Congratulations Dr & Mrs Lim

Just for the Record.. Congratulations to the Both of you !!!

Cail Bruich - Market Menu

Merry Xmas one and all. Its great to be back blogging again. I do miss it but work does take over the better half of my time.

Met up with some year mates at Cail Bruich one weekeday evening to try out the market menu.
17.95 quid for 3 courses
14.95 for 2 courses.

Whiskey Cured Oak Salmon with Lemon CApers, creme Fraiche and Herbs. Nice plated and not looking like it was ready to fill you up even before the main course.

Venison liver Parfait, apricot, pear & saffron chutney, toasted sourdough bread. Didn't realise that parfait is also known as pate... Good thing the chutney did well to mask the gamey taste of the pate. still a nice dish though

Hake, ratte potatos, sprouting broccoli, Seville Orange Hollandaise. Greatly pan fried fish, fresh veggies, and creamy potatos. The seville orange hollandaise sauce provided a nice tangy kick to the fresh fish.

Braised Pork Cheeks, Pureed Potatos, baby onions, Lardon, mushrooms, parsley.

A very competent brownie. Simple pleasures. mAximUm Satisfaction.

Cail Bruich West
----------------------------
725, Great Western Rd,
Glasgow,
Lanarkshire
http://www.cailbruich.co.uk/


G12 8QX

Ian Brown - Food and Drink

Its not usual for the West Ender to venture into the South side of Glasgow in search of gourmet food. 1. There's alot more restaurants that I have yet to discover in central Glasgow and 2. there are not many restaurants in the South side. If you guys know any that I might like, please recommend.

so Aa's idea of a romantic getaway with C over the weekend (yes.. lightbulb again...) was to pay a visit to the newly opened Wholefoods Super market. If you like me enjoy watching Topchef, would know that its one of the higher end supermarkets you can splurge on.
Sorry Waitrose, someone's up the ante.

And because we were in the South side, there's a great excuse to try out one of the List's hitlist restaurant.





Looks can be deceiving and if you ask me I wouldn't think that the restaurant was helmed by the once head chef of Ubiquitous chip if you look at the restaurant front. Step inside and instantaneously, the "posh"ness of its modern interior set my stomach rumbling for what I was hoping will be a nice luncheon.





We went with the set lunch as we thought it was the most economical.
Before we even placed our orders, a very nice gesture in the form of a sweet potato basil oil veloute was presented before us.




Customary JPO breadshot haha!! Homemade bread with extremely good quality olive oil.





Aa had a smoked mackerel salad dill dressing. Good quality smoked mackerel !!! and not too heavy at all for a starter





Asparagus Custard with a garlic sippet and pea sauce. That's for me.
The custard was alittle light in flavours but the pea sauce was great.





Your humble Greg's bridie made posh in this restaurant.





For mains, Aa had a venison pie. Chunks of venison certainly made this worthwhile





C had a pan-fried mackeral with mustard sauce. She likes it !!.

And I had a stuffed chicken risotto with new potatos and vegetable spaghetti. Succulent chicken, crispy skin and a playful take on spaghetti kept me wanting for more.

+ Great classy food at great prices. Nice ambiance. Friendly staff
- South side of town makes traveling difficult for me haha.


The man himself wasn't in that afternoon but the food certainly did not fall short of his high standards.

Ian Brown Food and Drink
---------------------------------

55 Eastwoodmains Road

Glasgow, G46 6PW
Tel: 0141 638 8422
www.ianbrownrestaurant.co.uk

Thai Lemon Grass

I have been to 3 Thai restaurants in Glasgow and amongst all these, Lemon Grass ranks atop the Thai food kingdom. Don't be too quick to dismiss it off as another Thai restaurant that has modified its flavours to suit the western palette. Truth be told, there was something uniquely Thai about the food we had that night.

We started off with a nice house sampler consisting of chicken satay, fish cakes, Grilled pork neck, spring rolls and prawn cakes. All of which were impressive. The.chicken satay breast were moist and matched well with the fragrant peanut sauce. The pork neck was my favourite. So well grilled on the outside with a moist pink centre.

The thai chicken coconut soup was a little like a diluted down version of thai red curry with coconut milk. Tasty but not attention grabbing.

For mains, we had a stir fried roast duck with chilli paste. Never heard of this dish but it tasted nice. Certainly reminded me of something that I might have had in Thailand.

