Tasty Tastings

It’s no secret that I am partial to @fernandospizzasg , so when I heard that they had new items on the menu I jumped at the chance to sample them. Besides new pizzas, they’ve got a couple of new appetisers as well. Starting off healthy, we have the Central Park Salad ($14 nett), which comes with a choice of two dressings: honey mustard vinaigrette or caesar mayonnaise.⠀
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Central Park is now home to a mix of leafy greens tossed in with avocado, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, pomegranates, quinoa, roasted walnuts and absolutely addictive garlic cheese croutons. The Central Park Salad is a super salad that would put many salad shops to shame, and the healthy variety of different veg & garnishes made this one of the most well rounded & balanced salads. As for the dressings caesar mayo was the undisputed winner here. The honey mustard vinaigrette suffered from a case of severe separation and brought none of the heat of mustard, while the caesar mayo was ravishingly rich, creamy and savoury.⠀
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The NY-style Calamari ($14 nett) had great promise with the crisp, craggy batter which was well seasoned, but the squid itself was slightly past its best. It was unfortunately a bit too soft, and lacked any springiness. Perhaps we caught Fernando’s on an off day, so I’ll be back to give the calamari a fair shake another day.⠀
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Thank you for inviting us @fernandospizzasg, and thanks for organising the Eatup @burpple!

(PARTIALLY SPONSORED) Dry aged beef is getting increasingly popular in recent years, but dry aged fish? That’s @estuary.sg claim to fame, and besides the dry aged fish they serve, they also excel in other seafood dishes. From seafood classics like this Maine Lobster Mac & Cheese ($22++) and Baked Oysters (2nd pic, $12++ for a pair), to unique offerings like their Crispy Stingray and Dungeness Crab Kataifi, there’s more than enough seafood to sustain your see-food diet.⠀

Estuary’s Baked Oysters are their own version of the classic Oysters Rockefeller, and spinach haters will enjoy this spinach-less version of it. A pair of oversized oysters are baked in a blanket of cheese and chopped up bacon, and that’s all that’s needed for an awesome appetiser. The creaminess of the cheese fits perfectly with the briny creaminess of the oysters while adding a satisfying stretchiness, and the salty bacon made everything even better.

Oh and before I forget, selected glasses and BOTTLES of wine are 1-for-1. That’s right, choose a bottle of certain bubblies, rosé, reds or whites and get another on the house! Here at this Estuary, nobody will ever go thirsty or hungry. Thank you for having us @estuary.sg , and thanks to @scalemicroinfluencers for organising this!

(PARTIALLY SPONSORED) Dry aged beef is getting increasingly popular in recent years, but dry aged fish? That’s @estuary.sg claim to fame, and besides the dry aged fish they serve, they also excel in other seafood dishes. From seafood classics like this Maine Lobster Mac & Cheese ($22++) and Baked Oysters (2nd pic, $12++ for a pair), to unique offerings like their Crispy Stingray and Dungeness Crab Kataifi, there’s more than enough seafood to sustain your see-food diet.⠀
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Lobster mac & cheese is already a winning combination, but Estuary did it so sublimely. Elbows of al dente macaroni are amply smothered in a thick, cheesy & ravishingly redolent béchamel that’s supremely luxurious but never gets in danger of being rich. The little lobster bits were perfectly poached, with the tender yet slightly spongy & firm texture that indicates a perfect cook. Lots of breadcrumbs are sprinkled on to add bits of crunch and an extra toasty aroma to the already perfect dish.⠀

While you’re at it, order the Charred Brussels Sprouts ($20++). Now hear me out, these sprouts are stellar. Nobody would’ve thought that bitter Brussels sprouts would pair perfectly with scallop & shrimp XO sauce, but Estuary’s chefs did. The result is a supremely sapid & crunchy veg dish that has enough of a bitter edge to be a top-tier palate cleanser.
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Oh and before I forget, selected glasses and BOTTLES of wine are 1-for-1. That’s right, choose a bottle of certain bubblies, rosé, reds or whites and get another on the house! Here at this Estuary, nobody will ever go thirsty or hungry. Thank you for having us @estuary.sg , and thanks to @scalemicroinfluencers for organising this!

No Mediterranean themed restaurant would be complete without seafood, and so @miskacafe duly serves up a pretty platter of seafood for a party of four to share. The Mix Seafood Grilled ($59++) is a colossal congregation of salmon, squid, fish fillets, prawns and mussels, complemented by roasted potatoes and corn on the cob.⠀
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All the seafood here was grilled quite well, and although some elements were a little lacklustre, nothing was outright bad. The squid was fresh & cooked perfectly with a nice bouncy snap, and the flaky fish fillets were quite well seasoned. The prawns weren’t the freshest, but they were grilled excellently, and the salmon was thankfully not overcooked, although I wish the skin was crisp. The mussels were unfortunately overcooked and were rubbery, although you might have better luck & get expertly cooked mussels. The roasted potatoes were surprisingly delightful though, with a moist and smooth interior complemented by a crisp roasted exterior.⠀
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Dunk every morsel of seafood into the charming chinichurri sauce on the side and you have a stellar seafood feast that’ll sate both your hunger & your tastebuds. Once again, thank you for hosting us @miskacafe, and thank you to @burpple for the invite!

