out as a short-term answer to the threat of an economy imploding, much like a work permit worker does work that citizens don’t want. But like many work permit holders, Jobs Credit has shown that it does — and can do — much more than fill a temporary need.

So give Jobs Credit PR!

Boomz to Ris Low, boo to her critics

I have no quarrels with the way Ms Ris Low spoke English when interviewed after she won the title Ms Singapore Whatever.

I say boomz to her efforts  and boo to her critics for criticising her diction and vocab. Boo2 to her brazeness following the consequent revelations about her.

I also say boo to those who repeatedly urge Singaporeans to listen to the BBC and use that as the model for our spoken English.

I wonder when these bright sparks last listened to the BBC? Haven’t their ears noticed that even on prime time news, standard home county English is no longer the BBC norm but a host of regional accents are in: Yorksire, Scottish, Midlands and anything in between?

I say boo too to the country’s continuous effort to raise the standard of spoken English via the Speak Better English campaign; after more than two decades, isn’t it time to stop flogging a dead horse and give the annual ritual a rest and perhaps a review?

Isn’t there something wrong if despite such arduous efforts, the hoi polloi just can’t get their Ps, Qs n 3s right?

Or is it a case of our nation’s English standard bearers being out of touch with the world, to insist that we write like Thomas Hardy and speak like John Gielgud when most of us speak like Marlon Brando or far, far worse and write like the proverbial Mrs Malaprop?

As for writing, go no further than this Fairprice sign which stands proudly near the entrance of one of its outlets. I don’t need to elaborate because if no one spots the glaring grammatical mistake, then I rest my case re our annual breast-beating.

But then, let’s not be harsh on Fairprice, when another, also something of a national icon, has been, for decades, proudly flying the Singapore flag as a homegrown brand with far flung international reach and appeal and no one has so much twitched a lip about the meaning of its name in plain English!

Getting Auntie Lucia to shut up

Yesterday, at lunch at the American Club, I was at my talkative best, complaining abt how staff at a hotel in Kuala Terengganu would disappear for their Friday prayers at 12 noon, never mind if the guests had just arrived from Kuala Lumpur and needed to check in. We just had to wait for their return, no service, no refreshments, losing precious beach time.

Then, I also reminisced about how fully clothed men and women (who also wore tudungs or burkas as well) would plonk themselves into the swimming pools, leaving those of us in swim attire feeling naked, if not squeamish about what germs non-swim wear might introduce into the water.

I would have gone on spilling the beans if not for the fact that an old, old friend sitting across the table suddenly interrupted my verbosity with an unexpected and unnecessary compliment.

“Lucia, you are looking soooo good today!?”

Taken aback, I replied, “Hah? U reckon?” beaming till even my molars were visible. Turning to another friend, I said, “Eh take a picture of me, take a picture of me”. Which he did on the mobile.

I looked at image. Everything was normal. Then the penny dropped. That wretched man who complimented me just wanted to change the subject but didn’t know how to without offending me.

Here is what he applied his compliment-ploy on. And I was vain enough to fall for it, although everyone at the table told me not to be so cynical or paranoid.

Still, other dishes on the menu made up for me giving others indigestion with my non-stop chatter.

For starters we were offered soup or mango and baby spinach salad with crunchy walnut sauce. Needless to say, i chose the salad. (left)

For mains, there was a choice of fish fillet or turf and surf. There are no prizes for guessing what I opted for, since I don’t eat beef.

Memo to myself: next time I must remember not to let the Veuve Clicquot which the host kindly shared with us (his member’s gift from the American Club) loosen my tongue so much that old friends, especially middle-aged men, would do anything to try and get a word in edgewise, including paying a compliment to someone whose leg they would normally rather pull!