I have always been a big fan of young jackfruits since young, but this is the first time I tried it in a “nugget” form. Touted as the next meat alternative, young jackfruit has nice fibrous texture that’s akin to eating meat. Imo the five-spice seasoning is a tad too heavy. The savoury taste reminds me of Ayam Goreng Kuning that you can find in some Indonesian restaurant. Worth trying if you haven’t.
My first time trying tonkin jasmine flower, which apparently is a popular Vietnamese delicacy. The crunchy texture and bulbous shape remind us of kailan flower bulbs served at chicken rice stall. The rendition here is kept simple— stir-fry with garlic and a bit of soy sauce. It’s simple but the crunchy fried minced garlic is sure addictive.
A refreshing opening to our meal although I was expecting something tangy and a lil bit spicy. The overall taste profile is leaning towards sweet and savoury from the pomelo and fish sauce respectively. Appreciate the 3 pieces of fresh prawn, but thought it doesn’t really sit well with the rest of the salad, perhaps because it’s quite huge (?). Also, imo the price tag is rather steep for a salad appetiser.
This is one of the dishes that got me hooked to Vietnamese food yeaaaars ago. Their rendition is pretty good— special shout out to the juicy and tender meat balls and grilled pork. The tangy papaya fish sauce could have had an additional splash of fish sauce, but otherwise, it has a good kick.
My first reaction when seeing the tempura bowl delivered to my table was how brownish everything was. The photo on the menu has more colour for some reason. Anyhoo, I ordered the special tendon because it has more seafood items such as anago, kisu fish and squid, on top of the standard prawn and vegetables. The set also comes with some yuzu-flavoured pickled radish, miso soup, and stir fry lady fingers. My favourites of all I’ve tried are the squid and prawn. The vegetables are alright though I must say the maitake is pretty interesting. The anago and kisu fish unfortunately was a tad under-seasoned. Which also brings me to my next observation of how uneven the tempura sauce is drizzled on the rice/tempura. The kisu fish and anago were hidden underneath and hence didn’t get any savoury sauce. The rice itself is surprisingly little in comparison to other tempura restaurants I’ve tried, which I’m not complaining about because I get full after devouring 2/3 of my tempura. The tempura batter is okay, nothing spectacular, and imo is still quite thick for my liking. Overall, a decent tempura rice bowl but wont say this is cheap.
The only dessert we ordered because we stuffed ourselves full from all the curries and hoppers! The first taste reminded me of crack pie that I got from a famous pie shop in Chicago but as I chewed more, the taste becomes way more familiar. Made with jaggery (which, iiuc, is akin to palm sugar) as well as coconut milk, the custard is silky smooth and leans on the aromatic sweet kind. Fortunately, it also comes crushed pistachio, some hidden candied orange beneath the ice cream and spices throughout to cut through the sweetness. Love this so much that I wish I didnt have to share it with 3 others.
Russian Cake and Dulche de Leche Crepe (not in picture— you can get either one!). At one point during the lockdown period, I was obsessed with a cooking game on Switch and one of the recipes is Medovik aka Russian honey layer cake. Now this might not be the best representation because there is supposed to be at least 6-7 layers of cakes but surprisingly this tastes pretty good. We always thought this was gonne be cloyingly sweet and grainy but it’s not! The cake might not be the fluffiest or most moist, but still enjoyable.
Dulche de Leche Crepe was still frozen inside when delivered to our table. Now, we didnt know what to expect and my bf just cut and ate the frozen piece thinking “maybe it’s supposed to be like this” and obviously it’s not! We sent it back to the kitchen for re-heating and it came back with oozing milk sauce from within (looks more like it). Tastes ok but too sweet for my liking.
This is the only main course of the set but tbh at this point we’re alr pretty full. The meat stew comes with some tomato and potato (and prolly some other vegetables that have disintegrated in the slow-cooked process). Taste good and not gamey but nothing unexpected.
Handmade pelmeni (dumplings). Not gonna spoil the fun of trying out different fillings of the dumplings, so I wont explain each filling of the dumplings here. Each of us got 5 different dumplings so we essentially tried 10 different fillings that day. There is a guide on the table explaining the different colour coding. Again, my expectation of dumplings is thin skin with juicy meat (xlb ftw indeed) so I was a little surprised to find the dumpling skin pretty thick. That aside, I thought some of the fillings are really yummy- our favourites are the lamb, cheese, and bacon. It comes with sour cream on the side but we both find it pretty diluted for a dipping sauce.
Ukrainian Borsh Soup. The menu says it has pork, cabbage, beetroot, tomato, and potato inside. Everything has turned really soft so I can hardly differentiate the ingredients. But I thought I couldn’t realy taste any beetroot in the soup. Again, I’ve never tried borsh soup before but I found this really refreshing and easy to like. Especially after all the cold appetisers and soup before!
Gherkin, beetroot, and smoked salo. Again the appetisers here taste like what they are. The gherkin is on the crunchier side instead of the the typical soft ones you can get from store-bought jars. The sliced beetroots are quite refreshing and are tossed with some capers. Pretty normal imo. The smoked salo is essentially roast pork belly on rye bread with a tiny dollop of hot mustard. I thought the texture was a bit weird, probably because I’m so used to siew yoke with crunchy skin and a much denser rye bread. Nothing to shout out, but again, I’m not a Russian food expert. I enjoy eating all of these but not sure how authentic they are.
It says $78 nett in BB but not sure why they added service charge to our bill in the end. The meal starts with trio appetizers comprising of preserved chopped cabbage, small green peas in mayo, and half boiled egg topped with fish roes. The first tastes somewhat like sauerkraut but it’s crunchier and less acidic. The second one is essentially made of 2 ingredients that I dislike the most: peas and mayos— they’re not that bad tbh but it tastes as is. The last one is pretty basic as well: egg and (fish) eggs. It’s hard to hate it unless you don’t like eggs. Not sure how authentic these are because I have never eaten Russian food before.
