& our new favourite burger joint is.....

By now everyone must know the new fancy burger joint in town: &Made. Opened by a Chef Bruno Menard and his partners, it is located on the ground floor of Pacific Plaza along Scotts Road. Bruno Menard was the chef at L'Osier where we had our best ever non-Japanese meal in Tokyo, and we felt really sad when L'Osier closed down when the building it was in, the Shiseido Building, closed down for major renovations. Fortunately for us and other foodies in Singapore, Chef Bruno decided to take his sabbatical in Singapore, and ended up opening a burger joint here, and is rumoured to be setting out a few more casual eateries in Singapore. 

&Made is a play on the words "hand made" which are how its burgers are done here (the French and people in some parts of England cannot pronounce the letter "H"). It is a bright, quirky and fun diner which has a menu consisting of burgers, shakes, toasted sandwiches (called toastees) and desserts. The waiters genuinely looked happy to be working there and were very friendly, although during peak hours they were short-staffed and the food took a while to get to us.

No burger meal is ever complete without a milkshake and the chocolate shake here was classic. We also tried the banana and honey shake but we much preferred the chocolate one as the banana shake was not milky enough and tasted a bit thin.

Our favourite was the classic aged beef burger and comte cheese. The beef was aged to perfection and the exotic comte cheese was a sophisticated twist to the usual cheese found in other burgers. Add to that, the buns were light and fluffy. This was the kind of burger which you had to eat with your hands, and would cause all kinds of mess as the juices and sauce would ooze out when you chomp on it. It was probably the best burger we'd had in Singapore. The fries were ordinary and slightly anaemic (we preferred the fries at DeBurg).

We also tried the 'three little pigs' which was essentially a pork burger. It was not bad but we felt that it would be waste to come here and have anything other than the beef burger.

The 'healthy' option was the toast of whole wheat bread and a side of salad, which to be honest wasn't all that good. But then why bother to go to a burger joint if you want to eat healthily?

This applies to the salad as well. It wasn't too bad but in hindsight we didn't really see the point in it (we should have saved space for another beef burger or more dessert).

One of the highlights was the dessert. This was no ordinary burger joint where dessert consisted of a scoop of ice cream or if you were lucky, a waffle with a scoop of ice cream (though they did have a few flavours of ice cream in the menu). The caramel lava cake here was really to die for.

Chef Bruno is rumoured to be opening up another eatery in the Central Business District, within walking distance from my office. We'll be looking forward to his new place when it opens.

&Made

Ground Floor, Pacific Plaza

Tel: +65 6732 9808 (no reservations taken)

www.andmade.sg

A weekend in Seoul (Part II)

On a Sunday morning, we decided to visit Samcheong-dong, at the northern part of the city, which was famed for its cafes, art galleries as well as the "hanok" (old traditional houses) on the hilltop (at Bukchon). It was really quiet and pleasant early on a Sunday, and a stroll through the Bukchon area was soothing and contemplative. Over the old rooftops, the large skyscrapers of the city could be seen not far in the distance, which brought into stark contrast the old and new in Seoul.

We stumbled upon a delightful cafe, Slow Garden, which was located almost at the end of the tourist strip of Samcheong-dong. It was interesting to find an country-side American lodge-style diner in the midst of the old part of the city.

This was essentially a breakfast place and had great waffles and eggs. This is where we had our breakfast for the day in a very relaxed environment.

At lunch, we ate at SoSeongJae, which was excellent Korean 'kaiseki', and continued to walk up and down the main Samchongdong street window shopping while the crowd started coming in. From a sleepy and leafy neighbourhood in the morning, the area turned into a bustling place in the afternoon, full of tourists and locals alike.

We sought out a cafe which we had read about, W.e. Cafe, which is just off the main street. 

This place specialised in flavoured lattes and dessert. The vanilla and pumpkin lattes we had were delicious but halfway through started to be very filling (perhaps as we had just had a large lunch).

The banana hotcakes we had were very good. The bananas were grilled to a nice smokiness and the hotcakes were fluffy without being too starchy.

The next day, we explored the Agpujeong area in Gangnam (south of the river, on the side where our hotel was). This area is an upscale neighbourhood with many restaurants and high-end boutiques. It is also sprouting with chic cafes and small dessert shops. We had come here for dinner at the impressive Jungsik (which was tucked in one of the small narrow streets) the previous night.

When we arrived here, the first place we looked for was a renowed 'Galbi' restaurant in Cheongdam (the area adjacent to Agpujeong-dong), called Pakdaemamne. It's address was listed as 124-3 Cheongdam-dong at Cheongdam intersection, which sounded easy enough to find. In the end we ended up walking around for almost an hour, asking for directions unsuccessfully going through all the narrow alleys in and around the area, before making one full circle, ending up where we started and giving up our search. At this point, after we had just given up, a passerby who we asked for help for one last time pointed up to the second floor of a shophouse right in front of where we were standing. There it was. The restaurant was exactly at the spot right along the main road meters away from the Cheongdam intersection where our taxi had dropped us of when we got here! It was the second time on this trip where we had searched for a long time for a restaurant, given up and stumbling upon the place almost immediately after.

