CRYSTAL CLEAR
So the rallying cry for Wine RVLT, a wine bar in Carpenter Street, is Making Singapore Drink Again.
Did Singapore stop drinking?
Oops.I did not get that memo.
I have known founders Ian Lim, 36, and Alvin Gho, 39, for years, from their previous sommelier jobs. But for some reason, have never been to their 55-seat bar. During lockdown, they sold fantastic do-it-yourself kits for people to make their signature pasta and patty melts at home. I cooked. I was hooked.
So, just after the bar's third birthday, I check out the new menu by chef Sunny Leong, 30, formerly of Corner House. The focus is now decidedly Asian, with some unexpected gems. One of these is Wild Spanner Crab With Dashi Crystal Bread And Caviar ($36, right, above). The bread comes from the fertile imagination of Albert Adria, brother of Ferran, of el Bulli fame. In Singapore, chef Leong uses dashi and starch to make the crystalline, hollow bread. The crab and caviar look like they are sitting on a rectangular block of ice. I take a bite gingerly, expecting the whole thing to fall to pieces all over my dress. It does not.
I am enchanted.
Things only get better. Air-dried Beef Tartare ($30) tells your tastebuds you are in Singapore. It is mixed with ginger and scallion and the acid in the dressing is rice wine. Steak tartare with a chicken rice vibe. I love the paper-thin slices of eringi mushroom on coconut-kaffir flatbread ($22), amped up with onion confit and Comte cheese aged 24 months.
Buckwheat spaghetti ($38) is a little like soba and comes with monkfish liver, smoked Bouchot mussels and caviar. Salty, creamy and briny. The ankimo, however, is elusive.
To stave off food coma, order the perky Calamansi Tart ($16) for dessert.
Put yourself in the hands of either Mr Lim or Mr Gho when deciding what to drink. Or peruse the "wine list", bottles lining the wall of the bar. My friend and I left it to the owners and we were introduced to some capital drops.
My favourites of the night were Little Bastard 2018 ($105) from the Mosel wine region of Germany, with its unexpected fizziness; and Pheasant's Tears Rkatsiteli 2018 ($105), made in the Republic of Georgia and fermented in qvevri, earthenware vessels lined with beeswax, and buried in the ground.
When, I wonder, can we travel again? Can you tell? I have Georgia on my mind. Until we get our wings back, I will rely on Mr Lim and Mr Gho to take me places, in stemless wine glasses.
WHERE: Wine RVLT, 38 Carpenter Street MRT: Clarke Quay TEL: 6909-5709 OPEN: 4 to 10.30pm (Mondays to Fridays), 1 to 10.30pm (Saturdays), closed on Sundays INFO: www.winervlt.sg
I'LL HAVE THE CUBANO
Just when bars in Singapore are putting out more elaborate food menus to keep afloat, Porkypine in Telok Ayer Street is forging ahead with a pared down menu. There is just one thing on it: the Cubano sandwich ($18, right).
The tiny bar at the back of a curry restaurant - there are barely six seats - opened last month. The two guys behind it are Mr Khley Dhillon and Mr Abhishek C. George, both 35, known quantities in the bar scene here.
There is something rough and unpolished about the look of the place. It feels like someone's recreation room and reminds me of the early days of The Spiffy Dapper, which Mr George started.
But there is nothing rough and unpolished about the cocktails (all $18 each). Here, you can have a daiquiri and a Hemingway Daiquiri and see which you prefer. I like the Mezcal Negroni and the Mai Tai is many levels up from the cliche it sometimes is.
Ah, but my friends rave about the Cubano and that is what I am there for. It does not disappoint. Mr George was inspired by the 2014 movie Chef, in which Jon Favreau plays a chef who quits his job in a fine-dining restaurant to sell Cubano sandwiches from a food truck, and reconnects with his son.
