The Steakhouse @ Changkat Bukit Bintang KL

A dinner wouldn't be complete without pre-dinner drinks. Aah... that's just an excuse for alcoholics like me to drink more! Two bottles of Speyside whisky on the table waiting for me to uncork and among these two expressions of The Glenrothes, we shall choose the reigning whisky of the evening.

First of all, it's not easy to locate this bottle of 1998 and 1995 expression from the duty free but somehow, someone would have to do it and it's not me! I'm just there to taste. heheheh... We did a blind tasting of these 2 expressions and most of us preferred the 1995. 

Glenrothes 1998 (OB, 2009 43%)

The 1998 vintage is the 1st bottling by Gordon Motion as the Malt Master of the distillery replacing John Ramsay. This is a very easy drinking whisky with lush lemon citrus, vanilla and cinnamon and finished with a medium length. Many whisky connoisseurs will not consider a whisky that is below an ABV of 46% and chill-filtered. However for me, I am always ready to try any whisky.

Glenrothes 1995 (OB, 2011 43%)

Before 1995, the distillery bottled vintages “ad hoc” from the available stocks and this was the first Glenrothes bottled as a vintage with a “designed” character. It's not difficult to understand why most of us that night preferred the 95 vintage as it was high in butterscotch on the nose, and on the palate you can also find honey, vanilla and apples. The whisky has a caramelised spicy medium finish and a rather thick mouthfeel. 

Located just right beside The Whisky Bar on Changkat Bukit Bintang, The Steakhouse is another establishment by Werner Kuhn who also own several other outlets on the same street such as El Cerdo and The Bier Bar. This place has been around for the past few months and my friends decide to give it a try last week.

I found the menu to have similar dishes from LaVaca Steakhouse which he opened in the same outlet back in 2009. Steaks are the mainstay at this restaurant but there are also several other dishes that one could try such as their fresh live oysters.

Florida Crab Cakes (RM26)

Served with a tartar sauce, these crab cakes are crispy on the outer layer with tender crab meat flakes in the inside. Flavourful and is recommended.

Escargot (RM32 for 6 pcs)

These baked snails are drenched in garlic, herbs and butter making them slithery and juicy.

Baked Portobello Mushroom (RM26)

The Portobello mushroom is laden with seafood and topped with cheese. Baked and served with greens, the portion might look very small but it's certainly enough for 2 if you plan to share this entree. The mushroom maintained its juiciness and plump texture but I didn't really like the toppings.

Chilled Black Angus Ribeye (RM88 for 10oz)

I had my ribeye done medium rare and a friend of mine had it done rare. Both steaks are done right and each steak comes with 2 sides and a sauce of your choice. I prefer mine to be au naturel without any sauces so that I can taste the meat. The steak is tender, very much chewable and edible (cos most steaks in the city aren't) and it has a little bit too much char on the outside and thus the heavy bitterish flavours. I guess if you were to have it with a sauce, it will take away some of these charred taste.

Besides serving Black Angus in various cuts ( Medallion & Tenderloin 7oz at RM98 and Striploin 10oz at RM88), they do also serve Australian Grain Fed Beef Steaks (Medallion & Tenderloin 7oz at RM88, T-Bone 24oz at RM108, Ribeye 10oz at RM78 and Striploin 10oz at RM68).

 

There should be no steaks without reds. And joining the line-up of wonderful reds are wines from the appellation of Nuits Saint Georges from Burgundy, Chateauneuf Du Pape and Rasteau from Southern Rhone. One very interesting bottle to note was the Rasteau 2010 from the Domaine la Soumade which was selected as one of the most promising 2010 Rasteau reds by the NYTimes. The Domaine, owned by Andre Romero, is dubbed as the "Superstar of Rasteau" by Robert Parker and thus making it one of the must try wines of the night.

But there was one disappointment. Someone brought a Masseto 1996 because I was dying to try a Masseto. The bottle was in my hands and yet we did not uncork it that night because they decide to arrange another dinner with an Italian wines line-up instead. Anyways, there was only 5 of us and these 4 bottle of reds is already very overwhelming. We had a really good night.