@miskacafe is located in the posh enclave of Sentosa Cove, and despite its inaccessibility from mainland Singapore, is worth a visit if you’re already on Sentosa. They serve satisfying sustenance along with cold tall pints of Paulaner fresh from the tap along with wines & ten buck cocktails, all enjoyed while gazing at the yachts moored at dock. Their cuisine is predominantly Greek with a smattering of Turkish and Western, and it’s all rather fetching.⠀
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First up is the Greek Grilled Chicken ($24++), which surprised me with their excellence. The only breasts I don’t care for are chicken breasts, but Miska did a marvellous job at grilling these cuts of chicken. They were remarkably juicy, and each moist morsel truly impressed me. Miska was rather generous with their chicken portions, which is complemented by a smooth, savoury hummus, lots of salad and a grilled corn cob. Definitely one of the healthiest options on the menu.
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Overall, Miska’s got a good thing going with a view that many restaurants would kill for, and the food’s simple yet decent. Thanks for the invite @burpple & @miskacafe!

Of course, a bistro wouldn’t be complete without a couple of fish options, and @yummochowsg has grilled salmon as well as fish & chips to choose from. Both fish dishes have two options each, and one of each involves mentaiko.
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The Fish & Chip ($30++ u.p.) is a decent albeit pedestrian serving of the British classic. Of course, the thick cut chips are substituted by thin shoestring fries, which does irk me just a little, but I can’t deny that those fries are quite addictive with their crispness. The batter on the fish fillet was up to scratch, with the thin layer producing enough crunch while not absorbing too much oil. The fish fillet itself was a little too soft inside, occasionally bordering on mushy, but nothing particularly egregious. The fish was lightly seasoned though, and it relied heavily on the toothsome tartar sauce to make it delicious.⠀
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Here at Yummo Chow, you can really make your #burpplebeyond work overtime for you. I appreciate the invite, @yummochowsg & @burpple!

Of course, a bistro wouldn’t be complete without a couple of fish options, and @yummochowsg has grilled salmon as well as fish & chips to choose from. Both fish dishes have two options each, and one of each involves mentaiko.⠀
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Starting off with the Grilled Salmon Mentaiko ($34++ usual price), we were quite pleased by how well the salmon was cooked. The skin was crisp enough, while the salmon flesh itself was still moist and in no danger of being overcooked. Even if the salmon were to be dry, there’s a deluge of mentaiko mayo on top that aids in lubrication. The Mentaiko mayonnaise is the exact same one that’s used on the crayfish, but it somehow tastes a lot better here, possibly due to the flavours of the salmon reinvigorating the mayo. Served with smooth, savoury mashed potatoes and a well dressed side salad, this is a dish that checks off all the nutritional checkboxes.
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Here at Yummo Chow, you can really make your #burpplebeyond work overtime for you. I appreciate the invite, @yummochowsg & @burpple!

I like big racks and I cannot lie, you other brothas can’t deny. When I see pork ribs on the menu, I usually wind up ordering that, and @yummochowsg Baby Back Ribs were no exception. This big ol’ rack is glazed in bourbon sauce, and served with thin cut fries & a side of salad.⠀
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Despite what it says on the menu, the bourbon sauce tasted a lot more like a kicap manis (sweet soy sauce) one. The flavours were certainly more kicap manis than bourbon, and the colour definitely supported that. Still, the sweet & slightly savoury glaze was quite complementary to the pork ribs. The pork ribs suffered from a peculiar problem that I’ve only encountered once before: the meat was tender and had no trouble falling off the bone, but it was dry overall with nary a drop of the meaty juices you’d expect from a rack o’ ribs.⠀
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My best guess is that it was sous vide till fully cooked through, and then left to sit until someone placed an order. Upon an order of ribs, the fully cooked ribs would then be glazed with the sauce, and then seared till the pork sports a comely char. It’s a process that makes perfect sense, but the catch is that you have to sell a lot of those ribs in order to maintain tiptop quality. Ribs aside, the shoestring fries were acutely addictive its crisp shell, and the salad served its purpose perfectly as the palate cleanser & guilt killer.⠀
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I’m gonna be honest here: Yummo Chow is one of those restaurants that many people wouldn’t even consider if it weren’t for #burpplebeyond. The food’s decent, but the prices are steep. Forty two dollars for this rack of ribs is slightly shocking, but it becomes incredibly affordable with the one-for-one deals on Burpple Beyond.⠀
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Thanks for hosting us, @yummochowsg & @burpple!