This was a traditional Korean BBQ place, where it was floor seating and hot charcoal was placed in the pot on the table when we were seated. Open for 24 hours, it seemed very popular with the locals even during lunch time. Making orders was easy, as the waitress could speak Chinese.

We ordered some wagyu beef which was accompanied by mushrooms, and were served some salads, kimchi and other pickled vegetables.

Each table had a pull down suction hood to take in all the BBQ fumes, which was amazingly effective as the restaurant did not smell smoky despite every table having their own BBQ party. It was a very satisfying lunch.

After lunch, we came across a cafe at the Arario Gallery (serving Paul Bassett coffee), a small art gallery which reminded us of the Whitney Museum in New York. The espresso here was pulled perfectly and it was a nice place to people-watch, as there were the well-heeled tai tais taking a break from their shopping and the arty sorts who were there for the museum.

And at night, we had one last indulgence - a late night 'Galbi' snack at a traditional Korean BBQ house. See Byuk Jib was at 129-10 Chung Dam-dong at the other end of the street from Cheongdam-dong where we were earlier in the day, and was, as we have been told by many of our Korean friends, one of the best 'Galbi' places in Seoul. Good thing they were open for 24 hours then.    

We really went a bit crazy here. Despite having a full dinner earlier in the evening, we ordered plates after plates of the marinated beef rib (which we discovered we liked a lot more than the unmarinated wagyu steaks) as well as other foods like the soup and the fried rice.

We ended up getting curious stares from the locals in neighbouring tables as well as knowing smiles from the waitresses as they watched us woof a tremendous amount of food within a really short time, at midnight. The food, in particular, the beef, was fantastic.

A weekend in Seoul (Part I)

Over the Easter break, we took advantage of the long weekend and travelled to Seoul for a short vacation. Though I'd been there a few times recently for work, this was our first leisure trip to Korea. Having no other agenda than to eat and chill out, we made no plans but spent most of the time walking around and exploring the city's food and leisure scene.

It was the cusp of spring (the weekend when the cherry blossoms bloomed), but the weather was still very cold. Such was the perfect weather for eating, and during the four days we were there, we explored the main tourist areas of the city, with little research done or recommendations given, looking for what people in this city like to eat.

As our first stop, the most obvious area to visit was Myeongdong. This is Seoul's equivalent to Shinjuku (somewhat) and is usually bustling with tourists and local youngsters shopping at the numerous stores, eating at the many different types of restaurants and relaxing at the many cafes.

We were dazzled by the casual food options here, from the street carts serving grilled meats and seafood on skewers to casual restaurants serving anything from traditional Korean cuisine to Korean fast food, to the usual international fast food chains. We started our trek through the masses in Myeongdong by trying out the renowned street food of Seoul. Standing in the open in the freezing cold, it was so satisfying eating a hot freshly grilled meat skewer.

When we came past this sign for 'Dog Cafe' we didn't know if it was for a cafe which was dog-friendly or a cafe which served dog meat!

One of our finds of this trip was the local donut shop called Hara Donuts. They make healthy soy-based donuts and were hence less sweet than normal donuts, but which we found strangely addictive. This was a place we kept coming back to for more during this trip.

The donuts had a texture different from the usual; they were slightly doughy and quite dense. There were several different flavours but my favourite was still the plain Hara donuts, as they tasted healthy and I didn't feel so guilty gorging on them.

Ironically, right next to the healthy donut shop was the supremely unhealthy Korean fried chicken store.

We weren't sure if this was a good restaurant or not but the sight of the oily and crispy looking chicken through the shop window was enough to tempt us in.

We'd normally avoid such unhealthy food like deep friend chicken but our excuse this time was that we were in a foreign land and should try the local delicacies! This went down very well with a jug of beer.

To prevent us from ordering even more deep fried chicken, we tried filling ourselves up with some Korean omelette as well.

Another Korean dish we wanted to try was the Samgyetang (chicken ginseng soup). We found a place along one of the quieter alleys in the heart of Myeongdong which we had read about online (the address system in Seoul is alien to us and we ended up making several rounds looking for the place according to its address only to give up after half an hour and then accidentally stumble upon it almost immediately after).

I never liked Korean picked vegetables like Kimchi but somehow in Korea they tasted really nice. Perhaps in the bitterly cold weather and with a bottle of Shoju, they somehow tasted much better.

The chicken ginseng soup itself was very clear and refreshing and the black chicken was tender, but perhaps because of our high expectations we felt disappointed, as the soup did not have much ginseng flavour and hence the soup tasted a bit flat. There wasn't much ginseng in the soup and it tasted more like a normal chicken soup with some sprinkling of ginseng in it rather than a ginseng soup. We were not sure if this was the style of Korean chicken ginseng soup or if it was something particular to this restaurant.

After dinner, our next stop was for a coffee and some dessert. We came upon an interesting looking cupcake cafe, Cafe GoodOvening, which was along a main shopping street, on the second food.

Settling down at a table by a window, with a cup of coffee and a cupcake, we watched the world go by below us on a typically busy evening in Myeongdong.