The Steakhouse

Changkat Bukit Bintang

(right next door to The Whisky Bar & opposite El Cerdo)  

La Vie En Rose @ Jalan Raja Chulan, KL

I read about a new place to dine in town - La Vie En Rose from one of the blogs that I religiously follow at Eat Drink KL. Check out all his posts on this place here. My friend and I decide to check it out yesterday after our dinner at Muar Restaurant on Tengkat Tong Shin. We were there not to dine but rather to have a drink and check out the place which I've been telling him about but he didn't believe me that there's a new place to dine on Jalan Raja Chulan.

This place might be easily missed as it is a bungalow located on a slightly higher grounds, on a small hill slope which connects to Changkat Bukit Bintang. If you're coming from Jalan Raja Chulan where The Weld Shopping Centre is located on the right at the traffic light junction, you just need to go straight for 300m and you'll see a Shell petrol station on your left. Right after Shell, there's a slope going uphill adjacent to the road and it's quite tricky as you'll need to do a sharp U-turn to the left to go up to the restaurant. For convenience, you can just park opposite the restaurant at the open car park on the other side of the road.

The space is too tight for the big cars to be parked uphill and it takes my friend's driver quite sometime to turn his car around to exit the place. I prefer walking up the slope anytime rather than put a dent to my car.



This place has an open concept and it's wonderful if you happened to be there on a rainy day where it's cool and breezy. The chef of this place is none other than Chef Jean Michel Fraisse from Toulouse. He is one of the chefs whom teaches at HTC, the French Culinary School in Menara IMC. The chef has been helping many restauranteurs and hoteliers alike to realise their culinary potential and he has been an executive chef when he was just 23 years old.

It's a pity that I didn't get to try his culinary skills that night as we were there just to drink after dinner. However, I did manage to check out the menu and it seemed that they have a pretty nice French menu with some of the dishes that were not served in many of the French restaurants in KL. For the drinks menu, it's somehow very limited and I'm very disappointed with some of the selection.



To be honest, the wines that I deem drinkable are way too expensive and overpriced at RM550-900 a bottle and the medium-priced wines range from RM120-290. I ordered a bottle of Gingondas, Les Conventines 2008 which is at RM200. The single malt whisky available was only Macallan and the champagne were NV Louis de Sacy, a boutique champagne which is not agreeable to my palate. Hmm... I had a tough time choosing my drinks.

The Gigondas appeared to be a disappointment. Initially, the wine was too cold and we let the wine rest a while. The first sip was tight and closed. After half an hour to 1 hour later, I found that the wine didn't really open up and it lacks a finish. A wine from Rhone Valley usually has lots of ripe fruit together with earthy and leathery notes but this one here just didn't tickle my palate. They should have offered the E.Guigal Gigondas on the list.



At the same time, my friend offered me the aged Por Larranaga petit corona which I couldn't resist. It's so good to be smoking a Por Larranaga as it offers a sweet, full of honey and some spicy flavours with a medium-bodied smoke. Very balanced and complex.

I had an enjoyable night chatting with Alex, whom is also from Toulouse and is one of the chefs there and thanks to him, I got to know more about this restaurant and the bakery which is just next to the dining area. This is also a perfect place for a small event which can accomodate from 50-120 pax. Although I told him that I didn't really enjoy the drinks menu, I'lkl definitely come back to check out the food!

From whisky to dinner at Muar Restaurant, and then La Vie En Rose, Elixir Club, my last stop was at Bar Italia having a night cap of sparkling rose. Haha... what a Friday night!

la vie en rose
restaurant francais-bar-bakery-shop

39, Jalan Raja Chulan
50200 Kuala Lumpur

Tel: +6 012-2905 342 (vicki)
+6012-2907 645 (alex)
+603 2078 3883

Email: info@cusisine-studio.net

Absinthe Restaurant @ Bukit Pasoh Rd Singapore

Recently I unexpectedly met a young gentleman in the republic whom has a passion for champagnes and wines. Also during this time, we've been "whatsapp-ing" each other and sending pictures of bottles after bottles that we were drinking. And so when I was in Singapore recently, we met up and have dinner at a French restaurant called Absinthe, located on Bukit Pasoh Rd at the end of a quiet corner street.

