Paris: L'Arpège (***)

On route back from Spain, I stopped over in Paris to visit a dear friend SW and her family who kindly hosted my stay. We are both big foodies and took the opportunity to check out L'Arpège, a 3* Michelin restaurant by Alain Passard.  He created a big hoo-ha back in early 2000s when he decided to focus his cuisine on vegetables.  Following shortly, he bought and developed a farm to grow vegetables especially for his restaurant.  The only reason why I was particularly keen to try his food, being the big veg-head that I am, was precisely our mutual love and respect for vegetables.   Many of his disciples also picked up the love of vegetables, notably David Kinch from Manresa restaurant and Singapore's own Chef Gunther Hubrechese, whose cuisine reveals his five-year training under Chef Alain Passard at L’Arpège. 

I had lunch at the end of July 2010.  It was a memorable experience for a few reasons.  Firstly, although it is a 3* restaurant, there was not a note of snootiness about the restaurant.   Our host was friendly and explained the menu when we had questions.  We also had the company of SW's daughter, V, and everyone made sure the little one was catered for as well.  Secondly, at L'Arpège, you know vegetables truly reigned when there was a different vegetable on every table, sort of like a table setting, replacing the usual flower in a vase.  It was a welcomed change and we had a couple of cute little squashes on ours.  Finally and most importantly, the Comte cheese.  Oh, I could still relive the moments I was eating the cheese.   It would also mark the downfall of all other cheeses that I ate since. 

Although the meal was memorable for those reasons, it did not blow me away like I wished it would.  I would love to return just for the cheese though.

Amuse 1:  Fresh fried waffle chips.  Addictively good chips.  Little V was so sad when they ran out and could not refill for us.  However the manager managed to get us another plate a few minutes later so that was a really nice surprise.

Amuse 2:  Tartlets of two varieties.  One was a pickled beet with fresh radish and the other was a mousseline and a sweet fruit jam. 

Amuse 3: Another tartlet that was a chickpea puree and chopped cucumbers and radishes.

House bread: a dense and thick slice of sourdough bread with big open crumbs.  It had a rustic charm and was served with excellent butter that was so creamy and favourful.  I normally don't take butter but could not stop eating bread with butter.  Just to proof further how good the butter was, Little V ate the butter on its own! 

Course 1: Cucumber with oyster mousse.  The oyster mousse was extremely fishy in a good way, also extremely rich and creamy but the cucumbers took the edge off.  The palates were extremely awakened by this dish.

Glass of French white wine recommended by the sommelier.  Crisp and not too dry, it was perfect for most of the dishes.

Course 2: Cold tomato soup with mustard ice cream.  This was so good because of the pure clean taste of tomatoes and a richness added by the complementary ice cream.

Complimentary: garden tomatos, shaved beets and asparagus with pesto.  The raw vegetables here stood out like shining stars against the black sky.  Eating juicy tomatoes was just perfect for a hot summer day in Paris.

Course 3:  Ravioli wrapped various finely-diced vegetable fillings, floating in a consommé of celery root.  The soup was pure and clean.  The raviolis had a skin that was rather bland but the fillings were nicely seasoned.  There were so many different vegetables I could not tell them apart.  But I remembered tasting some crunch, sweetness, crisp, earthiness, etc.  Complexity in simplicity.  

 

Course 4: Garden Pizza.  The crust was a pastry crust so it was soft, pliable with buttery notes.  There was not a whole lot of cheese, just some shavings.  Just some leafy greens, yellow tomatoes and drizzle of olive oil.  It was awesome.  Little V devoured most of this.  I like how Passard "Frenchified" the Italian pizza using French pastry dough as the crust.  

Course 5: Sweet Onion Gratin.  Buttery notes against the caramelized sweetness from the onions. It tasted like a rich, fibrous sweet and salty onion jam that I could not get enough of.

Course 6: Roasted root vegetables with couscous.  Here again the vegetables were cooked in tons of butter and I could do withouh the couscous and half the portion.  But the root vegetables shone with natural sugars teased out through the butter poaching. 

Couse 7: Sole with pesto sauce.  Simple and well executed.  The olive oil was fruity and really delicious.  More bread was requested so I could soak them up.

Course 8:  Cheese "table".  Literally, the cheeses sat on a huge slab of wood that was part of a large tree trunk.  It was quite a sight really.  I was so full at that point and only could manage two.

I had the best Comte cheese ever (right).  After a bit of research, I learnt that the supplier is Bernard Anthony, who was discovered by Alain Ducasse and only supplies to the world's best and deserving.  I had a three- year old comte, although most people had the four.  The cheese had a rich yellow color and a nutty aroma.  Upon tasting, I found that the cheese had the tiniest crystals embedded within, a result of aging and the crystals melted on the tongue and exploded the mouth with intense flavours.  I would come back just for this.  The Comte was so good I forgot what was the other cheese I had (on the left).

