Eats: Degustation at Amuse Restaurant, Perth

While we were visiting family in Perth recently, we had the opportunity to drop by the best restaurant the city has to offer for a belated Valentine dinner celebration.

Making last minute reservation at Amuse wasn't easy. When Hubs's uncle first called to make the reservation on our behalf, he was informed by Amuse that the restaurant is fully booked for February and March and the earliest seating was April! That's how popular they were. Hubs's uncle put us on waitlist, just in case someone cancels. And lady luck was smiling on us! :)) Couple of days later, we got our table at Amuse for the night of 26th February at 630pm! Yay!!!

When we finally got there, I was expecting a swanky, upmarket restaurant. However, Amuse is housed in a single storey house that has been converted into a commercial lot. Its location on Bronte Street in East Perth is very unassuming, looking like its more suited for apartment complex. Amuse on the inside has a minimalist design - simple white chairs with fuss-free wooden tables in walnut and white wall panelling.

Once we were seated, we were presented a sealed envelope which contains the menu of what we are going to eat that night. Amuse presents a 10 course degustation menu at AUD 130 per person with optional wine pairing at AUD 80 per person. When Hubs's uncle made the reservation for us, he had requested a wheat free menu for me. And so I'm really grateful to see that my menu for that night had been specially tailored to my needs. Hubs got an "Omnivorous" menu. Lol! The staff who served us that night was also attentive to check again with us if there's anything that we don't eat before we commence our gastronomic journey that night. :)

This is our first course for the night. On the left: Rosemary flowers, sour cream and blood limes on crisp (which for me was a wheat-free option) and on the right: Carrot, walnut and hyssop

And the third part of our first course: Pumpkin, curry leaf and beurre noisette. Everything on this course is lovely, and we especially love the pumpkin served out of a jar. I took my time to spoon bits by bits and was almost disappointed when I finished the pumpkin.

Next came the bread. Hubs got a sourdough (on the left) while mine was a wheat free bread, served with olive oil and butter. I tasted almond nibs and some spices in mine and I'm so overjoyed to be able to eat bread again after such a long time. Lovely though it was, I didn't stuff myself because I wanna leave a lot of stomach space for the next 9 courses!

 And now to the main courses. Both of us really liked it how the Chef slowly builds up the palate from light to heavier tasting stuff towards the end of the mains. First up is a bit of a salad - Tomato, goats's cheese and tomatillos.

This was followed by Marron, fennel and avocado. Both of us were excited by this dish simply because a day earlier at Araluen Botanic Park, we spotted a lobster-like looking creature, taking up residence in a freshwater pond. My sister-in-law's girlfriend pointed out to us that it was a marron, a freshwater crayfish. As you can see here, there's a tiny marron claw that's cooked while the rest were sashimi style. Can't say which one I liked best, because both were very yummy.

Next up was Egg, mushroom and pine nuts. I gotta say this is probably gets my vote of best dish of the night. It's actually runny eggs with mushrooms, pine nuts and bits of deepfried chicken skin as garnish. To top it off there was a toasted bread (again wheat-free option for mine) stick. Opening the jar was magical. I opened mine first and hence did not know what to expect. As I lift the lid, I was hit by a waft of smokey-flavoured steam, almost like opening up a magical box. Lol! All the ingredient went really together in this dish, especially the chicken skin. Yum! Hubs being the pragmatic, joked that "I can't believe we are eating telur setengah masak!" Well it was an ingeniously done one, methinks.

A fish course was up next - Goldband snapper, beetroot and leek. We both didn't like this dish very much. I personally felt that the texture of the fish was a bit rough. And of course, I don't really fancy beetroot.

The Pork, prawn and popcorn is next. The prawn is fresh and succulent although I didn't particularly like the pork and thought that it was a bit heavy for this dish. The dusting of crushed popcorn added a nice texture to the dish. 

Our final main course was Venison, rustleberries and wattle. When the venison was presented to us, we heard words like berries, and coffee in the explanation and really wondered how all of this would taste in one single dish. And surprisingly, they did really well. The venison was perfectly cooked, and went really well with the rustleberry sauce and coffee wattle crunch.

 Before we started our desserts course, we were served a passionfruit meringue as a palate cleanser. Although tart but it wasn't too sharp to taste and certainly cleanse our palate before the desserts. :)

Our first dessert course was Grapes, coconut and ginger. At first look, we both thought those whitish chunks were pop corn. But actually they were pops of coconut and ginger ice cream. And hidden among them are carbonated grapes. Absolutely clever and fun to eat!