There's nothing pretentious about this restaurant. It's small but cosy and the best feature of the restaurant is actually the "la fée verte" ("green fairy" in French). The staff is all out to charm you especially when it comes to Mr. Philippe Pau, the GM and also the co-owner of this place. He exerts a bubly charm, with funny antics up his sleeves and an unforgettable personality. It was also a pleasure to meet the chef, Mr. Francois Mermilliod whom was kind enough to come out and say hi to me. Vincent, the sommelier is also another charming guy whom showed me a bottle that I should be ordering the next time - a freaking 5 litre of Chateau Mouton Rothschild 2000! It's going to cost me an arm and a leg...

And since my dinning partner is a sommelier, I just leave the wine ordering to him. He chose a bottle of Prestige des Hautes Garrigues 2004 from Domaine Santa Duc Gigondas.

Just a little information about the appellation Gigondas : It is solely a red wine region with a small amount of rosé wine produced in the Southern Rhone wine region of France. Often called the little brother of Chateauneuf du Pape, with the lowest annual yield in France of only 36 hecto-litres per hectare, the association of noble varietals such as Grenache Noir, Syrah and Mourvèdre helps produce a very delicate palette of Gigondas wines.

I'm surprised with this "lesser" wines of the Rhone. While Gigondas may be a source of inexpensive alternatives to nearby Châteauneuf-du-Pape, this bottle here certainly exceeds the prices for many CDPs. Priced at SGD$140 a bottle, it's definitely more expensive than the bottle of CdP 2005 I had a at Oenotheque.

I love the rugged tanins, the chocolate notes and the great earthy spicy molten pepper and minerals on the palate.

"One of the top successes of the vintage is the 2004 Gigondas Les Hautes Garrigues Cuvee Prestige. Full-bodied with phenomenal intensity, an inky bluish purple color, and hints of asphalt, black truffle, blueberry, black cherry, and flowers with a hint of subtle oak, the wine has superb fruit, full body, and a beautiful, silky finish. It should drink well for 10-15 years. " Robert Parker's Wine Advocate: 94 points

As a starter, I ordered a soup but I couldn't make up my mind at first and instead asked Philippe to recommend. He did and the soup I had was a spicy tomato soup with hints of seafood and crab flavours. The interesting thing was it actually tasted like tom yam kung without the "fiery" factor. I think the chef did a good job with this soup!

My dining partner ordered a pan seared scallop served with a artichoke and Bearnaise sauce. The scallops were done perfectly without a slight hint of being overcooked. And did you know that the total antioxidant capacity of artichoke flower heads is one of the highest reported for vegetables?

And I had the French Duck Leg confit with Saladaise potatoes and rocket with Madiran Wing sauce. The duck leg meat was absolutely tender, flavourful and it requires no extra chewing unlike my favourite Peking duck! haha.... I love the dish.

My dining partner is having the grilled grain fed beef tenderloin, served with potato galette and bone marrow. OMG the bone marrow was so good. It's not called the "butter of the Gods" for nothing! The meat was tender and the beef didn't disappoint. Very rich dish indeed!

I think no one gets away without a dessert here in Absinthe. It's your choice of either the sinful Valrhona chocolate desserts, the tempting trolley full of matured French Farmed cheeses or a professional pour of Absinthe.

Selection of 6 cheeses for SGD$22

I don't know why but I happened to always skip the desserts unless there was something interesting that I want to try. I'm already having a full plate of Valrhona Guanaja chocolates in front of me throughout the whole dinner because I happened to give Philippe a box of Valrhona and he in return, gave us a plate of it! Ok, the cheese trolley was really tempting and what a surprise to see my favourite blue cheese on it. Actually I didn't want to have any of it but ended up taking the whole blue cheese off my partner's plate. Sorry!

Absinthe is really one of the restaurants that I'm impressed with in Singapore. I think it's perfect if you like a non-pretentious French restaurant with bubbly French faces and if you don't mind the friendly staff. There's even a wine room if you want to dine privately for 4-6 people. I did enjoyed myself that night and let's hope that I get to come back for more good food!

