Eat. Love, Play.
Like a real writing addict, I went to immerse myself with the adventure and challenge of writing about real food I had in real time, and not consumed in just food videos without sounding like an undercover critic nor a paid advertiser.
This is solely an article that I can post later to my 365-Tryke blog. (In Singapore, it is rare that eating out is not on the diary’s calendar of activity.) So capping the weekend like a play by play, I start with the the festive Friday tick-off, to celebrate a friend’s birthday as well as a post-thanksgiving of sorts - and it went something like this.
EAT
Number 29 Keong Saik Rd is now a new restaurant called 999.99 which presented a tasting food & wine menu - someone’s invited me to be the wing man of his long bar table journey and ever so kindly, I obliged.
I arrived late and they, the others on the tasting table, have started on their trio of tomato & burrata, which had a creamy pesto dressing with orange segments, jellied tomato and torn up dots of fresh burrata (small white mozzarella ball-ish pieces). Yum. Note to self: this was my favourite.
So I finally caught up with the pace as others’ eating, with a quaint gulliver’s island sized copper saucepan presentation of squid and mushrooms, which is like a spread on crisp bread - not the mopping out the sauce kind, but more the for-crudités kind. The libation was well-curated. I selected three — the Spanish Brut Cava bubbly white to start, lovely with the burrata and the mushroom courses.
On to Mains: a surf and sea concept in two plates. First, the Lobster gratin baked in all-béchamel-and-parmesan goodness served with a tangy italian dressed salad. Second, the chef plated the seared striploin of beef laden with shaved black & white truffles and really awkwardly awesome foie gras. It sat on a bed of lush creamy spinach and pine nuts potato purée, maddening to the last bite.
At this point, I had changed my palate cleanser with a 2014 Pierre Jean Merlot. Beautiful with the foie. I found the lobster gratin went wonderfully down with the 2011 Australian Churchview Unwooded Chardonnay, which enveloped the creamy crustacean morsels with the sharp sweet contrast of a crisp clean linen smooth white wine, helped with moving my attention from the mains to dessert.
The fairest of them all was served on a bedrock of hazelnut sponge cutouts (more like a spread of cake tear-outs) with a basil syrup, next to blobs of chestnut foam, chocolate trails of soil, marron anglaise, apricot gel, and almond tulle. I don’t think I spoke to anyone while I committed the seriously damaging effects of this meal-ender to feeble memory. It was good to the last bite, and I think I had my friend’s one too. Downed this with the Argentinian red Malbec - which surprises since I had a Riesling-for-dessert custom palate.
So sloshed, and properly installed post-it note to self to wear a less-tight skirt next time, I undergo a powder-room cascade of post-dinner re-application of product. I find myself with no longer the disheveled look of stressed-and-late, but more with a happy-and-pink flush of “certifiable foodie sampler” (patented with intermittent gasps of fond affection towards the attentive waitstaff & dapper sommelier who had all aptly attended to all our half-empty glasses).
Love,
I would dine there again. Two golden ponds’ worth of silver spoons up for new eating place Five Nines: 999.99 - think I’ll go grab a taxi out now.
Play.
Off to more drinks, and washing it all out with a responsible swig of (2 litres of) water, and some fantastic time down at Club Street, happy funny conversations, surprise bumping into friends, a serious contemplation of life and its stopovers and my mono melon outfit, a dead mobile phone, and somehow, the night is alive.
