Food Review: Hokkaido Sushi

One thing about social media that I'm grateful for, is the online community that I inevitably establish through the years. Believe it or not, even behind the comfort of the internet, I could more or less figure out with which personality I could click. Of course, there's also the possibility that online friendships sometimes blossom into face to face ones too, once the initial (major) hurdle of the first meeting is past.

Now I say this upfront, I am really selective with whom I choose to meet up with.  No point when there is no feel. When I received Ivan's invitation to have a meet-up dinner with the himself and the Farieimp, I readily agreed.  It just felt right and I couldn't wait to meet this smart talking and sophisticated impish lady. 





Choosing the dinner venue was easy despite all our very high foodie standards. We all love Japanese food, knew Chef Thomas from his Tomo days, and we have all not been to Hokkaido in a while.   So there we met, shot, ate and made merry.  Food was certainly decent although this time, I might have been more enthusiastic about the company instead.

The imp is just who I thought she would be - confident, wicked sense of humor and totally honest. I am looking forward to the next session indeed.

Fashion: Lace flats

 

I learnt an expensive lesson recently, when I went shopping with an existing blister and in a pair of heels.  I tell you, that is a really bad combination that caused me to only focus on getting a new pair of shoes that I could change into to soothe the pain.  But I'm pleased :)

Review: L'Operetta

I first read about L'Operetta from ieat's blog and there I saw a photo a Japanese chef, Seita, whom I got to know when he was previously at Alba.  I wanted to say hi to him and so when the mood for pizza struck, I wasted no time to check out this new kid on the block, whose unique selling point is, I'm guessing, its attempt to achieve Vera Pizza Napoletana certification.  [I'm not going to repeat what you can already find out from Google or ieat's post.]

More importantly, how did the pizza fare?  Just to share, I usually benchmark across the simplest of pizzas so it's either margherita (mozzarella, tomato and basil) or napoletian (same, but with additional anchovies).  Here I ordered the latter.

The crust was quite thin and the texture was similar to an Indian naan, in a good way.  I was expecting quite a bit more mozzarella (if you compare against ieat's magherita, there appears to be an inconsistency).   Same goes for the anchovies.  A very generous drizzle of olive oil, while welcomed, made the base quite soggy, as the oil would seep through the sides of the wedges, right into and under the base.  That resulted in droopy wedges of rather oily pizza.  Perhaps if the base was slightly thicker, there would be some structure retained.

So while I cannot really make a conclusion based on 1 visit and 1 pizza, I was not totally blown away by this one.  I wouldn't write it off; the restaurant is gorgeous (relative to the rest of Boat Quay) and the rest of the menu appears interesting as well.  But for the moment, my two favourite pizzas are still from Gattopardo and Pizzeria Mozza.

L'Operetta
78,79 Boat Quay (furthest from the UOB Plaza)
Singapore 049866
64382482

Review: Pizzeria Mozza

Finally, a very decent American-Italian style pizzeria by way of Mario Batali's Pizzeria Mozza located at Marina Bay Sands!

The name of the restaurant implies the specialties - pizza and mozzarella cheese.  We ordered the caprese, which was pathetically small to share between three people.  I say that because it was delicious.  Creamy with a subtle milky flavour, the cheese paired well with the pesto and sweet vine tomatoes.

We also ordered the bell peppers stuffed with tuna and a generous dose of olive oil which begged for some bread to mop up.  The peppers and tuna were tasty enough together, nothing spectacular though.

Seeing how small the dishes were, we ordered a third appetizer, grilled squid with chickpeas.   Succulent chargrilled squid with a beautiful smokey flavour was delicious.   Again, I wished the portions were just a tad bigger.

Then the pizzas arrived.  These possessed a sturdy and olive-oil enriched crust that was crispy / crunchy, but yielded to a chewy and airy texture.  Here below is the funghi pizza.  I wished it had less crust though.  But overall, a very delicious mix of mushrooms and herbs and florentine cheese on really delicious bread.

We ordered another one, this time, one with plain tomato base topped with white anchovies.  Generous serving of anchovies, which were too salty on its own, but made a good foil against the rest of the pizza.

There are tons of other pizza combinations that were tempting me to return asap.  But until the next occasion, I can only anticipate.

Pizzaria Mozza was packed and seems to remain that way, so ideally try to make a reservation.  However, there are counter seats for walk-ins, so I guess you could still take a chance.

Pizzeria Mozza
Marina Bay Sands Casino