Our table decoration.

Millefeuille constructed using alternating thick and thin flakey pastry.  It looked rustic as it stood alone on a white plate, shards of pastry all over the plate.  The layers of creamy mousse creme could have been sweeter to counter the very tart summer berries.  It was a huge portion that I struggled to finish.

The accompanying raspberry sorbet was so tart I could not manage a couple of mouthfuls.  The dessert was unfortunately the weakest link.

The petit fours comprised petite tartes aux pommes and macarons of beetroot, basil and tomato.  They were strange flavours but were actually quite palatable. Little V, of course immediately made a face and pushed them macarons aside after one bite.  The apple tart was forgettable. 

L'Arpège
Add: 84,rue de Varenne, 75007 Paris, France
Tel: 01 45 51 47 33
www.alain-passard.com/

Private Affairs

Encouraged by a fellow foodie to check out what could be one of the best kept secret in town a.k.a best value for a 3-course set lunch, I trotted over to the East one Saturday to lunch at Private Affairs. Indeed, for $28++, Private Affairs delivered in terms of value. Fortunately, the delivery did not stop there and the food was really pretty decent.   But, unfortunately, we were the only people dining that Saturday.  What a shame that the restaurant don't see more patrons.  Could it be lack of awareness?  Or that the restaurant is simply not attractive to make trip down?  If it is the latter, I am pleased to share that Private Affairs will be moving to Boon Tat Street sometime soon (next year?).  Hopefully the great lunch deal remains and the restaurant would get to enjoy more diners.

Back to the food.  I would strongly recommend that you give the lunch a shot.  Here is what I had last month:

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Complimentary bread - foccacia (front) and hazelnut bread (back) that tasted like fried man tou studded with chopped hazelnuts

Roasted Tomato Soup with Fried Vegetables and Oyster

The soup was poured ala minute.  Gimicky but oh well.

One of the best soups I ever had.  The flavour was bold, robust with hints of smokiness.  The single fried oyster was fresh and briney.  The tempura vegetables could have been served on the side instead to keep the crispiness.

Pan-roasted snapper with yuzu (?) sauce.  No complains as it was well executed with right amounts of seasoning and perfectly cooked fish with a crispy skin.

Apple Cake:  apple cinnamon 'spaghetti' with pistachio mousse and apple jelly with lemongrass sorbet.  The dessert was fun to eat and the sorbet, though it melted really fast, had a refreshing taste that I really liked.

Rhubarb cake with (?) ice cream.  This dessert was probably the only dish that I thought needed more work.  The cake was stodgey and one dimensional.  The ice cream had too much stabilizers and not 'cold' enough.

Private Affairs
45 Joo Chiat Place
Tel: 6440 0601

Recipe: Sticky Date Pudding

Going out to eat is always a fun and interesting thing to do.  I unconsciously like to pick out on human behavior towards food and try to rationalize them.  This post is about a girl's reaction to sticky date pudding.  Whenever I am with girls, their reactions to seeing this dessert on the menu would almost always invoke some sort swooning and I could "see" their hearts fluttering in excitement.   Then they will comment: 

"Oooh!  They have sticky date!" (and that is the dessert that they will order)

"Aiyah, I have to sin again *insert fake sulky face*" (because they will have to order it whenever they see it on the menu)

"Ok, I know what I want! *excited face*" (they will happily select their dessert first, even before looking and selecting a main course)

I cannot understand why those reactions.  I think it is probably because of my bias against toffee / caramel desserts, as they are more often than not too sweet for me and their sticky texture means they will stick to the insides of my molar teeth and I absolutely don't like that when it happens.

Anyway, I got a relatively huge pack of Saudi dried dates as a gift recently and decided to indulge the friends with a home-made version of this popular dessert.  It was surprisingly easy to make and maintained its position as a crowd pleaser at the potluck. 

Here's how you could do it too!

