Agua Fresca |
For a start, we had the Agua Fresca, made of Mezcal, parsley, sweet turnip, lime juice, and suze liqueur. A clean, crisp concoction with a welcome tang to whet our appetites.
Working closely with Hogan is the Spanish head chef, Carlos Montobbio, who's responsible for the bar bites, designed to complement the new cocktails on the new menu. Along with the new cocktail menu comes an array of new dishes as well. This plate of braised eel coquettes with teriyaki sauce and kimchi mayo may look unremarkable from the outside, but each ball certainly packed a punch, especially when dipped in the piquant kimchi mayo. The eel filling wan't minced, it was chopped into little pieces, so I got a nice bite of fish with each coquette.
Chef Carlos has been working in Singapore for close to two years now, and it's the first Asian country he had ever been to before leaving Spain. He's developed a passion for Asian flavours which he infuses in his dishes. This is a serving of oysters with warm ginger sauce, red curry, and celery cress. Each morsel of oyster still retained its ocean freshness, with the slight heat from the dressing tickling my tastebuds.
This was a pleasant surprise for me, because it isn't what it looks like, Nope, not sushi. It's actually salted cod brandade topped with tuna sashimi. Those tiny orange balls on top of the tuna aren't salmon caviar. They're sesame oil spheres. How clever! If you're worried that fish on fish would be too overwhelming, this is actually pretty subtle, with the sesame oil spheres lending it a delightful aroma as they pop in your mouth. However, the cod was so finely blended and emulsified with the potato in the brandade that I could barely taste it.
Monte- Cachaca, fine sherry, homemade falernum, lime. |
Ah, the famous crisp parmesan pizza topped with tomato flakes, fresh pesto olive oil caviar and sweet basil cress ($16). It's been on the menu from the start as well as a hot favourite of Anti:dote's patrons, and I could see why. While thin and tiny and a little pricey for its size, it was robust in flavours-- sweet, salty, and herbaceous. An elegant mini version of the classic margherita pizza. Replacing the typical bread crust with only parmesan cheese is a genius move, methinks.
The paleta iberica Joselito, Italian burrata, cristal bread, with tomato essence shabu-shabu is again, another delight of a dish. The iberico ham needs no introduction, everyone knows it's good. What needs highlighting is the cristal bread, a Spanish style ciabatta with a light and airy centre reminiscent of a youtiao. Eat this with chopsticks. Pick up a slice of ham and burrata along with a piece of bread, and dip it into the tomato essence emulsion and you have a party in your mouth. The crispness of the bread combined with the general softness of the other components of this dish make for a wonderfully textured mouthfeel.
Here's another new dish, the braised beef Cannelloni with Spanish onion, black truffle, and cepes bechamel. Visually unappealing, but you can't go wrong with braised beef. Thankfully, it wasn't dry, and the black truffle really came through.
One of the best dishes of the night was definitely this crispy suckling pig with cherry miso caramel and sherry soaked cherries. A perfectly crispy crackling with very tender meat.
The much-raved-about black truffle bao with braised beal cheek, foie gras and caramelised shallots with Madeira was sadly a little disappointing for me. I could barely detect a hint of foie gras, and the sea salt sprinkled on top of the buns harshly cut through and overpowered the flavours of the filling as I felt myself chewing on grains of salt with each bite.
Another brand new item on the menu, a twist on the pork adobo, coated with a thin dough crust topped with thin slices of garlic. This was the winner. I love a dish that has contrast in textures and the buttery crust with the juicy pork won me over. Unlike the vinegary Filipino PorkAdobo, this one let the natural flavour of the pork shine through while the vinegar was just there as a supporting character.
Dainty little cakes. |
Seger Seelbach- Bourbon, hum, peychaud bitters, angostura bitters, Champagne. |
The Tragedy of Tom Dooley |
The new cocktails and new dishes complimented each other wonderfully, and were every bit an exciting journey through a fusion of Spanish and Asian flavous, each dish more intense than the last. It got a bit overwhelming at some point that a palate cleanser of sorts would have been nice. But the next time I come back, I'd go straight for the pork dishes, and the crisp parmesan pizza for variety if you must.
Anti:dote
80 Bras Basah Road, Level 1, Fairmont, Raffles City, 189560