TimeOut

Les Amis  -- Parmigiani & The Hour Glass Singapore Dinner

 

The original horology report by hororgasm is here: click link  home.watchprosite.com  

As is the usual practice on PuristSPro, this will not be a wine and food epicurean review because I only review meals eaten anonymously and paid privately.

 

Still, I can describe the experience as being consistent with previous visits to Les Amis.....always good.  
 

The first offering confused my fellow diners for a few minutes. Having read the menu, they were expecting white asparagus and uni (sea anemone eggs). Some thought the asparagus had been pureed into a white creamy foam that surrounded the diced pickled beetroot and the uni was stealthily hidden. Actually, this was an unpublished amuse bouche. It certainly kept the conversation and amusement level up.

Marinated White Asparagus and Uni
Here was the real deal appetiser.  The asparagus is lightly pre-cooked, then cooled and marinated. It is served chilled with a soupçon of uni. The asparagus was soft but not mush and the umami from uni was a counterpoint to the sligtly tart pickled earthy asparagus. The diner next to me was unsure about the match of earth and sea but I quite liked it. Personally, I prefer a proper dollop of uni.

Pasta with japanese shrimp and black truffle infused stock
I think there is something special about freshly made pasta especially if cooked el dente. The sakura ebi (dried japanese shrimp) is a particularly potent source of umami-ness. Buying this specialty protein is fraught with controversy as it is not obvious to the layman why the price for 100g ranges from a few to hundreds of dollars!?!   My fellow diner commented that he prefers a full meal sized portion of this pasta rather than the taster size of degustation menu. Until the next dish came along, I was inclined to agree...
 

 

Char-grilled Black Angus beef tenderloin
I usually never order tenderloin for various culinary and personal reasons (fat content, size restriction, tenderness) but this plate surprised me. It was eponymously tender and yet, not short of flavour, that is the usual failing of this cut. The skill of a good saucier is under-rated by most diners drawn to the theatrics of the kitchen documentaries. This saucier "knew his onions"!

 

Chocolate delice; rhubarb and elderflower ice cream
Regular WFEDders (Wine Food and other Epicurean Delights forum on ThePuristS website) will recall that I am not a dessert person.
The rhubarb and elderflower however, are familiar old friends for every British boarding-school inmate so nostalgia is the best sauce. Quite pleasant.

 

Wines
The experts can check out the menu photo for the accompanying wiines. All I will say is that they were great pairings and to misquote an old Roll Royce marketing response:  "adequate".

Thanks to the hosts.

MTF

This message has been edited by MTF on 2012-06-06 15:58:29 This message has been edited by DRMW on 2012-06-06 17:50:32

"As is the usual practice on PuristSPro, this will not be a wine and food epicurean review because I only review meals eaten anonymously and paid privately."

And yet....

This is an odd post, as stated it isn't a review (yet it is) it should go with the rest of the original report.  Plus that steak doesn't look char-grilled, it looks like it's been cooked sous vide.  MTF?

-MW

... on WFED you will appreciate that these are but cursory observations and certainly not an epicurean review! ;-)

A

As a final hurrah in 2010, I compiled a 'Grazing' list of my past wine and food reviews on the WFED forum.  Click the link below:

www.network54.com

 

Regards,

MTF

guess even after all these years...the shadow of Ignitius Chan still hangs...- i also nitpicked that there was just a tinge too much "truffleness"!! to be frank, this dish has become quite commonplace, even second tier restaurants have their own versions of this. so far Iggys version is the benchmark.

Here is Iggy's rightfully famous capellini with sakura ebi ...

Click Here for the rest of the meal ...

whilst we focus on sukura ebi(naturally), the key differences between the two restaurants in preparing this dish are 

cheers

PAt

Hi Patrick,

I had a very ordinary breakfast at Sky on 57. The lunch and dinner menu looks good, but I can't comment. The best thing about it was the view, but when there are better restaurants downstairs where the food takes centre stage, that's where you will find me.

Andrew

your sauce.

I confess to just sticking out my tongue and licking the sauce off the plate

Like you, I also battle the bulge and left the chocolate delice after one bite. The rhubarb ice cream was a different issue.

 

Regards,

MTF