Absinthe
48 Bukit Pasoh Road
Singapore 089858
Tel:+(65) 6222 9068
Website

reservations@absinthe.sg

Opening Hours
Lunch : 12pm - 2:30pm (Mon - Fri)
Dinner : 6:30pm - 10:30pm (Mon - Sat)

Part II: Oenotheque by Wine Universe @ Singapore

Exactly one year ago, I gave this restaurant a try (post here) at the republic and this year, almost around the same time I returned for another dinner. I had to arrange a dinner for my customers during the Tax Free show and good french cuisine coupled with convenience is the key. Thus, I made a reservation with the chef, Paul Longworth weeks in advance to organise a dinner for 8 people.

Too bad the chef was not around and it's been a year since I last saw him. However, his team of chefs did a good job that night coupled with really good service from one of the staff, Jello. Yeah, his name is pretty unique and cute. There's a choice between ala carte and degustation.



I was in charge of ordering the wines and I chose a bottle of Domaine Duclax 2005 Chateuneuf du Pape from the southern Rhone. The sweet spot for drinking Châteauneuf du Papes is usually the first 5-6 years after the vintage according to Robert Parker. The best of them will continue to hold on to life (but rarely improving) beyond 15-20 years. It is only the exceptional Châteauneuf du Papes that will evolve for 20-25+ years, and those are indeed a rarity.This bottle was quite a decent drink at SGD$100 a bottle. It has an earthy palate coupled with nice balanced flavours.

The degustation menu is priced at SGD$98.

Sauteed duck liver, grapes, apples and Balsamic
It's an interesting combination of savoury duck liver paired with the sweet citrus notes of apples and grapes. The balsamic sauce with apple foam completes the dish which provides the layering of textures.

Saffron & Leek risotto, Parmesan
This dish is a little too heavy for me as I find that the Parmesan cheese flavours too strong and over powering. The risotto is very nice but it fills you up too quickly.

Fille of line-caught snapper, emulsion de poisson & rouille pearls

The snapper is tender and fresh which pairs very well with this broth/soup-like dish. Look out for the surprises in the bowl!

Palette Cleanse

with a sorbet and sparkly surprise on the tongue!

Grade4/5 wagyu rump
Instead of the Kurobuta Pork, we had to add SGD$10 to change it to the wagyu rump served with celery, baby spinach and horseradish froth. I had mine medium rare but everyone else had it medium well! The portions are very generous and the meat is tender.

Coffee creme brulee & Belgium chocolate ice cream
Everyone was filled to the brim and hardly anyone is able to finish the dessert. I find this a little bit too sweet for my liking.

Overall the dinner was very satisfying as everyone loved the foie gras starter and the wagyu rump. I think you have seriously consider the level of hunger before ordering a degustation menu as the portions are big. The wines here are pretty affordable and it's definitely a good place to indulge in good food and wines. They even have some special wines from Switzerland which I was tempted to try but my boss preferred to drink French that night.

Oenotheque by Wine Universe

9 Raffles Boulevard,
#01-109 Millenia Walk
Singapore 039596
Tel: +65 6338 0717
www.wine-universe.com.sg

Châteauneuf-du-Pape

This post is going to be on wines and ratings. I've actually learnt something while drinking! The Rhône valley vineyards lie almost due south of Burgundy. It's divided neatly into north/south regions at the town of Valence. Rhone valley wines are different from the Bordeaux and Burgundy due to the blend of the 2 to 13 different grape varietals.

There are two great grapes of the Northern Rhône:

Syrah - the noble red wine grape (often called Shiraz outside France)
Viognier- for white wines
Interestingly, a small proportion of some reds Marsanne and Roussanne are also grown for white wines.

In the Southern Rhône a large variety of grapes is permitted.

Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre and Cinsaut for reds
Grenache Blanc, Picpoul, Roussanne and Marsanne for whites.

This time, I want to talk about the great wines of Southern Rhône which is mostly known for its red wines which includes the famous Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Châteauneuf-du-Pape means "The Pope's new castle" and, indeed the history of this appellation is firmly entwined with papal history. Châteauneuf-du-Pape is traditionally cited as allowing 13 grape varieties, but the 2009 version of the AOC rules in fact list 18 varieties, since blanc (white), rose (pink) and noir (black) versions of some grapes are now explicitly listed as separate varieties. In theory this means the wine-maker has various options at his or her disposal each vintage depending on how individual grape varieties have performed. In practice, most Châteauneuf-du-Pape is made up of the 3 highest quality grapes: Grenache, Mourvèdre and Syrah.