Ingredients (makes 19 cupcake sized puddings)
250 grams pitted dates, chopped
(Note 1:  I intentionally left mine in larger chunks so there would be more bite in the pudding.  
Note 2: if you use darker colored dates, your pudding comes out darker.  Duh, but yes, I need to make that point.  I used lighter colored dates so mine was more toffee colored.)
1 tsp bicarbonate soda
1.5 cups boiling water
125 grams butter (salted), softened
(Note 3: Salted version is optional but I really find that some salt would lift up the taste of the dessert against the sweetness)

1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1.75 cups self-raising flour, sifted
(Note 4: I only have plain flour so I added 2.25 tsp of baking powder to my 1.75 cups of plain flour) 

Caramel Sauce
1 cup brown sugar
300 ml thickened cream
0.5 tsp vanilla extract
60 gram butter

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Grease at least 18 muffin / cupcake size tins and set aside.
3. Place dates and bicarbonate soda into a bowl.  Pour in the boiling water and allow the mixture to stand for 20 minutes.  The dates should soften up and disintegrate a little.
4. Using a mixer, beat butter, sugar and vanilla until pale and creamy.  
5. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
6. Using a large metal spoon, add and fold through the date mixture and flour, alternating between the two, until the mixture is well combined.
7. Spoon mixture into the prepared tins, filling up to 2/3rds of the tin.
8. Bake for about 25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.  Do not overbake or the pudding will become really dry.
9. While cake is baking, make the caramel sauce.  Put all the ingredients into a saucepan.  On medium heat, cook, stirring often, until the sauce comes to a boil.  
10. Reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes.  Then turn off and wait for pudding to be done.
11. Once pudding is ready, take out and pierce all over with a skewer.  
12. Spoon, using a teaspoon, about 2-3 tsp of the caramel sauce over the warm pudding (in the tin). 
13. Then remove the cakes from the tins, and place upside down.  Spoon another 1-2 tsp of caramel sauce over the underside.  
14. Serve warm, immediately, with remaining sauce and a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream.
15. I stored my pudding in a tupperware in the fridge.  Same thing for the caramel sauce.  At the potluck, I microwaved the pudding and the sauce separately, for 10-15 secs each, until warm.  To plate, remove a pudding, spoon some sauce over and add ice cream.

Pavé Chocolates

One Saturday's random venturing into the East saw us at Pavé Chocolates at East Coast Road.  Highly recommended by A, this little dessert shop sells more than chocolates.  There were quite a few entrements that caught our attention and because we trekked all the way to there, we wanted to try at least one.  The Miyuki was green tea cake, green tea mousse, purple sweet potato mousse and layer of apricot jelly.  It was just a wee bit dry but the flavour was pretty good.  It was also what got me craving for a really good macha cake.  Yummy.

ETA (6 Nov): I met the inspiration behind the Miyuki creation!  I was invited to a friend's place and one of his guests was a Japanese lady called Miyuki.  Without a thought, I blurted out that I just eaten a cake called Miyuki.  It turned out that Chef Nicolas from Pave was a good friend of Miyuki's husband, and had created the Miyuki especially for their wedding!  Such a lovely coincidence :)

Pave Chocolates
93 East Coast Road,
Singapore 428792
Monday: Closed
All other days: Noon to 10.30pm
Tel:  63420677

Food Processor

I do not own a food processor although it is something quite common in a US household.

Since there are macarons and pesto to be made, the urge to get one is increasingly nagging. What brand of food processor would you recommend?

Birthday Cake - The Vert by Flor

The cake from Pave sparked off an intense craving for green tea cake and a search for a good one for my birthday.  After reading through the limited number of reviews on "best green tea cake in Singapore", I was ready to give up as the reviews failed to ignite any excitement or confidence from me.  Finally, I decided to take a gamble on "The Vert" from Flor Patisserie.  I figured a Japanese baker would have some national pride to do a good job using one of Japan's national pride, the maccha green tea.  Besides, its description seemed to affirm that:

A layer of green tea sponge base, followed by the harmony of vanilla cream and fragrant green tea mousse, and finally covered by a thin layer of cold, green tea jelly. FLOR Patisserie uses Kyoto-uji matcha (green tea) powder for this particular green tea cake for its clear and pristine flavour and aroma.

Adorned with sweetened Japanese chestnuts.

Well, I am pleased the gamble paid off!  I loved the mousse cake.  It was exactly as described.  It had an intense green tea jelly on top, and layers of green tea mousse and green tea genoise, sandwiching a thick layer of vanilla mousse.  The sweetness could be toned down just a little but was perfectly acceptable as it was.  Candied kuri (Japanese chestnut) topped the cake.  As it was slightly more meaty, it added some element of texture. The Vert has to be chilled and kept chilled.  After just about 15 minutes in the open, the mousse layers were starting to give way.  I preferred the cake to be slightly colder and firmer.  It was so good I had two large slices.  Now the green tea monster is satisfied.  If you ever have that sort of weird craving, you know where to go!

Flor Patisserie

#01-01, 2 Duxton Hill
Singapore 089588

Phone: +65 6223 8628
Business hours:
Monday to Saturday: 11am- 7pm
Sunday (Public Holidays):  11am- 6pm