Back to Esquina

C says:

I’ve been having serious withdrawal symptoms after not revisiting Esquina since April, so on another day off today, we headed there for lunch, armed with a new camera to boot (thanks, ladies!).

Rare view of an almost empty counter (taken with funky Miniature picture effect)

The menu has changed somewhat, with some dishes like the tuna tartare and the baked egg with anchovy, capers and lemon no longer available. I guess those that remain are considered their classics, like the bone marrow and salt and pepper baby squid.

The egg dish we had today was from the Specials board – slow cooked egg with bacon, shrimp black rice and seaweed dashi. The black rice was a bit like a risotto, with bits of shrimp as well as baby squid. The dashi was poured on at the last minute, and given that I’m a big fan of comfort food like risotto and porridge, this was amazing.

They no longer have my gambas with orzo pasta, so again we looked to the Specials board for a prawn dish – sautéed gambas with potato dumpling and bisque sauce. The prawns were smaller than expected so didn’t have as much of the lovely head juices as the jumbo prawns. The dumpling was a bit dense and heavy, but the bisque sauce was enough to make me forgive everything else. Total essence of crustacean.

We had yet another dish from the Specials, since we figured we had to try those while we could. We had the seared scallops with mushroom ceviche, miso aubergine and ponzu dressing. I let A have most of this, since I was busy polishing off all the prawns, but again the flavours of each element really worked well together.

Lastly, we had the roast pork belly with crispy skin and chorizo octopus bolognaise. This was quite a heavy dish, and I guess that’s why it came last. I couldn’t detect any octopus in the sauce, but there were cannellini beans together with the chorizo, which explained why we were so full after finishing this.

As always, I love the food and I love the vibe, particularly at lunch time. After a 3 month hiatus I’m now scrolling through my calendar for the next time that we can come back.

A says:

Awesome, awesome, awesome. My current fav place to go in Singapore.