The University Club: by Prive

While NUS is my alma mater, its been a long while since I ate there. So when my friend...a specialist in campus food, recommended The University Club, it piqued my interest, and quickly a small group was assembled for a tasting.

Operated by the Prive Group, and on lovely premises within the Shaw Foundation in the Kent Ridge campus, the restaurant looked very nice.

There were 8 of us who attended the lunch, so there were a variety of dishes that was ordered. We all had the Set Lunch...$25 for 2 courses, $28 for 3 course including coffee or tea. Quite good value, methinks.

I ordered the 3 course meal, starting with crab cakes.

Very nicely done! The cake is loosely formed, probably by hand, into a very savoury cake...with lots of crab meat, and hardly any filler. Sits on a few strands of asparagus, and piled with a sweet, sour sauce and salad. Delicious.

My neighbour had the scallops, which also looked wonderful.

For my mains, I had the braised lamb shank...

A whole shank, rather large serving. Wonderfully braised. Very tender, and full flavoured...I don't mean strong lamb/mutton type odours, but a beautiful, aromatic perfume which wafts into the nostrils...very nice. The meat was excellent as well.

And the steak being served next to me looked equally marvellous

And for dessert, I ordered one of my favourites...sticky date pudding...

Thumbs up! The pudding is done just right...correct consistency...with a bit of bounce, and a consistency which resists crumbling, but yet soft enough to break open at the prodding of the spoon. The scoop of ice cream went nicely, as ice cream tend to do, and the butterscotch bits provided crunch, and an intense sweet note...kind of like an orchestra crescendo over the sweetness of the pudding and the ice cream.

Excellent meal, well priced. Beautiful dining room and good service.

The University Club
Shaw Foundation Alumni House, #04-02
11 Kent Ridge Drive, Singapore 119244
http://theprivegroup.com.sg/index.php/tuc/about-us

STREET 50 Bar and Restaurant: Two very surprising dishes which tantalizes the palate

The Bay Hotel is one of the interesting new boutique hotels which have sprung up fairly recently. I featured their Indonesian restaurant Rumah Rasa some time ago, but they changed the concept for the restaurant from Indonesian to an international theme - global flavours with a twist. Interesting methots. So when an invitation to taste was received, I jumped at it.

Especially so when the invitation to the new restaurant, now called STREET 50, featured the new Singapore National Day dish...a new dish created for the purpose of our nation's 48th birthday...the Black Pepper Lobster. Hmm...sounds yum...and it is! But more of that later...I begin with an unusual escargot dish...

Escargot in Hazelnut infused butter, flambe with cognac.

Wonderful. The butter was very lightly fragrant with hazelnut...the cognac was still quite strong and rather powerful...the escargot itself was not especially interesting...this was just de rigeur good escargot. But the flambe process on the table is a bit of drama, and entertaining.

We also sampled the Tom Yum Flair...a seafood dish with spagetti

As I approach this dish, I am a bit hesitant. The tom yum flavours are evident and strong. The crayfish and seafood...I can see squid and fish...are fresh. The spagetti done well, with a creamy sauce. But I find the flavours a bit disjointed. I have mixed feelings about this dish.

Next a lamb shank done like rendang...

I found this more convincing. Actually, really enjoyed this. The rendang sauce was superb...albeit a bit on the sweet side...but still within the norms of a mutton rendang, which usually tends to be a bit sweeter than the rather more sour beef rendang. The meat was very tender, well marinated, so fully absorbed the rendang flavours. Beautiful dish, served with some steam rice.

Then came the piece de resistance...the Black Pepper Lobster

The serving was a rather large Caribbean lobster...weighing about 700g, cooked in the chef's own black pepper sauce. When the dish was presented on the table, the wonderful aroma of lobster was powerful, and seductive in a way only lobster can.

The meat was chunky, very meaty, beautiful texture. Very sweet meat, very nicely blended with the aromatic black pepper. Well supported by the ginko nuts. Truly a winning dish. This is to be available only for the National Day celebrations, but I urged the chef to put this on the menu permanently. Highly, highly recommended.

And the sweet end...durian pengat

If you love durian, you will love this dish. A thin, rather dry crepe is rolled with durian pengat filling. Beautiful, smooth, creamy, aromatic. Very enjoyable.

This is an invited review. Thanks to Dennis She for the invitation and wonderful company during lunch.

STREET 50 Restaurant and Bar
Bay Hotel, 50 Telok Blangah Road
6818 6681