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Overall:
After the grouper the dishes started to falter. Overall it's still good and their complexity is good reason for them to be no1. However there's much room for improvement for the second half of the meal, esp the intentionality of the pairings and complexity. Impressive though given it's just a 12men crew plus the chef
Food:
Both the desserts were of decent execution. Particularly the Kueh like pandan coconut bite was intense. Fruits were fine
Salted coconut Panna cotta w sago, caramel young coconut ice cream, sesame cake, chocolate mousse, grilled corn, pear
Grill corn V average, it's not particularly good corn. Sesame cake not fragrant and quite dense.
The Panna cotta was actl quite salty, almost cheese tasting. The ice cream and Panna cotta were supposed to be the star but they weren't strong enough, the accompaniments don't work well either.
Lime lemongrass sorbet, melon mousse, Roselle powder. Roselle doesn't come thru, the other two components were good on their own but they don't rlly work well tgt
Nonetheless, refreshing
Local cows cross bred w Japanese wagyu, to give a strong beefiness. It's not very melt in your mouth at all, and it's quite chewy but not unpleasantly so. Still tender tho, given the cut. I think it's really impressive that tenderloin is this beefy.
The local shiitake is incredibly good. Stir fried to give wok hey. Bottle gourd was nice, the dry chili puree was super complex and solid too. Mulberry sauce doesn't have much character
The chef mentioned his effort in supporting local, and that the local crossbred species has come a long way. Considering that, this is still not bad
Honestly, this didnt impress much.
The brown rice risotto thing has quite a bit of chew, doesn't taste like risotto at all. But it's good, there's inherent umami from the ckn soup and something else. But when you mix everything, the lemongrass overwhelms everything else, including the delicious pork jam
The prawn is alright but the tom yum head butter isn't nearly strong enough to go with the prawns. Which is really a waste of head butter if it's anything like what I had yesterday at the local. Moreover, the prawn and the risotto don't go particularly well either
Skip this
Pork dumplings w oyster in sour plum pork broth.
I tot this wasn't impressive at all. It's okay but it lacks a lot of the sophistication and the impact of the other dishes