Next up is Pear, pecan and vanilla. Again another amazing feat of a dessert. Everything on this dessert is perfectly done and round up the experience.

And the finale piece, Tisane and treats.  When it was first presented, I was more intrigued by the plates of stones. Cleverly disguised among them are two pieces of white chocolate, shaped and coloured like little pebbles. If you haven't guess which are these, they are the two lighter grey "pebbles" right in the center. The other treats are sugared lemon jelly and sugared blueberries. And with a peppermint tisane to complete that night experience.

In total, Hubs paid AUD 250 for the meal. It has been nothing short of an amazing gastronomic experience. We were served really well by the staff - they took time, including some of the chefs who served us our meals to explain each dish and one can really see Amuse use all Australian produce.

I think Hubs's summed up his experience really well - "Whenever I watch Masterchef, I've always wondered what do the judges mean when they say 'Everything in this dish comes together.'' Certainly that night, we left wondering no more. :)

Catching up with times. Eeek!

In a few days time, we are flying to Perth to witness Hubs's sister's graduation. Of course with it, comes the usual "do you need anything from Malaysia" so that I can get it over the next few days and bring along with us to Perth. One of the pressie that Hubs intend to get for one of his nephew is comics because that's what the boy is into now.

Over the weekend when I was at the malls, I realised the comic scene has evolved. I think... In Popular bookstore, there's a lot of those manga/anime type that's translated into English and Bahasa Malaysia. I just couldn't find any of those thin Marvel comic "magazine".

I decided to try my luck at Borders. When I was there, I realised that they have called them as "Graphic Novels" these days. And the one thing that stood out in all these comics is that they are no longer sold in thin magazine like how they used to be when we were growing up, that one have to buy like 20-30 of these thin magazines in order to complete the series. The Marvel ones that I saw in Borders are at least 0.5 cm thick and certainly felt like the entire series were bound into books. And they weren't cheap. The going price seems to be RM 60 plus but felt more upmarket because they looked like they weren't printed on newspaper type of paper.

Anyway, I haven't buy any, because I wasn't sure if these were what Hubs is intending to buy for his nephew. But at least we know where to get it before we leave.

On a separate note, at a different Borders outlet, I noticed this rather disturbing comic. I didn't look through the content, but the cover itself is a cause for concern. A lot of parents would think nothing much of their children reading comics. After all, it's just drawn cartoons of action figures. But having seen this, I personally feel that as modern parents, one just can't afford to be too laissez faire. I'll just let the picture do the talking.

Now that's what I call customer service!

Just before Christmas last year, while window shopping at Borders @ the Curve, I stumbled across Chef Michael Smith cookbook. Now he is one chef whose show I love to watch. A lot. Because he made cooking looked so simple and easy. And I love how he talked the viewers through, in his easy-going and laid-back manner. And most of all - I love his walk-in pantry. Rows after rows of dried herbs and ingredients that's so easy to look and reach out for. That is my homemaker's ambition - to have a walk-in pantry like that. LOL!

Anyway, since I love his show so much, I also told myself that if Chef Michael ever publish any cookbook that I can easily get my hands on, I'm gonna buy it. So imagine my delight when I saw the cookbook in Borders. But it's all wrapped up in clear plastic. So off I trotted to the service counter and asked for assistance/permission to take a look inside.

The guy who served me, I would say I'm really really impressed by his customer service. He's a Malay chap, really really chatty and with a quirky demeanour to hoot! Come to think of it, his demeanour actually reminded me of Harith Iskandar. So he started asking me who's this chef and la, la, la... And I went into how much I love Chef Michael's show and his walk-in pantry. He also asked me if I'm a serious buyer of the book. I said I would like to take a look before deciding. He opened the wrappers anyway and told me that if I decided not to buy, just leave the book back at the service counter.

After browsing through, I was 50/50 on whether to buy or not. But I guess I fell for the friendly customer service that I received and decided Heck! Just buy it la. When I was paying for the book, again more small talk, and he asked me if I have Borders loyalty card. I said I wasn't sure, went flipping through my purse and his sharp eyes saw it before me and help me to fish it out. And then he made extra care to deactivate any sensors in the book. I mentioned in passing that as I was coming into Border earlier, my shopping may have a sensor that triggered the alarm. He went the extra mile and offered to deactivate it for me. But somehow there wasn't any hidden in my shopping.

