Food Picks: Araya’s new and shorter tasting menus for busy diners
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Araya's Picana Asada main course features perfectly seared and smoky wagyu rump.
PHOTO: ARAYA
SINGAPORE – One-Michelin-starred Araya, the 30-seat Chilean restaurant run by chefs Francisco Araya and Fernanda Guerrero, is offering shorter tasting menus at lunch and dinner for the busy diner.
The new four-course Menu Rapido ($80 a person), available for lunch from Wednesdays to Saturdays, starts with chef Guerrero’s Chapalele bread served with two kinds of butter – kelp, and a spicy one spiked with merken, or smoked chilli powder.
A beetroot starter segues into the main course of Cordero, lamb with kelp marmalade and salsa verde. For $12 more, diners can opt to have Picana Asada instead. The restaurant’s terrific grilled wagyu rump cap is perfectly seared and smoky, and sauced with aged Ecuadorian cacao. The main courses come with Chorizo Arroz, Koshihikari rice with the sausage. Chocolates round off the meal.
First-timers might want to go for Taste Of Araya ($168 a person), available for lunch from Wednesdays to Saturdays, and dinner from Tuesdays to Saturdays. This menu offers a bigger sampling of what the chefs have won raves for.
The five-course menu comes with three snacks, including a very intense and silky corn flan; full bread service; two starters, one of which features Hokkaido scallop and botan ebi with leche de tigre or tiger’s milk, a citrusy and perky marinade; that beguiling picana; and the restaurant’s signature Antarctica dessert.
I would trade one of the starters for chef Araya’s empanada. But I can add the wagyu one for $12, and a mushroom one for $10.
Where: 01-08 Mondrian Singapore Duxton, 83 Neil Road
MRT: Tanjong Pagar
Open: Noon to 3pm (Wednesdays to Saturdays), 6 to 11pm (Tuesdays), 6.30 to 11pm (Wednesdays to Saturdays), closed Sundays and Mondays
Tel: 8870-0871
Info: arayarestaurant.com
