Kazu Sumiyaki at Cuppage Plaza (Charcoal grill)

Tags

charcoal grill, cuppage plaza, foie gras, grill, japanese, kazu, lamb chop, pork balls, restaurant review, restaurants, singapore, skewers, sumiyaki, yakitori

 

 

This is one of my favourite charcoal grill restaurants. Mainly because of its foie gras skewers and its pork and apple skewers. I’d make the trip there just for those! The restaurant is located in Cuppage plaza, home to many a dodgy karaoke bars with girls bursting in their in skimpy clothing hanging about the entrances. Despite that there are a couple of good restaurants here, I’ve yet to try them out but I will do that one day. 

A couple of peeks at the menu. I highly recommend the Tontoro Ringo fatty pork apple skewer! The pork belly was pretty normal to me.

I also highly recommend the foie gras! I’d order 4 skewers just for myself ;p

They will serve you this for free the first round… however you will find that this sweet cabbage with a little lemon and dunked in that delicious miso based sauce, would have been quickly gobbled up. And then you’d have no choice but to order another portion. It is that addictive. I’m seriously considering replacing an entire meal with this cabbage and miso sauce alone.

If I’m not mistaken, these are the foie gras skewers. Beautifully grilled, dripping with delicious fat and seasoned with salt and cracked black pepper, these babies are well seared and hot. Good crust to the outside that gives way to the creamy rich goodness on the inside. It is almost falling off the skewer so be careful when you pick them up.

SGD 6.50 a skewer? I’m so sold on this!

Grilled chicken wing, not bad. Nothing much to say on this one as it was average to me. 

From left to right, pork belly, beef balls (i think), pork balls, and finally the amazing fatty pork and apple skewers. The pork belly skewer was good albeit slightly chewy, same with the balls, had a little too much resistance that day. The fatty pork and apples were perfection. The apples’ sweetness intensified after being grilled and lend so much depth and flavour to the fatty. When eaten together, they form a perfect harmony in the mouth, that of the natural sweetness of the apple and the briny oily fatty pork. 

This is a tamago dish. I was expecting the usual sweet tamago that you find in all Japanese restaurants, but somehow we got this. I’m not sure if we ordered wrongly, but it wasn’t great. I did not like the slimy sauce that was poured over the egg, it was just a major distraction for me.

More of that cabbage! And fresh uni sashimi. Expensive but so fresh and good!

Asparagus wrapped with bacon. It wasn’t bad, but I just never understood the combination. I always found the asparagus taste too strong for the bacon, or the bacon too salty. Why does the bacon in SIngapore and Malaysia taste so salty T_____T The ones in UK taste so good~

More pork belly and fatty pork with apple. So tantalizingly juicy.

Mentaiko chicken skewer. I did not taste mentaiko and the chicken was tough. Not a good choice. The chicken liver at the side was better, if you’re a chicken liver lover you’d probably like this. 

The lamb was good as well, grilled to perfection, juicy yet not bloody, with the right amount of fat and seasoning to ensure a good balance of texture and flavour in each bite.

I’m not a lover of squid, I always find it tough and rubbery and not good to eat. Grilled squid just doesn’t do it for me. I prefer calamari!

Some radish dish with meat. Clean tasting and simple, as if it is a kind of home cooked dish? Comes in a base made of dashi.

Another dashi based dish, this time its beancurd skin topped with slightly charred uni. Skip this dish and just order uni sashimi 😉From left to right: I think this is chicken/pork, Chicken skin, chicken liver

All of these were good, the chicken skin nice and crispy. Perhaps a little more char on the chicken liver would have made it a lot better.

One thing I have to say about the service, it’s pretty bad. Also, I would recommend making reservations, especially during weekends, its always packed full! There’s usually a queue as well. If you can, try to avoid weekends, the service is really bad during weekends. Servers forget your orders, they don’t respond to your calls for them, food is slow, even the bill is slow. And their tempers are not at their best. They would also try to make you leave by a certain time if they are trying to seat other customers. I’d sit there longer just to annoy them (the inner demon in me is unleashed).

