20 years…

Tuesday, 4 Aug 09

Classy. Expensive, but not too expensive. Set menu. Too far to walk from World Square within 15 minutes. Modern cuisine. Hatted. While these clues plus the above view might have alerted you to where we were going for the night, I had somehow deluded myself (so Tim claims) into ruling out Forty One. But here, we ended up for a wonderful evening to mourn the ending of my teenage years (and according to N, the loss of all excuses and rights to do stupid things) and to welcome the start of the third decade of my life (doesn’t that make me sound old?)

While it was an absolutely wonderful evening, with amazing food and friendly, yet professional service, as would be expected from such an establishment, we were seated at “the darkest table in the house”, which unfortunately meant my camera was unable to do much justice to the chef. Even with a five second exposure time to try to get enough light, the lack of a tripod meant that even though the above one glass of champagne didn’t affect my vision (much), my photos give off that impression.

Some of the reasonably unblurred pictures (my hands are really shaky) fortunately included some of the main highlights of the meal. A third course of grilled scallops, cauliflower puree, olive tapenade and green apple reduction had the sweetness of the perfectly grilled scallops heightened by the green apple puree, and delicateness of the silky cauliflower.

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Slow-cooked jumbo quail breast was accompanied by pearl-like Israeli cous cous and very Asian-inspired flavours of ginger, scallion and lemon-grass in a veloute. Not overly intense or biting, as is common in Asian cuisine, this was delicate and almost ethereal.

There were of course many other delightful moments, but the photos were far too blurry. A champagne foam and berry compote, compliments of the chef, made a delightful start to dessert, as well as highlighting the fruitness of the champagne (I’ve tended to avoid alcohol, but this was really nice!), and a demitasse of potato, leek and truffle soup made Tim declare that he was quite happy to simply have the soup for his main. We also both tasted a little of the other’s dessert (Tim had a sticky date and walnut pudding, with butterscotch and french vanilla icecream, while I had the new season Granny Smith apple jelly, cream and doughnut), and then happily immersed ourselves in the pleasures of our own. For myself, the delicate flavour of the jelly, given textural presence with apple pieces and topped with a meltingly light apple-scented foam made a refreshing end to the meal, while Tim’s pudding was rich, sweet and familiar, like a hug from a loved one.

And while you don’t get to share my dessert (since I enjoyed it so much!), I did record the lovely message the waitress had organised the chef to leave on my plate in piped chocolate.

It was an amazing night, being my first experience in a hatted restaurant, first encounter with truffles, and the last night of teenagehood. From here, there can only be more that I will experience and learn, both in cooking, eating and life. There was only one small question that came to mind for the night: How do we best thank the chef for writing the message – do we eat the chocolate lettering, or leave it, out of admiration for the chef’s skill? Perhaps you might be able to answer that for us?

8 Comments

1. happy birthday dude! and yup i would scrape the choc off the plate hehe

   Comment by chocolatesuze — August 4, 2009 @ 9:56 pm

2. Happy Birthday! Hope it was a great one!

   Comment by Reemski — August 4, 2009 @ 11:08 pm

3. Happy birthday!!! Awww what a sweet sweet gesture from the chef – I would’ve eaten the chocolate writing though, finger licking good and all!

   Comment by Trisha — August 4, 2009 @ 11:17 pm

4. Happy Bday! Glad you broken your hatted restaurant cherry :P and of course you lick the plate clleannnn ;)

   Comment by FFichiban — August 4, 2009 @ 11:41 pm

5. Aww Happy Birthday! Haha they did they same thing for me at Becasse for my graduation dinner with the chocolate writing…I didn’t try eating it, it was too pretty!

   Comment by Steph — August 5, 2009 @ 9:22 am

6. happy birthday! looks like you had a fab dinner! I think i’d photograph the chocolate to death and then eat it :D

   Comment by Betty — August 5, 2009 @ 10:27 am

7. What a great place to celebrate your birthday. Don’t forget, your 21st is even bigger, so better start planning for it now.

   Comment by Belle@OohLook — August 7, 2009 @ 1:59 pm

8. Happy birthday, if somewhat belated!

   You seem far more mature that your age would imply.

   Comment by Simon — August 18, 2009 @ 11:13 pm

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