My personal local has a new gripe. She almost couldn't order brunch because ALL the restaurant staff only spoke Mandarin. She's acrimonious! *fist in the air* hee hee hee. We went to Lucky Plaza for Yong Tau Fu, a selection of fishcakes (including fresh chilli stuffed with fishcake) that is cooked on the spot and then drowned in a sweet and spicy sauce. For dessert, a bowl of cold bobo chacha and ice kachang.
A funny thing happened after our visit to Iggy's, yesterday. We had heard of the restaurant before coming to Singapore and made reservations when we had arrived. Before we dined there, through local networking, my personal local found out that Ignatius (or Iggy himself) is actually someone she knew as Yan years ago. A call was made. He knew we were coming. Bad timing of a meeting and he missed us by half an hour. Not to worry. Iggy himself calls my local to apologize and asks for us to come down today and have coffee. From there we got a tour of his kitchen, met all of his chefs, tried some more desserts and ended up having a very interesting conversation about the ins and outs of the fine dining business. Such a humble guy. It's amazing the difficulties they have to work around just by operating near the equator, which translates to NO LOCAL PRODUCE. He was jealous of us and our bevy of bay area farmer's markets, especially heirloom tomatoes. At any rate, his staff is one happy lot. He allows them free reign to experiment and you can feel the passion and joy when you walk in the kitchen. On a funny note, he apologized to me for the quality of the foie gras; you remember, the one I went gaga over. He also apologized for missing us and forcing us to eat "off the menu," as if that were a bad thing. He had wanted to have some crazy wonderful stuff whipped up special. Alas, he was in a meeting to move his establishment from the Four Seasons to the Hilton. Why? Not because there would be more seating for his guests, but the kitchen at the Hilton is double the size. Lucky lucky chefs.
After our fun aside at Iggy's, we took a stroll down to the new architectural wonder that is the new/still under construction Sands Hotel and Casino. The top part has a park with trees and a pool that makes it look like you're going to swim clean off the edge of the building. Gosh it's hot. And, might I add, that for a country that is lamenting not enough people are having families, there sure are a friggin' lot of babies around!
Off to Newton Circus, completely re-done since last I was there. The hawkers have gotten mighty aggressive and competitive since then. The touristy new nature of it was easily forgotten with an order of kick ass bbq chicken wings. Flavor explosion. The spring roll was just okay, and the mutton soup was disappointing. I'm so spoiled, I get cranky if I have to chew meat now. My favorite dish of the evening was murtabak; sort of a cross between a custardy omelette and a chicken quesadilla. Dip it in the curry and Vishnu appears to only you.
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