Sensual Italian food

I had a lovely time having my sumptuous repast at gattopardo and it was highly memorable. I had amberjack belly tartare with yuzu sauce, roasted suckling pig pizza with mortadella cheese and divine angel hair pasta with grey mullet bottarga roe and sea urchin!






- Curate Your Tasteb
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Location:Gattopardo

Apom Berkuah

24 May: Ah... this dish is so rare, it's hardly found at Peranakan restaurants. However, Peramakan at Keppel Club serves up this well-forgotten dish. It is basically steamed flour pancakes made with coconut that's dipped into a rich, creamy banana sauce. The blue streaks on the pancakes come from the natural blue dye of the Bunga Telang (a wild, crepper plant with blue flowers). Yummy!

Babi Pong Tay

24 May: Babi Pong Tay. Have you tried it? It's a defacto dish of discerning Peranakan cuisine. Ladies of yore would slave to create this dish. The taste test would be performed by their insufferable mothers or mother-in-laws, who would critique the dish Nazi-style. Essentially, Babi Pong Tay served at Peramakan offers leaner cuts of pork with sliced bamboo shoots and Chinese mushrooms in a gravy made from fermented soya beans. Garnished with crunchy, green chillies, a bite of this sends you on cloud nine.

Peramakan Restaurant

24 May: A client brought me to this relatively obscure restaurant dishing out delectable Peranakan cuisine. He claims the chef and owner cooks with a good heart and is honest about preparation and flavours. Located at Keppel Club, I was startled to see waiters attending to a buzzing lunch crowd as I entered Peramakan Restaurant. Here, the food is wholesome, replete with ingredients that can make any bona fide Peranakan nod with approval. Case in point: the Ayam Buah Keluak - a heady, flavourful creation brimming with earthy, nutty flavour thanks to the 'buah keluak'. Stewed in special spices and cooked with chicken parts, it makes for an indulgent lunch.

Prawns to-die-for!

22 May: So you thought you can handle chilli? Si Chuan Dou Hua's peppery, chill-based creation with plump, deep-fried, de-veined prawns is so blindingly potent, it should be approached with caution. Chilli-lovers will relish this tasty dish that's good to the last mouthful. The fresh, green peppercorns and a medley of potent, capaicin-packed ingredients are sure to get you coming back for more! Two thumbs up!

Blazing hot

22 May 2010: Si Chuan Dou Hua located at Plaza Hotel along Beach Road will reward chilli-junkies with a meal that stings their taste buds while providing oodles of flavour. Case in point: the chilled chicken with "Ma La" sauce, literally translated to "Ma" (numb) and "La" (hot/spicy). This textural wonder filled with lovely chilli bits, seasame seeds, zuchini and tender, chilled chicken is the perfect foil for the sensational, toe-curling "Ma La" sauce. Yum!

Divine chempadak

The innocuous, almost cognac-y smell of the chempadak can literally send some people fleeing. Its smell has been described as rotten feet, or even fart. While I'm opposed to eating — another foul-smelling fruit, the durian — I, however, devour the chempadak passionately like dogs to bacon. Here is a bundle that cost me $9 from Pasir Ris market, a princely sum for some but the jewels inside are enough to heighten my senses and get me excited in every way — taste, sense and smell. Just cutting this fruit will permeate the room with a divine fragrance that makes me toe-curl with pleasure. I have them fresh or pack them in boxes for refrigeration and later transform them into chempadak ice-cream, which is another equally delectable dessert that is sheer ambrosia!