@yummochowsg is one of the six HUNDRED AND twelve partners on #burpplebeyond, and you can stretch that Burpple Beyond membership to its fullest here. Most of their mains are covered by Burpple Beyond, so you can enjoy two entrées, like this plate of Chili Crab pasta ($34++ usual price), for the price of one.⠀
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There are infinite iterations of chili crab pasta out there, but Yummo Chow’s is definitely one of the most outstanding ones. The sauce managed a fine balance between liquidity & thickness, coating the strands of al dente spaghetti superbly without being too viscous. The sauce was spicy and slightly sour, a notable & quite enjoyable difference from most other versions which tend towards the sweeter end of the spectrum. The pasta is topped off with a generous helping of shredded crab meat, and for extra authenticity points, Yummo Chow even gives you two fried mantous to mop up that scintillating chili crab sauce with.

Thanks to Burpple Beyond, you get two plates for the price of one! Thanks for having us, @yummochowsg & @burpple!

If you’re on a low carb diet, Kazoku also has your dietary needs catered for with the Kazoku Salad ($13.90 nett). The same felicitously fresh octopus, salmon, swordfish & tuna from the delicious chirashi don is cubed up instead of sliced, and the rice is subbed off for a massive mound of mixed lettuce and cherry tomatoes, dressed in what tastes like a balsamic vinegar dressing. The sour notes of the vinegar are an excellent foil to the briny seafood, and the crunch of the fresh veg contrast the soft chunks of seafood excellently.⠀
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Thanks for the invite, Burpple & Kazoku!

@artbox_singapore is back after the unspecified virus of unknown origin, and besides an arcade(oh yeah it’s gamer time), lots of booths selling all kinds of clothes & trinkets, and live music on the mainstage, Artbox has organised a staggering array of restaurants and other food & beverage merchants for the food street. Better yet, @burpple has linked up with Artbox to form the Burpple Food Street, and yes, you can use #burpplebeyond sweet af 1-for-1 deals here!⠀
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@properconcepts.sg is one of the nine merchants operating at Burpple Food Street, and @rappu.sg, one of their concepts, has created a trio of cute onigiris specially for Artbox! Pick from the trio of crab, prawn, and wagyu beef onigiris, or don’t! Just get the Onigiri Trio ($18 nett) for all three of them. It’s no surprise that the wagyu onigiri was the runaway success, with the sapid shoyu marinating the beef bits superbly. Contrasted with the spice from the roasted green chilies and the hit of freshness from spring onions, this was a perfectly balanced ball of rice & deliciousness. The deeply umami prawn onigiri was no slouch with its prawn head mayo, and the crab one was pretty zippy with the inclusion of pickled radish to contrast the briny crab flesh.⠀
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Of course, the onigiris alone aren’t enough, so get the exclusive Burpple Beyond 1-for-1 with @featherbladesteakhouse (another Proper Concepts brand) Meatballs for eight bucks. Now you might think that these are just Ikea meatballs, but that’s like thinking that the Aston Martin is a nice car. Oh no sunshine, The Feather Blade’s meatballs are proper balls. They’re meaty, juicy and supremely succulent, and the majestic mushroom sauce and the cranberry jam uplift the beefy flavours with creaminess, earthiness & sweetness. ⠀
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These meatballs ball so hard that nobody can keep your balls out of their mouth. And they come in pairs.⠀
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Thanks for the invite, @burpple!

And now we have my absolute beloved bar bite of the night at @sake.toshi, the Japanese Oysters Kaarage ($24+ service charge for 6). Six astonishingly gargantuan Japanese oysters are coated in batter and deep fried. Sure, oysters are an acquired taste, but once you’ve acquired it, you’re gonna love these fantastic fried oysters.⠀
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I want to know where they grew these mammoth mollusks, because on god they are MASSIVE! There’s absolutely no way you can make this a one-biter, it’s at least a two or three biter. If you can fit this whole thing into your mouth in one go, call me ‘cause I wanna know what dat mouf do. That aside, the batter coated the oyster is remarkably thin, and as such, doesn’t absorb all that much oil.⠀
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Normally when you deep fry something, you use ingredients that are a little less than fresh. Not these oysters, oh no, they’re so fresh that if you want ‘em any fresher, you’ll have to fish ‘em out the sea yourself. They’re P H A T, creamy, briny and utterly unctuous, and they’re deep fried just enough to firm up the texture of the flesh, but not enough to cause shrinkage. Just splash a dash of lemon juice, and that’s all you need. The mayonnaise on the side was completely surplus to requirements considering just how scintillatingly sumptuous these oysters were.⠀
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Thank you so much for the invite, @sake.toshi & @burpple