Dehesa

C says:

Ever since Wolf closed, we've been looking for a place that does proper nose-to-tail cooking. Dehesa could well be it.

 

We started with the Dehesa platter, which came with a serving of sourdough and the most amazing aioli ever. The platter composed saucisson, chorizo, lomo Iberico, jamon, home-made lardo, fifi pate, pig's head terrine, rillette and crispy crackling. 

The duck hearts on toast came with a heavenly sauce that had hints of black pepper, balsamic and honey. 

Instead of crispy pig's ears, they have crispy tripe here, with fried garlic oil and a romesco sauce studded with chilli padi. With its flowery exterior, honeycomb tripe really does take deep frying really well - light and crispy, yet still retaining the slight chewiness of tripe. 

The Octopus is served on a bed of mashed potatoes, and blanketed with more lardo slivers. Just before serving, the chef comes with a hugeass blowtorch and torches the lardo so that it melts into the octopus. Aburi lardo. Divine. 

I expected the crispy pig's head to be more, well, head-y. Instead, it came as a croquette of sort, with egg yolk and lardons. Perhaps a little too generic for my liking.

We ordered the Frit Mallorquin because we've never seen it anywhere else. Basically it's a stew made from lamb offal (here, it was heart, liver, kidney and sweetbreads) and Mediterranean vegetables. It was interesting and pretty tasty, but at the same time it was quite heavy so I don't think we'll order it again.

We ordered one dish too many, so we didn't have space for dessert, which looked really interesting. We've already got a list of other dishes that we're going to try next time.

A says:

Great value and a surprisingly non-poncey place. Would go back, especially for the lardo.

Wild Rocket omakase

C says:

First off, I think it's a travesty that Michelin completely ignored Wild Rocket. The Singapore guide doesn't feature the chef who pioneered Modern Singaporean cuisine? Madness, I say. The omakase dinner we had last night was one of the most interesting, creative and downright delicious meals we've had in a while.

First course, and probably best dish of the evening, was their take on chwee kueh - scallop carpaccio with chai poh and truffle konbu. A big flavour punch in the face, and the best way to start the meal.

Next was a play on rojak, with the hae kor in the form of a light ice cream. 

Char kway teow came next. We were asked to guess what the noodles were made from. I said squid, which was close. It was ribbons of cuttlefish. Quite genius, because the flavour of the cuttlefish also echoed the flavour of hum (cockles) that would normally be in char kway teow. Every element came together perfectly to form a truly char kway teow flavoured dish, even down to the lard bits. Very well thought out dish.

Next up was an uni laksa risotto. I think this has evolved from Wild Rocket's early days of laksa pesto spaghetti. The laksa flavour is much more refined, and all the elements that make up a good laksa are perfectly balanced.

The crab cake, comprising both spanner crab and blue swimmer crab, on a bed of salted egg yolk sauce was probably the most predictable dish of the evening, but nonetheless still very tasty. 

When Chef presented the next dish, he said it was home made green curry served with beef. The texture of the meat was excellent. There's a surprise to this dish, but I'll hold my tongue so that I don't spoil it for others. 

The Singapore fried noodle dish was a hokkien mee, with a wonderfully cooked prawn on top of angel hair pasta cooked with an intense prawn stock.

We were still a bit hungry (greedy), so they added an extra dish - Iberico pork char siew with quinoa and preserved vegetable. And because Chef usually has his char siew with rice, it was served with Vietnamese rice paper. 

After a palate-cleansing guava sorbet, dessert was a riff on mango sticky rice, with the mango and sweet coconut rice served inside a chocolate tart shell. Again, a really well-balanced dish.

This was a really fun, playful and unpredictable dinner. We'll definitely make it a point to come here more often, so although they're more than deserving of at least one star, part of me is actually glad that they're not in the guide. Then it won't be overrun with starchasers who won't appreciate a good meal if you hit them on the head with it. Hmph.

A says:

Best meal I've had in a while. So inventive.