Food Picks: Restaurant Fiz, Kuroki and L’Arte Pizza & Focaccia

Soul Food

Restaurant Fiz

There are some restaurants here that could be located anywhere in the world, and there is merit in that. Then there are restaurants that situate you firmly in Singapore. Seroja and Pangium come immediately to mind.

Now, there is also Restaurant Fiz, which opened in June in Tanjong Pagar. Like the other two restaurants, this fine-dining establishment by Malaysian chef Hafizzul Hashim opens diners’ eyes to the rich bounty of this region. His 38-seat restaurant celebrates ingredients and food from Malaysia, Cambodia and Thailand, among other places.

The 40-year-old, whose parents are Malay and English, has been working in restaurants in London, Ho Chi Minh City and Tokyo since he was 18. At JG Tokyo, a Jean-Georges Vongerichten restaurant, he cooked with familiar ingredients: galangal and makrut lime leaves.

That led to him returning to his roots, diving into South-east Asian food and making a compelling case for why it deserves the spotlight.

His food, most of which is cooked in a Josper charcoal oven, is stunning.

Meals cost $288 a person for eight courses. Yes, he uses ingredients such as sea urchin, firefly squid, caviar, blue swimmer crab and botan ebi, but there is also laksa leaf oil – used three times in the meal but managing to taste different, petai or stink beans, torch ginger flower, chayote shoots, ikan kurau and sambal belacan.

This first menu is inspired by his childhood in Lumut, a town in Perak. In a meal that hits all the right notes, two courses stand out.

The first is Favourite Treats At The Night Market, inspired by pasar malam food, and it comes in three parts.

There is a deep-fried oyster served with chive puree, housemade sriracha sauce and bean sprouts two ways – the shoots themselves and ones made into a gel. It is familiar and new at the same time.

Quail is minced by hand and shaped into a meatball, with chicken cartilage adding texture. It is supremely juicy and heady with lemongrass, turmeric, coriander, cumin and fennel. Richness comes from duck fat and basting with coconut milk and an aromatic oil infused with pandan, lemongrass and shallots.

The best part of this trio of pasar malam treats is the huge blood cockle or akagai. It is chargrilled, sliced and topped with macadamia nut and sambal. Oh, the springiness of the shellfish is off the charts.

The main course, A Dinner At My Home, is meant for communal dining. A selection of dishes is served with two kinds of rice – jasmine-scented short grain Adan rice from the Lun Bawang tribe in Sabah, and coconut-infused red, semi-polished Sia rice. Both are dangerously delicious.

To go with it, sea bream aged one week and grilled in the Josper, paired with a knock-your-socks-off sambal tumis.

There is also jungle vegetable curry with fiddlehead ferns, bamboo shoots, maitake mushrooms and tart belimbing. Added oomph comes from smoked beef tripe, beef tendon and slices of beef.

But the elements of this course that move me most, the ones that connect instantly, are the accompaniments.

The water mimosa salad is refreshing, tart, sweet and juicy. Even better are the chargrilled chayote shoots mixed with house fermented black garlic and topped with kerisik. Apart from the vibrant sambal belacan with tiny pickled cucamelons, there is ikan kurau acar, essentially a fish pickle. It is piquant and bright, and so perfect with the rice.

When the restaurant starts serving lunch, I would so love to make a meal out of this course. And I wonder what other vegetables he might unearth.

Haute cuisine that touches the soul is difficult to achieve. Chef Hafizzul shows the way.

Where: 21 Tanjong Pagar Road, 01-01
MRT: Maxwell
Tel: 9679-8021
Open: Tuesdays to Saturdays, 6 to 10pm; closed on Sundays and Mondays
Info:

Clean Burn

Kuroki

Blink and you will miss Kuroki, a 36-seat yakiniku restaurant tucked in a corner on the fifth floor of Paragon. It is a good hiding place from the frenzy of Orchard Road, and the lunch deals are hard to beat on the shopping street.

Lunch sets start at $35 for the Kuroki Tasting Set, with pork belly, pork collar and a choice of pork jowl or chicken thigh that you cook yourself on the smokeless tabletop grill. Opt for the springy jowl. With the meat comes slices of pumpkin, eggplant and mushrooms to grill. Rounding off the set is an appetiser, salad, soup, chawanmushi, rice and ice cream.

But really, yakiniku is all about beef, and the $58 Kuroki Premium Set offers a chef’s choice of four cuts of wagyu. On the day I dine, it is sirloin, short rib, karubi or rib fingers, and a large slice of sirloin. The meat is cut just thick enough so it stays juicy. I usually just drag it across the grill lightly, to make sure I never overcook my beef.

Of course, if all that meat sounds overwhelming, get a donburi. I love the Wagyu Mapo Tofu Don ($15), made with Japanese ingredients. The numbing agent is sansho pepper, which offers a clean burn. A little more heat comes from aromatic shichimi togarashi. There is something very comforting about smooshing the onsen egg into the rice, beef and tofu, and spooning it all up.

Where: 05-03 Paragon Shopping Centre, 290 Orchard Road
MRT: Orchard
Tel: 6339-3383
Open: 11am to 10pm daily; set lunches from 11.30am to 2.30pm
Info:

kuroki.com.sg

Roman Style

L’arte Pizza & Focaccia

When I was last in Rome, I took a cab to Pizzarium just to have the Roman-style pizza that Anthony Bourdain ate on one of the episodes for travel and food show The Layover (2011 to 2013). It was worth the ride and stomach space.

Turns out, I can have Pizza Romana in Singapore too, from L’Arte Pizza & Focaccia in Tanjong Pagar. Better yet, it delivers islandwide via Oddle. Important, seeing as how the restaurant has only about six seats.

The crust is what sets Roman-style pizza apart. It is crisp rather than chewy. The dough, fermented at least 24 hours, is made with ciabatta flour from Italy. There are 14 options, sold by the slice ($6 to $9.50) and in whole pies ($20 to $34).

My picks would be the Bacon Rado, which, aside from the bacon, is also cheesy to the max, with mozzarella, brie, parmesan and ricotta mixed in the truffle cream. Burrata Cheese is simple, but that is why it is good. Big blobs of the creamy cheese, sweet tomatoes and housemade pesto sit on the pie. The other good one is Malanzane, topped with slices of eggplant, parmesan, garlic and chilli flakes.

Pizza options have exploded in the last couple of years, and gone are the days when we were limited to chain-store pizza. I’ll raise a slice to that.

Where: 01-14 Guoco Tower, 5 Wallich Street
MRT: Tanjong Pagar
Tel: 8932-2923
Open: Mondays to Saturdays, 11am to 8pm; closed on Sundays
Info: Order at str.sg/iweJ. Delivery costs $10 with a minimum order of $60, and orders of $100 and up are delivered free