Rues of Roo

Two glasses of red wine

I either have too much time, or my priorities are a bit messed up. The fact I’m doing this at 1+am in the morning, a Tuesday morning mind you, is probably a sign of the latter. I feel I have OCD sometimes, and it’s in moments like these (I sing out a song…) that I really think I am more anal than anyone I know (and that’s pretty anal).

Pan-seared duck foie gras with roasted Granny Smith apple mille-feuille crusted with walnuts, fig compote and spiced
glaze of port wine and balsamico

Anyway I could not resist but do the text on these photos. I’m not sure if they look cheesy or tacky, but looking at them again it does come across as somewhat cheap restaurant-y. The sort of design that you’d find in some second rate hotel in the middle of Yorkshire perhaps with undoubtedly good food but a menu designer who grew up in the 1980s during a time when ‘avant garde’ was all the rage. Having said that, I did grow up in the 80s, and I don’t really design food menus or brochures. So if it looks somewhat suspect, forgiveness please. Then again, maybe it’s just that food with any text is bound to look, common, like a menu. And I suppose that is why fine dining restaurants don’t have pictures, otherwise it just looks like Cafe Cartel.

Nevertheless, I ought to say that these food photos are from the restaurant ‘Sage’, or otherwise known as ‘Sage, the restaurant’ (just in case you couldn’t tell), taken there by the special one (not Jose) on the special day. If there’s one thing that I must say without a doubt, it’s that the foie gras was absolutely exquisite. I have never tasted anything better.

The wonderful thing about Sage is that nothing is put on the plate purely out of design. Every piece has a function in your epicurean journey. That’s what really impressed me. Usually when you receive a dish that has a few things sprinkled here and a few items placed there, you tend to pick at the various items individually, and even cumulatively they fail to impact the taste buds on that tongue of yours. Yet the food here demands to be eaten together, and does it work? More than you can imagine. That is why the foie gras worked so well; it wasn’t just foie gras, but sauce and condiments that worked to a better end and complemented so well. The same for the smoked duck (below) and the beef (not present as it looked like a lump of something).

Do check it out. It’s at Robertson Quay.

http://www.sagerestaurants.com.sg/index.php

Applewood smoked magret of duck with savoy cabbage
braised with bacon, salad of slow roasted red beets
and foie gras sauce

(If you’re wondering, yes, the duck was rather bloody…)