He then asked could it be my bag? I didn't think so but handed it over to him to deactivate it. And to my surprise it was my bag. When he handed back my bag to me, I looked thoroughly inside to search for the sensor strip but just cannot find it. It was so weird! Until today. Apparently it was hidden in my purse all this while. 

My thoughts on Chinese New Year 2013

This is a very unusual post about Chinese New Year. Unusual in the sense that I'm not blogging about all the preparations required to usher in CNY. But rather how I feel about CNY this year.

I've been spending a bit of time in Malaysia for the past 3 weeks or so. With all these extra time, I decided to drive back to my hometown in Kluang, Johor to spend some time with my parents. And since it's near CNY, it's also time to go and help them with spring cleaning.

This year's spring cleaning has been rather unusual. Just before I was due back in Kluang, my mother fell really ill. She had high fever consecutively for 3-4 days that refused to subside. By the time I hear about it, it was the night before I was due back in Kluang. My father had decided to check her into the hospital hoping that the doctors could test her for dengue test. The doctors however didn't, because apparently in order to do the test, the patient has to have fever and malaise for 5 days. I was a bit worried because I feared it could be something worse like meningitis.

Anyway, by the time I reach home, my mother seemed to have regain a bit of her strength. Her fever had subsided somewhat. And as the days passed, she was getting better and on the mend. However, a hacking cough plagued her. And for the life of me, I cannot recall an occasion when I was growing up that my mother coughed this bad. In fact, my mother has never cough at all.

And of course with the cough and the fever that she was recovering from, my mother just couldn't pluck enough energy to do major spring cleaning. My father did most of it, while I helped out as much as I could. This is my realisation that my parents are old.

Then there was a funeral that I had to drive both my mother and grandmother to attend in Segamat. My mother's grandaunt had passed away. Visiting the grandaunt's home was a surreal experience for me - seeing it from both child's and adult eyes and remembering of how the house used to look like compared to present time and the pervasive smell of rubber cup lump from memory. And the numerous grand aunts and uncles that I vaguely remember and seeing that one by one they had aged as well. Accompanying them to this funeral, just nailed it deeper into my consciousness that my parents and grandmother are old.

The final affirmation came when I left Kluang last Saturday to come back to KL to catch up on work and wait for Hubs arrival from Jakarta. When I finally exited the highway to turn off to my own home, I felt this familiar yet strange lump of sadness and feelings of homesick. It caught me by surprise. It has been a long time since I felt this way. The last I remember feeling like this was when I was 18 years old and studying in KL. Everytime my sisters and I had to leave Kluang after a semester break, we always felt homesick and can't help to shed a tear or two that we had to go back to KL for our studies.

And that Saturday night, while browsing and viewing some of the annual, schmaltzy CNY festive commercials that place a lot of emphasis of family unity, filial piety and all the works, I came across this video, posted by one of my friends on Facebook. Its title - A letter from Mom and Dad.

Personally, I thought this was THE best infomercial about cherishing one's parents I've seen for this CNY, although I can't really call this a commercial because it isn't. For me, it is a bittersweet explanation, realisation, come-of-age, the dawn of a new awakening, lightbulb moment (call it what you want) for all the experiences that I've encountered the week before. That my parents ARE old. They are NOT getting old.

CNY is upon us in just 3 more sleeps. I wish you who happen to be reading this a very prosperous year and more importantly, a blessed and blissful family reunion and family time ahead.

Eats: Christmas Kaiseki Dinner @ Xenri

I've previously wrote about my first omakase dining experience at Xenri. We were there again over the last Christmas, this time along with my parents to have Christmas eve dinner together. Xenri was running a 4-course kaiseki dinner promotion over Christmas/New Year's which we thought were very affordable for the quality of food, presentation and service over there. It was for RM 80++ per pax and it never fail to impress :)

This was the appetizer - seared diver scallop with purple sea urchin glaze and garnished with basil leaf, black caviar, scented chilli and baby sardine cracker. All of us loved this dish very much. The scallop was fresh and the sea urchin glaze - with creaminess to die for! :)

Our second course appetizer was premium sashimi with a serving of aka ebi (shrimps), yellowtail and fresh oyster. Don't you just love the igloo presentation of this dish? Cute!

For my main, I opted for braised duck whole leg with burdock broth and garnish of wild mushroom, aubergine and fried gobo. My choice was so-so only. Kinda Chinese-y...

... while the rest of my family chose roasted meltique beef with golden sesame mustard gravy, wild mushrooms and brussels sprouts. Me thinks this would have been a better choice.

And finally for dessert, it was chocolate brownies with royal vanilla ice-cream and wine berries...