Go during the weekdays and you’ll enjoy the food a lot better 😉

Kazu Sumiyaki restaurant,

#04-05 Cuppage plaza

5 Koek Rd  Singapore 228796

+65 6734 2492

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Truffles Part 5: Cream of Mushroom soup with creme fraiche and truffles

Tags

appetizer, black truffle, brown mushrooms, cream, cream of mushroom soup, creme fraiche, dinner, hand blender, mushroom, mushroom soup, Soup, starter, truffles, western, white truffle oil

I love mushroom soup. Even though I’ve been eating canned Campbell mushroom soup for most of my life, nothing beats freshly made cream of mushroom soup. I attempted it for the first time as part of my truffle menu and used portobello and those nice swiss brown mushrooms. Other recipes call for er… wilder varieties of mushroom but since its just me and my helper, I decided to just use mushrooms that I’m used to. The end result should be a creamy thick soup of mushrooms and enhanced just by some chopped parsley, truffle shavings and perhaps a drop or two of truffle oil.

Ingredients (Serves 4)

100g butter

500g mushrooms (I used 250g portobello and 250g swiss brown mushrooms)

350ml chicken stock

400ml water

100g cooking cream

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 tbsp of creme fraiche per bowl of soup (you can adjust this if you like)

Fresh truffle shavings

1 tsp chopped English parsley per bowl

Salt and black pepper for seasoning

Instructions

1. Wash the mushrooms thoroughly and drain.

2. Slice the mushrooms to the same thickness (otherwise you’ll get inconsistencies in texture after blending)

3. Melt the butter in a sauce pan large enough to hold 2 litres of water. I used a wok as I’m more comfortable with it.

4. Fry the garlic and mushrooms together for 5 minutes. The mushrooms will release some liquid.

5. Add chicken stock and water and bring to the boil before turning down the heat. Cover with the lid and let it stew for about 30 minutes.

6. Add the cream and let it simmer for another 3-5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

7. Blitz the soup with a hand blender. Be careful when you do this as you don’t want the hot liquid to fly all over the kitchen and onto you! 

I transferred the mixture into a mixing jug for blitzing.

8. Blitz until your desired consistency. I like mine slightly chunky

9. Ladle into soup bowl and top with creme fraiche, truffle shavings, parsley and a little white truffle oil if you like.

Serve with bread! 

Truffle Part 4: Foie Gras and fried onions crostini with truffles

Tags

appetizer, black truffles, bread, brunch, crostini, foie gras, foie gras pate, onions, starter, truffles, western

I’ve previously tried a foie gras pate and fried onions combinations. I just thought I’d try something one step further and use foie gras lobes and top everything with my beautiful winter black truffles ❤

Ingredients (Serves 2 pax)

4 slices of french baguette bread

2 lobes of foie gras at room temperature

1/2 a large onion

Black winter truffle shavings

Fleur de sel and black pepper

Instructions

1. Heat some oil in a frying pan on medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add the onions. Fry until golden brown and caramelized.

2. This is where I made a mistake, I used the same pan to fry the foie gras and didn’t wash it. The pan should have been dry and hot as foie gras is already oily as it is. But as I reused the pan there was some residual oil and bits of fried onion T_____T. Not that it makes much difference to the taste, it just looked bad afterwards.

3. Sear the foie gras for about 45 seconds on each side.

4. Remove from the pan and slice thickly (see above).

5. Lightly toast the baguette slices 

6. Assemble your crostini! Place some of the caramelized onions on the toasted baguette, arrange the foie gras slices on it and season with fleur de sel and black pepper. For the finishing touch, just go crazy shaving the truffles all over the plate! 

Its a little hard eating the crostini as bits of onion tend to fall off but its totally worth it. The fatty rich foie gras with the sweet onions and delicate aromatic truffles truly make a heavenly bite!

Truffles Part 3: Scrambled eggs with truffles

Tags

black truffles, chives, eggs, milk, scrambled eggs, scrambled eggs with milk, scrambled eggs with truffles

Scrambled eggs tend to be a very personalized food. Somewhat like instant noodles. Some prefer their eggs with cream, some like it with water, some prefer it less cooked, some prefer it more cooked etc. I like mine with some milk and chives. Here I’ve used eggs that have been stored in a container together with the truffles in the refrigerator. Storing them together is supposed to result in eggs that have absorbed some of the truffle aroma.