The wines are normally packaged in distinctive, heavy and dark bottles and embossed with papal regalia and insignia (official items of attire and decoration proper to the Pope).




I got very excited when it comes to trying new wines. The last time I had a CdP and I really love it was at Oenotheque in Singapore and this time, we had 5 bottles lined up for tasting. My friend wanted to see what ratings I (EL) would give to the wines as compared to RP (Robert Parker), ST (Stephen Tanzer) and WS (Wine Spectator).

Plateau de La Crau is by far Chateauneuf-du-Pape's most famous lieu-dit (named vineyard). The vineyard is owned primarily by Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe, one of the most classic Chateauneuf's, but also producer Henri Bonneau maintains a firm position there. And it was a pleasure that we start with a Blanc from this domaine.


Domaine du Vieux Telegraphe CdP Blanc 2008

As described by WS, this is a ripe, honeyed style with grilled hazelnut and heath notes up front, followed by bitter orange, nectarine and lemon zest. This has nice length and drive.

The colour is of pale gold and the bitter orange and zesty palate makes this a very nice and refreshing white as an aperitif.

EL: 90 RP: 91 ST: 90 WS: 92



Domaine La Roquete CdP 2007

As described by RP, this is the finest tradition cuvee yet made. It possesses a deep ruby/purple-tinged colour as well as a bouquet if blackcurrants, black cherries, garrigue, pepper, and lavender. It's full-bodied, ripe and exceptionally elegant, pure wine to drink now or cellar for 12-15 years.

I don't quite agree because I think this is probably too elegant that it lacks body or maybe I just prefer more robust wines.
EL: 89 RP: 93 ST: 91 WS: 92




Domaine Les Pallieres Gigondas Terrasses du Diable 2007

The sensational 2007 bottle reveals gloriously sweet black cherry and black raspberry fruit intermixed with notions of licorice, loamy soil and roasted herbs. With terrific fruit density, a full-bodied richness and striking elegance and precision, it should drink well for 15 or more years, as commented by RP.

I did taste the licorice and herbs for this wine and I must say that this is better than the previous one!

EL: 93 RP: 93 ST: 91 WS: 92




Domaine du Vieux Telegraphe CdP Rouge 2006

As described by WS, this is a very grippy style, with lots of sweet tapenade, tobacco, hot stone and braised chestnut notes weaving through a core of dark currant and fig fruit. There's a nice twinge of lavender on the structured finish.

I felt that the finish was long and good and definitely there were some hints of tobacco and chestnuts.
EL: 92 RP: 92+ ST: 92 WS: 93




Domaine du Vieux Telegraphe CdP Rouge 2007

As WS puts it - packed, in a brawny, muscular style atypical for this lush vintage, with a gravelly undertow to the currant paste, braised fig and dark licorice notes. Picks up even more steam on the finish, with grilled mesquite, mineral and garrigue notes and a long, hot stone-filled finish.

This wine was superb and I knew that the 2007 was supposed to be a great vintage.
EL: 95 RP: 95 ST: 93


According to RP, 2004 is a good year, 2005 an excellent one; 2006 is at least very good and as for the southern Rhones, 2007 is the greatest vintage in the last 30 years! These wines are meant to be drunk in their exuberant youthfulness.

It was quite a fun dinner where I had to rate the wines before the points given by the various wine connoiseurs were revealed to me. While I was on the spot with almost all the bottles, it was a miss with the Domaine La Roquete because I didn't really like it.

Watching World Cup @ Imbi Palace KL

After slaving myself for the whole day on Sunday until 8pm, I can finally have an enjoyable evening of good company of friends, wines, food and football! It was a much awaited clash between England and Germany after these two teams managed to get into the round of final sixteen. My cash was on Germany and thus I have to watch this game.

We had a comfortable private dining room at Imbi Palace to watch the game while having our dinner. At 8.30pm, we started with the appetizers and a bottle of blanc from Chateau Chasse-Spleen 2006. The name means "to chase away the blues" and it is the leading estate of Moulis, a small commune on the left bank of the Gironde, sandwiched in the No Man's Land between St Julien to the north and Margaux to the south. It's a very nice blanc with fruity notes and it's easy drinking.