The thai green curry packed a good punch of spices. Just wished it was spicier. I like it atomic hot haha

Finally the star of the night was this deep fried seabass topped with a spicy mango salad. Fresh juicy chunks of meat that has been deboned by the chef for your eating convinience. If you like something tangy and sweet, you'll like this.

This was as close to Thai food that I would ever get in Glasgow and I applaud the efforts of the owners in their efforts of trying to recreate the same atmosphere in their interior designs and attention of garnishes in their food.

I paid more than what I usually would for food today but what I had was satisfying and I looked forward to a good excuse to splurge on something nice at this restaurant again.

Thai Lemongrass
------------------------

24 Renfrew Street

Glasgow, G2 3BW

Phone: 0141 331 1315

p.S : I have been relegated to doing monthly restaurant reviews with my work ahhaha. oh wells.

Emirates Business Lounge Terminal 3.

I finally got a chance to visit the business class lounge in Terminal 3 with my upgrade to business class on the - GLA leg.
Frankly, it wasn't as exhilarating as I thought it was going to be.

The food was essentially the same except that there were like 6x times as many counters serving food. In terms of variety, its largely the same. The most significant different is that the mango juice was totally out of this world and they had fridge of free flow haagen daaz ice cream. yum yuym.

Its alot more spacious than the business class lounge in Terminal 1 but it dosen't really bother me as much as the lack of new food items.
FYI: Silver members are allowed into the business lounge in Terminal 1 only. Only Skyward Gold and business class passengers travelling on emirates flight out of DXB are allowed into the business lounge in Terminal 3.

Anyway. its free so I shan't complain haha

Tea @ the Airport

Been drinking lotsa tea at the airport during my trips back to Singapore.



Tea number 1 was a warm green tea latte. Quite certain we don't have this Asian based drink in Glasgow. So healthily grassy in taste but so freakingly overpriced at S$6.20 compared to

.....


...

..

My Ice milk teh from Wang Cafe. only S$2.20

ConGratulations M & S

I spent Sunday celebrating one of my closest friend's wedding at Amara Sanctuary Resort Sentosa. Truly, one of the most memorable events that the 5 of us have been involved in over the last 10 years.

Besides that, another excuse for me to make good use of my new lens hehehe.....

The food that day was fantastic, the only down side was that I didn't get to take many pictures of it as I was busy helping out with other stuff. The cold dish made a huge impression like literally. Other dishes that were worthy of note were the Japanese marinate Cod with bonito flakes and the Garlic fried rice.

Huge Congratulations to the both of you . Enjoy your Honeymoon !!!!

Five Star Hainanese Chicken Rice

I was back for a good 4 days !!! hahaha.
For business and a little pleasure.

Apologies to those whom I can't meet up with during this trip but fret not I will be back soon again.

Gonna miss you chicken rice...

p.s the verdict is out... BTK is the preferred choice by majority of votes

Congratulations !!!! A & C

After almost 8 years of courtship, My flatmates have finally tied the knot.
*sheds a tear of joy.
Was so glad that We all managed to make it for the wedding after a wee flight mishap at Dubai (O.D on Moet hahaha)

The wedding was held at the very nice Swiss Hotel: The Stamford where a 10 course banquet was served.

The classic cold dish comprised of a few interesting additions which I have not seen before. The salmon nigri was fresh and sweet. Char Siews an interesting one. Not commonly seen and certainly competently done. Although I much prefer it on a plate of rice haha. Salad prawn, spring rolls and crispy deep fried octopus make up the rest of the dish

I suspect my flatmates are Shark lovers although they've never mentioned it. A nice lobster soup was served rather than the controversial lobster soup. I had 2 good bowls, each with chunky bits of canadian lobster. YUm yum.

I love this... Scallops stir fried with asparagus and pine nuts. The sweet flavours of the nuts work in perfect harmony with the freshness of the scallops. Shiok!.
Ate 2 plates hahaha.

Chicken with prawn paste. Its a nice change from roasted chicken and most other chicken dishes I have had in the past.
I was suffering from lack of Singaporean food syndrome. So everything tasted exceptionally nice hahaha

Once again, I had to leave the wedding halfway to catch a flight. Din't get to finish the rest of the dishes.

C's mum made this cake all 3 layers including all the decorations.
Quite impressive eh.



