So, we are now back in April when life was still slow and wanderful. How I dread those days, seriously. Came a Friday afternoon when I was able to do lunch (in town somemore!) with a few bloggers whom I’ve e-known for quite sometime. It certainly was a good lunch and what’s even better was the fact that it was an informal gathering, so everyone was at their funniest. Yeah, my first meeting with some of them was at a rather formal event where stiffness was not only referred to the texture of the dessert.
And so we ate. And ate. And ate even more!
At Hua Ting, a few dishes caught my interest. The Fried Scallop Pastry With Onion And Garlic was one of them. Think doughnut; the melting soft type which was flavoured with enough garlic to keep the carcinogens away for a good few hours. It would have been longer had we ordered just steamed dishes. What didn’t make sense to me was the scallop, which the flesh was nowhere to be found in the dough. Perhaps the shape was scallop-ish? Good art, nevertheless. And there was the Steamed Cheong Fun With Sliced Fish. Kind of like the popular sam lou (stir-fried flat rice noodle with fish), only steamed, this one. And the combination worked pretty well as the cheong fun had a nice rice fragrance and the fish was flaky. A piece of advice: don’t flood it with the rather MSG-ed soy sauce.
We were stuffed. But we were mostly hungry. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? With that, we adjourned to the nearby Marmalade Pantry, a café famous for its desserts. Well, everyone has a different interpretation of what a dessert really is. So, guess what I had?
It was a Foie Gras Burger with Sundried Tomato Relish. Hey, if it’s comforting, it’s a dessert. Agree or not? My insanity aside, we did order a few real desserts like the Chocolate Truffle Cake, Rose Cupcake, Chocolate Tart and the signature Sticky Date Toffee Pudding with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream. Can do but not top-notch, to be honest, as I thought the sweets lacked refinement, in terms of taste and texture. Back to my dessert, where is the foie gras? Unless the liver melted (in vain) in the searing process, I don’t see why there wasn’t any bit of foie gras in my patty. So, gone was the smoothness that I had expected. Having said that, the minced beef tasted rather good, with a nice aroma. Oh, the relish! Slightly smoky and spicy, it was everything tasty. In fact, I think the relish would go well with just about everything.
Reading this post, I can imagine that OMG-FINALLY! look on the faces of the group as this has wayyyyy passed yesterday. And to think that I’ve met up with them again (twice) after this gathering. Now, I can only hope that it won’t take another 3 months before I post about the other burger place that we’ve visited.
Fellow makan-ers:
AromaCookery
Bossacafez
Camemberu
Ladyironchef
TheHungryCow
Hua Ting Restaurant
Second Floor
Orchard Hotel
442 Orchard Road
Singapore
Tel: (+65) 6739 6666
Marmalade Pantry
#B1-08/11 Palais Renaissance
390 Orchard Road
Singapore 238871
Tel: (+65) 6734 2700
Website: http://www.themarmaladepantry.com/