I'm glad we started with a light white wine because the food that follows is indeed a little heavy on tastes. We had a giant clam with lots of garlic which is actually not very suitable to be paired with wine. I hate garlic and so I only ate the clam. Next, we had a soupy chicken with rice wine which is a very popular chinese dish that uses a lot of ginger and yellow glutinous rice wine and was served during post natal to get rid of the "wind". This dish is also known as Drunken Chicken since rice wine is used to cook this dish but so far, I've not gotten drunk on drinking this soup yet. Actually I don't like this dish because of the ginger but you know what? Imbi Palace does this dish exceptionally well! The secret lies in the rice wine. I finished the whole bowl! The sizzling stone grill egglant with fish paste is commendable.

Wild Boar Curry

The wild boar curry is a must order dish. It used to be a pre-order dish but now they have it permanently in the menu. It's cooked in a south indian curry way and the wild boar meat is tender and has robust curry flavours. I absolutely love this!!




Beef Slices with Beansprout

This is a very nice and light dish to go with red wines. The beef slices are medium well and served with beansprouts, chilli, spring onions and soya sauce. It was good but it's just that I was disappointed that they were not getting big fat juicy beansprouts from Ipoh.

M Chapoutier Les Varonniers & Les Granits

The Les Varroniers Crozes Ermitage 2007 is a Syrah and this is a Rhone wine.

Colour : Deep garnet.
Nose : Red fruit and blackcurrants and some hints of cocoa.
Mouth : Powerful tannins, fresh and fruity.

Then we had the Les Granits Saint Joseph 2006. This is the selection of their oldest Syrah roots in the birthplace of the Saint Joseph appellation.

Colour : Dark garnet.
Nose : Blackberries and pepper.
Mouth : Smoky, peppered notes. Very strong tannins with a long finish.

I found the 2007 a very elegant, easy drinking wine and the 2006 a much more robust and big wine.

This is a daring, different and biodynamic wine. The labels have Braille on it and Braille has been present since 1996 on all M. CHAPOUTIER labels. The trademark pays tribute to this man but also expresses the desire to reach out to and include all people with sight-impairments, lovers of good wines.. To promote eco-friendliness, wax is used instead of the usual foil wrappers.

There's no point promoting this wine as the allocation is small. The worst thing was, a friend of mine has already bought the whole allocation and therefore I need to be very nice to him to be able to drink this again! Hmmph!

I was happy to be able to catch the GER vs ENG clash as it was a fast paced game. Maybe it should be called a young men vs old men match as I can see that England is consistently playing badly at the World Cup. I pity ENG for the disallowed goal by Frank Lampard. Maybe they should have a flight to carry all the England and Italian players back to Europe! Too bad France has an early exit or else they can all fly back together.

It was a happy game of GER beats ENG 4-1 and ARG beats MEX 3-1.

Oenotheque by Wine Universe @ Singapore

Recently I've been writing so much on the dining scene in Singapore so much so that I felt as if I am living there! I wished I could because there's just so much good food packed in a 682.7 sq Km compared to the whole of Selangor which is 7956 sq Km. The standards of fine-dining in Singapore is just exceptional.

The rule of thumb eating in Singapore is to NOT convert everything from SGD$ to RM$ or you might never want to eat anything.

Still water from Norway, Bread & Mag (owner)

Oenotheque is one place that you do not want to miss if you are an oenophile like me. I'll tell you why. Three simple reasons - Fantastic Food, Reasonably Priced Good Wines and Nice Ambiance.

I like to sit at the Kitchen counter so that I can see all the action!

How often, do you get to walk into a restaurant and tell the chef "Surprise me" and hoping that surprise does not really turn out to be a horrifying experience?!! Not even glancing at the menu, I told Paul "Do whatever you have to do" and "I eat everything". Let the chef cracks his head and not mine when it comes to what to eat. I'm basically game to try anything EXCEPT exotic animals. Foie Gras is not an animal btw. 'Nuff said.



Well, the first dish - the sauteed duck liver with grapes, apples and balsamic appeared to be something I've never tasted. It's an interesting combination of savoury duck liver paired with the sweet citrus notes of apples and grapes. The balsamic sauce with hints of apple cider is just invigorating. Then, the apple foam completes the dish. It's not just the taste that lingers. The layering of textures is very creative because you get the foam, the soft duck liver, and the crunchy apple bits.

