I didn’t know what to expect, apart from the fact that the restaurant is the Singapore baby of celebrity Chef Daniel Boulud, and that its split-personality French-American fame means you either take French fare or try their popular burgers.
What happened was I became absolutely enthralled by the surprise dish of the evening – Japanese Kagoshima rib-eye.
Why? Well, firstly, I am a firm believer in enjoying good food with all my senses. And that includes how the dish looks. In this case, what came to the table was eight or nine cut pieces of steak very simply laid out in an open pan with some potatoes and lettuce. So what’s the attraction? It was the texture of the meat!
There was lean meat and there was fat. There was some marbling but not that much of it – certainly not as distinctive and pronounced as what I have seen while eating elsewhere. And so the visual attraction here was one of a fine balance of fat and lean meat that only good quality rib-eye can offer.
And then the taste. From the first bite, I could tell this was great stuff. The dish came with potato, lettuce and balsam dressing. That’s it. And that’s as it should be. No extra condiments and unnecessarily strong dressing that seek to compensate for the less-than-creditable culinary skills of a cook.
Meaning, the meat I was eating was cooked just right. Yes, juicy and succulent. Yes, tender and tasty. Yes, done medium as medium should be done. And yes, my fellow diners and I revelled in the joy of eating good steak done to near-perfection. Pure and simply excellent cooking.
Of course the quality of meat must matter. This was Kagoshima rib-eye. Kagoshima is as first class Japanese beef as you can get. And if you put a gun to my head and tell me to pick just one part of the animal’s anatomy for my steak, I will pick the rib. And so Kagoshima rib-eye is a combination you would want to go for.
Two portions were offered – 6 oz for $180, and 12 oz for $360. There were four of us and we were sharing dishes. We picked the 12-oz portion plus a dish of braised lamb shank for our mains. All that meat plus starters and dessert meant we were more than adequately stuffed by the end of the dinner.
Talking about it on the way to the carpark, my fellow diners and I agreed that this was one of the best steaks we’ve had. Ah, but the question is: Was this also the most expensive 12 oz of beef in Singapore? And was it just too much for a piece of meat? Tell us what you think.