Ingredients (1 pax)

3 eggs

Knob of butter

1/8 cup milk

Salt and pepper

Winter black truffle shavings

1/2 tbsp Chives, chopped

Instructions

1. Crack the three eggs into a mixing bowl and remove any stray bits of shell. Add milk and season with salt and pepper. I accidentally poured way too much milk in… lesson learnt, pour the milk into a measuring cup before adding it to the eggs.

2. Beat the mixture thoroughly.

3. Heat the butter in a medium frying pan over medium heat on the largest hotplate or gas burner (to ensure even cooking) until the butter begins to foam. Swirl the pan to  coat its entire base with the melted butter.

4. Add the eggs to the pan and cook on low-medium heat for about half a minute, then use a wooden “fork” spatula to run through the mixture, scraping the bottom of the pan. This will result in folds of egg forming (see picture below)

5. Continue pushing the mixture with the wooden fork until three quarters of the egg is cooked and the remainder is still liquid. Do not stir the mixture as we want folds of egg, not tiny bits of mashed egg.

6. Take the pan off the heat and push a couple of times more. The residual heat will continue cooking the egg.

7. Spoon the eggs onto a serving plate, sprinkle with chives and shave some of that black truffle on top.

EAT!

Truffle Part 2: Roast chicken with black truffles

Tags

black truffles, easy meals, roast, roast chicken, roast chicken quarters, roast chicken with truffles, thyme, truffle oil, white truffle oil

Part 2 of the truffle series! An easy recipe, the truffles went amazingly well with roast chicken and the meat was succulent and tender. Got this idea from the wine dinner at St. Regis, but since their method of cooking chicken was beyond me I decided to just make roast chicken. And its pretty easy, just marinade the chicken and dump it into the oven. Half an hour later you get a good dinner, easy peasy.

Ingredients (Serves 4)

Black truffle shavings

4 Chicken quarters (bone in and skin on)

Sprigs of thyme

1 tbsp White truffle oil

Salt and black pepper

Instructions

1. Marinate the chicken thighs well in white truffle oil, thyme salt and pepper for about half an hour at room temperature. Make sure your chicken is at room temperature before roasting it.

2. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius.

3. Insert 3-4 black truffle shavings under the skin of each chicken quarter.

4. Oil the baking tray slightly before placing each chicken piece skin side down on the tray surface. Arrange the thyme springs over the chicken.

5. Roast the chicken skin side down for about 15 minutes.

6. Flip the chicken over and roast for another 15-20 minutes until the skin turns golden brown and crispy.

7. Remove the sprigs of thyme.

8. Arrange on plate and top with fresh sprigs of thyme and black truffle shavings if you wish.

The crispy skin is amazing with the black truffle! 

Serve with truffled mash potatoes or roasted vegetables at the side.

Truffles Part 1 – Carpaccio with trio of truffles

Tags

black truffle, black winter truffle, canned truffles, carpaccio, carpaccio with trio of truffles, carpaccio with truffles, fusion, sashimi, starter, tai, truffle oil, truffles, white truffle oil

So I decided to indulge in my newfound love for truffles. I ordered two black winter truffles and it arrived today! Super excited. Its now stored in rice in my fridge, and accordingly I placed eggs in the same container just to maximize the use of the truffles. My fridge smells like truffles now mmmm.

This is a dish I had at Aoki, a japanese restaurant in Singapore, and its pretty easy to replicate. It is also foolproof and perfect as a starter. The chopped canned truffle adds a little bite to the dish and the fleur de sel not only makes the dish look aesthetically pleasing, it also gives a briny crunch to the fish that, on many levels, is so different from your ordinary table salt.

Will be putting up several truffle-themed posts, this is just the first 😉

They’re pretty big aren’t they?

Ingredients

1 tbsp Truffle oil

Tai (sea bream) sashimi grade sliced thinly

Fleur de sel

1 summer black truffle from a jar

Generous shavings from a fresh black winter truffle

Instructions

1) Chop up your summer truffle into little chunks. Don’t mince it too finely as we want some texture to this dish.

2) Arrange the fish on the plate

3) Sprinkle the chopped truffle on top of the fish and drizzle the truffle oil.

4) Add shavings of black winter truffle on top and season with fleur de sel.

Enjoy the heady rush of truffle!