It is made with care. You can see the process from your bar-counter seat. The Cuban rolls, made for the bar, are stuffed with ham smoked in-house, roast pork slow cooked for 24 hours, housemade pickled Lebanese cucumbers, mojo sauce, lard mayonnaise and Emmental cheese. Then, the whole thing goes into a huge sandwich press and emerges crisp and singed beautifully in the corners, the cheese melting.
I could jaw on and on about how good it is. But nothing beats rolling up to the bar and saying: "I'll have a Hemingway Daiquiri and one of those Cubanos, please."
And more banana chips with extra salsa picante and mojo salsa too. WHERE: Porkypine, 112 Telok Ayer Street MRT: Telok Ayer TEL: 8874-2606 OPEN: 11am to 3pm, 5pm till late (Tuesdays to Saturdays) INFO: www.facebook.com/ porkypine.sg
SWIRLS AND WHIRLS
Usually, I subscribe to the "go big or go home" school of thought. I like my flavours big, my portions huge, my ambitions outsized.
Not for me the delicate, the fragile, the subtle. Yawn. Please go home and stay there.
Then, I chance upon the smallest, most delicate sandwich cookies, from a home-based food business called Just Julia Homebakes. I make an uncharacteristically small order. I have ordered enough things to know not every heirloom recipe out there is a good one. I look at the pretty Viennese Whirl cookies and feel confident I can eat all 10 at once. They are about the size of a little gem biscuit.
But I have one first, and now I know why they're so tiny. It's to make you want more.
Ms Julia Tan, 31, whose business this is, started it in May 2016, tweaking her grandmother's cookie recipes. Her Coffee & Speculoos Viennese Whirls (from $5 for 10, right) are the bomb. The coffee flavour is intense and this is remarkable, considering she does not use coffee extract to flavour them.
The buttery little cookies are sandwiched with Speculoos butter, which I can do without, but it does make each one a very excellent tea time treat.
Toffeenut Viennese Swirls (from $5 for seven) has the nuts suspended in caramel right smack in the middle of a butter cookie swirl. I marvel at the patience it must take to make these treats.
Ms Tan also offers chunky cookies, brownies and cakes.
Did someone say chunky?
But I have fallen in love with tiny. Who would have thought?
WHERE: Just Julia Homebakes INFO: To order, go to @justjulia.homebakes on Instagram or www.justjulia.sg/coo
BOOZY ICE CREAM
The word of the year must surely be "pivot". People have been doing a lot of that this year.
But I realise that how you view that word depends greatly on how you see the world. Roll your eyes at the mention of it then you're like me, cynical and suspicious of anything remotely earnest. Embrace it enthusiastically, like you do breathing, then, dare I say, you're earnest.
Budding corporate lawyer Liow Xuan Rong, 25, has pivoted from selling dumplings under Dizzy Dumplings to selling boozy ice cream under Dizzy Daisy.
She started the home-based food business because she wanted to re-imagine her favourite cocktails as boozy desserts.
"Personally, I love a good Old Fashioned and I thought it would be really cool to put it into an ice cream, something I enjoy very much as well," she says.
A millennial who loves an Old Fashioned? Intriguing. Perhaps youth is not wasted on the young after all.
Old Fashioned with Cacao Nibs ($12.50 for 300ml, $20 for 500ml) is made with Glenfiddich single malt instead of bourbon.
The cacao nibs are an inspired touch - their bitter edge recall the Angostura bitters that go into the cocktail.
Rose Gin and Yuzu ($12.50 for 300ml, $20 for 500ml), made with Squealing Pig pink gin from New Zealand, is more sunny. The Japanese citrus flavour shines through brightly.
What I want from both flavours is more booze. That is tricky, however. Too much and ice cream does not freeze properly or at all.
I suppose moderation is key.
Are you rolling your eyes or nodding?
WHERE: Dizzy Daisy INFO: To order, go to str.sg/J6B4. Delivery is free for orders $40 and above. Otherwise, there is a $5 fee
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