... and for a little bit extra (I can't recall exactly how much), we also took another choice of dessert which was green tea cheese cake. Between the two, I preferred the green tea cheese cake because it was almost like eating green tea ice cream. There was a layer of red bean paste in between and it didn't feel cheese-y at all.

Overall, very satisfied dinner we all had.

ITC Kuningan and outlet shopping @ Mal Ambassador

Over last year's year-end holiday season, I got introduced to two new shopping destinations. And I really mean SHOPPING DESTINATIONS. They are ITC Kuningan and it's next door neighbour, Mal Ambassador.

All over Jakarta, you have these kinda of local malls called ITC which stands for International Trade Center. These ITC are rather similar to Sg. Wang shopping center in KL, which has a lot of small, independent stores selling clothes, children clothes, shoes, bags, fashion accessories, pirated DVDs, beddings, baby items, batiks, just to name a few.

However the ones in ITC Kuningan/Mal Ambassador stood out. Why? When Hub's childhood friend who was visiting her hubby wanted to go to these places and said that she read off the internet that there are fashion outlets at these places, I was a bit skeptical. ITC? Because so far the ones I've been to before were rather dismal. However, with a sense of adventure, I went along with her and her two kids.

When we reached there, as usual, the ground floor of these places seems to be filled with pirated DVDs. And as always none of us can resist buying them. After the courtesy rounds, we begun to explore. And I'm lost in shopping paradise. See my stashes below. ;p

Some shirts I bought for Hubs

These are for Me!

Unbranded skirt for me again! ;p

Fashion accessories galore!

Hugo shirts for my dad's christmas pressie!

Both these places has quite a fair bit of fashion outlets for adults and children alike, located on the ground floor of ITC Kuningan, and also 1st floor (Premium) and 5th floor (Passport) of Mal Ambassador. According to my friend who bought for her kids, generally they were lots of jeans, dresses and t-shirts in the likes of Guess, Burberry and Gap. For adults, what I've seen are Nike, Burberry, Hugo, Bebe, Superdry, Fred Perry and some H&M.

Some may asked "are these real?" To be honest, I really don't know. But my policy of shopping for these items here in Jakarta or even in Bandung, is to touch/feel and see for myself the texture and quality of the cloth. If they are decent, then I would buy them. And based on my experience so far, they are pretty good quality. Bandung, a neighbouring city has always been known for its outlet shopping. But the journey to which takes 2 hours can stretch up to 5 hours when coming back, especially on Fridays and weekends, due to what else but traffic! Definitely will be back from time to time!

Eats: 5th year anniversary dinner @ Lyon, Mandarin Oriental Jakarta

Well, this has been a weekend of indulgence simply because yesterday was my birthday as well as our 5th wedding anniversary. Hubs and me have not been celebrating our wedding anniversary for the past two years due to work. So I reckon we are making up for lost time of some sort! Hahaha

Hubs did asked me what would I prefer, but I left it to him to decide. And the choice was going French at Lyon in Mandarin Oriental Jakarta. This place came highly recommended by one of Hubs friends and Tripadvisor reviewers seem to have good comments about this place.

I guess no French food ritual is complete without French onion soup and escargot, which were what we ordered for our starters. We were quite surprised that both dishes were served up pretty fast after we made our orders. Maybe because the restaurant was rather empty. Despite the prompt service, the food was good. We were both very happy with our choices. :)

Next up were our mains. I ordered one of their daily specials which was langoustine, scallops with artichoke puree and cepes mushrooms. I loved my dish a lot. The seafood were fresh and delicately balanced by the artichoke puree and mushrooms.

 Hubs chose one of their signature dishes which was the steak au poivre i.e. seared black peppercorns crusted beef tenderloin with cognac cream sauce. The steak was cooked to perfection according to Hubs's choice of doneness i.e. medium. Which only meant one thing - Hubs was a happy camper, because it's not easy to get steaks cook to medium perfection here in Jakarta. I especially like how the steak was crusted with black peppercorn which gave extra flavour to the meat without overpowering it.

Since it's to celebrate our wedding anniversary, we decided to share a sweet instead of having individual choices and also because we were quite full already. Floating Island it was - which was basically bourbon vanilla sauce, caramel and toasted almonds. A tad sweet but otherwise a pretty good choice.

According to Hubs, Lyon is hugely popular for the Saturday brunch promotion which offers something like a 2 hours beer/wine free flow with a buffet of starters and diner's choice of main. We definitely will be back for that!