Before moving on to the second dish, wines is a must here and they don't call themselves Oenotheque by Wine Universe for nothing. The first bottle was a Chateau Lafleur Beausejour 2005 from Cotes de Castillon appellation. It's a dry, medium-bodied Carbernet blend bordeaux with sweet fruit notes and well-balanced soft tannins. At less than SGD$100 a bottle, I think this is a very affordable and reasonably priced wine (at a restaurant).

Wines & Chocolates hand in hand.

The second bottle of wine is the Domaine Charvin 2005 from Chateauneuf-du-Pape. This grand vin from the Southern Rhone Valley is an example of a good blended wine with more than 13 grape varieties. You'll find heavy notes of cherry and berries with herbs in this wine and modest tannins too. This is a superb wine and it's drinking quite well now as we speak. It's suave and silky that even Parker gave it a 93 points. At SGD$150, it's quite worth every penny.

To make the dinner experience more worthwhile, I brought the Valrhona chocolates. I've read that chocolates goes very well with wine. I had been wondering whether the chocolates enhances the taste of wine or was it likewise. To start of with, I had 4 different types of chocolate ranging from 50% cocoa to 70% cocoa and I found that the Manjari (at 64%) goes exceptionally well together with wines. It's not too sweet nor too bitter. I found that the wines actually enhances the taste of the chocolates!



The second dish that was served - seared Hokkaido scallops, pork belly, cauliflower puree and shallot jus. Wow, the scallops was done perfectly. It's not overcooked and the juiciness is intact. Funny enough, it goes very well with the bisque. I never thought that I would practically licked my plate clean because I am not a fan of cauliflower. Wash that all down with a glass of wine, kick back, relax and wait for the next dish.



This is another highlight of the menu. It's a quail, prepared in two ways, with confit tomatoes, fine herbs and shallots. The quail is just ooh la la... It was tender, bursting with flavour and I love the pinkish colour it revealed when I did a cross section on it. I really enjoyed this dish. As when they were serving mash potatoes for the other patrons, I can't help but felt a sudden craving for some. So I asked Paul if I could have some and he gave me a bowl. OMG, it was so good! I can believe I felt to satisfied with a bowl of mash.

Paul Longworth - Head Chef

The night is of course still young. It was dessert time. I saw Paul taking out a plate of creme caramel. He knocks the creme caramel out, looks at it and then threw it into the dustbin. He took another one, pours it out, look at it and then told the staff that there'll be no creme caramel tonight. Intrigued by this, I asked him why. He then asked me to taste the caramel. It was bitter! Then he told me that by looking at the colour, he knew it was bitter and thus he can't serve this to his guest. That is why I think this would be a restaurant that will be very successful in the long run because they will never compromise on quality.

Then, for dessert, he asked if "Are you adventurous?" Hmm... Well, I said, bring it on! Something with chocolates please. Profession disease.



This dessert might look like any ordinary ice-cream but... it's not! It's Valrhona chocolate ice-cream with olive crumbs and served with smoked beetroot sauce. Guess what smoke they used? It's Cohiba cigar smoked sauce. How cool is that?!! At first I was like "eeewww.. who will eat ice-cream with beetroot sauce?!!" but I was wrong ok?!! It was darn good. The olive crumbs gives it a very interesting texture. It's like chewing on croquants. The boss was complaining that her cigars go missing. Now we know where it went!

The 3 courses I had dinner and a dessert cost around SGD$100-120. A 5 course degustation is available at SGD$88. It's really not expensive in Singapore. Menu here.

At the same time after dinner, I managed to meet some other patrons there and we became friends and smoke some cigars. They treated me to some nice Suntory Yamazaki 12yo and I told them about this dessert and straightaway, a lady ordered it and even she complimented it. It was also Paul's birthday and poor him that he has to work that night because the sous chef can't make it. I was truly happy to be able to get to know this restaurant tucked at a corner opposite The Conrad Hotel.

Hoping to come back soon.

Oenotheque by Wine Universe
9 Raffles Boulevard,
#01-109 Millenia Walk
Singapore 039596
Tel: +65 6338 0717
www.wine-universe.com.sg

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