: )

Nobu - London Musing 3

The final post in my London trip brings us to another Michelin star restaurant in the very posh area of Park Lane. For those monopoly geeks, Park lane is the blue purple slot worth 350 pounds with hotels charging you up to 1750 pounds.

WY & I went for the Chef's tasting menu. 7 courses over 2 hours





First up was salmon tartare with cavier accompanied by a soy based sauce. Very palatable. Didn't expect the pairing of these 2 items to go so well.
However, the sauce proved to be abit too salty after a few mouth fulls.

This dish reminded me of a salad with a shallot soy dressing. Ok... nothing very wow.

I was extremely eager about the hot main dishes and when this miso cod came totally didnt disappoint.

Hot plate beef with very very salty sukiyaki. At least the flavours of the beef was good

To finish off, a plate of nigri and some rows.

Dessert was a tiramisu ice cream type dessert. Very very nice but when u serve it in a macchiato cup, its never going to be enough.

The 7th dish was a pathetic miso soup.


I am abit lost for words after sampling 2 Michelin star restaurants.
They were both good but neither blew me away.


p.s quick post. been extremely busyy .. EXTREMELY...

Hummingbird - London Musings Part 2

Just not too far from where Yauwatcha was, we found the legendary Hummingbird Bakery.
I wasn't too excited about them after overloading myself with Dim sum but my dear friend tells me I have to buy some for my flatmates.

I got myself 2 for breakfast the next day and another 6 for my flatmates. At almost 2 pounds per muffin, these were by no means cheap. Somehow the bill came up to 24 pounds -__-......

10/10 for packaging but I just wasn't overwhelmed by the whole luxury muffin concept.
I m probably being biased here so please try it for yourself .


I 'll take a krispy kreme anyday.

Yauatcha - London Musings Part 1

Mum says there's always a first time for everything. When it comes to food she will say "try if don like don eat." Haha, the rebellious little me at that time obviously turned a deaf ear. Nowadays, I realised that she dosen't walk the talk herself when I ask her to try some food. haha

So...... My First Michelin Star. (I checked the dictionary to make sure I got it rite). My first ONE star restaurant dining experience. Guess what at a DIM SUM RESTAURANT !!!! -__-" Seriously?
I totally didn't expect it but WY insisted that we check it out. Can't be help, I was too hungry to convince him to head to a cheaper china town alternative where I could probably eat twice as much for half the price.
Then again.... a michelin star restaurant.... A Michelin star DIM summm Restaurant.. hmmm... I wonder ... I wonder

I couldnt figure out what to order . Siu Mai Har gao? my mind just couldnt come to terms with ordering something so casual. i wanted to be blown away by some creative dim sum. It was a Michelin star restaurant afterall.

Let's just say we started with the congee. Quite arty fartsy eh? Simple pork congee but met all expectations.





I just had to satisfy my curiosity of a michelin star siu mai. Can you see the scallop? and instead of crab roe they have used Tobiko
Nice ! and just enough for me to be impressed.
What was more impressive was how the European waiter was able to repeat all our orders in almost perfect cantonese





Again to satisfy my curiosity. This was somewhat underwhelming. It was nothing out of the ordinary. Ok... I have to give them credit for using a piece of banana leaf instead of cheapo wax paper for plating.

Wy highly recommended the venison char siew su. Ah ha . A touch of "atahness" using venison instead of charsiew. The verdict: tasted almost like a charsiew su with the marinate dominating most of the flavours. The gaminess of the venison was just enough to permeate through the sweet flavours. Maybe thats the whole idea.

I can't remember what these were called but its char siew on the inside wrapped around by a crust that tasted like the top crust of bo lo bao. It was super yummy. The crust might even contain some baby powder. Very clever dish and one of my favourites that afternoon.

Jasmine Smoked ribs. Ok only..... better off drinking jasmine tea and eating charsiew pork ribs.

Roasted duck Pumpkin puff. This for me represents what Michelin dim sum is about. Creative use of ingredients you least expect in the creation of a delectable dim sum that is pleasant to the eye and on the palate. *


I may go back again but with so many other Michelin star restaurants and better cheaper chinese restaurants, this restaurant wont be on my return list anytime soon
Nevertheless, a "palette" opener that one needs to TRY at least once hahah

Yauatcha
-----------------------
Soho
15 Broadwick St Map
Soho, UK W1F 0DL
Tel: 020 7494 8888