I LOVE LOVE LOVE food and trying out eateries is my favourite weekend activity. So, I've decided that I will blog about the eating places I go to if I do happen to find a good one :)
This restaurant I am going to blog about was introduced to me by my sis. She had been raving about it ever since she had her company team dinner there and I finally gave it a try on a Friday night.
The Naked Finn
41 Malan Road, Gillman Barracks, Singapore 109454
T +65 6694 0807
(call after 4pm)
www.nakedfinn.com
Reservations is highly recommended as the place is extremely small. There's only 2 tables inside and 6 tables outside. It is only open for dinner so seats are very limited if you want to sit in the air-conditioned area.
The Naked Finn's menu is very simple, only cocktails and seafood but oh boy, they do it really well!
As the name suggests, the seafood is served "naked". The chef does not use heavy sauces or condiments to hide the freshness of their seafood but instead tries to use simple ingredients to bring out the flavourful-ness of their fresh ingredients. YUM.
There were 3 of us that day and we ordered the set dinner for 2 to share as well as 2 ala carte dishes. IMO, the set dinner for 2 ($128) is more worth it than the set dinner of 1 ($88) as there are more courses. The set for 2 is actually enough for 3 pax. We felt really full at the end of all the courses and we are not small eaters hehe. The set dinner is really worth the price as there's so many kinds of seafood!!!
Free flow bee hoon to fulfill any carbs cravings. The bee hoon is a bit tangy, I believe it's tossed with vinegar or lime juice. It's served chilled like a salad appetizer. Very addictive! Chilled blanched kangkong tossed in freshly-squeezed kalamansi juice and shallot oil is also part of the set but this is very blah compared to the rest of the dishes. You wouldn't expect a seafood place to serve such local dishes like pan-fried bee hoon and kang kong but the bee hoon really goes so well with the rest of the meal.
Ala carte dishes - Diver-caught great Atlantic scallop ceviche and Escargot in butter sauce
The scallop sashimi is very fresh and the escargot so sinful with it being baked in butter.
Set dishes below:
1. Lightly grilled live pod razor clam drizzled with hot shallot oil and fried shallots - this is 1 of the star. (I have 2 top favourite dishes in the set meal, this is 1 of them) the fried shallots are crispy and goes well with the perfectly grilled razor clam. Meat is not too tough or rubbery.
2. Live Japanese littleneck clams boiled in barramundi stock (soup) - the clams are the plumpest I have seen, sis commented that the soup is a bit fishy tasting but I find it quite acceptable
3. Grilled baby Indian squids with sea salt and extra virgin olive oil - this is the other star. This dish changed my view on sea salt forever. I tried my 1st squid without the sea salt and it's very good. But, I dabbed some sea salt on my 2nd squid and zomg, it's mind-blowing. The sea salt brought out the smoky flavour of the grilled squid, food-gasm =p
4. Flambé live giant tiger prawns with white wine and garlic - nothing much to comment on this dish because it just taste like 白灼虾 to me, but it's fresh and good quality.
5. Pan-fried barramundi fillet with sea salt and extra virgin oil - another hot favourite among us. The skin is super crispy but the flesh still remain very moist and melts in your mouth. I dunno how they pan fry the skin but it's just like eating a fish skin cracker haha.
6. Grilled African lobster - by this course, we were already super full haha. We had a 2nd serving of the bee hoon cause it's too addictive. Probably all that carbs filled us up. But of course we still made space for the lobster! Meat is sweet and of the right firmness.
Including the kang kong, there's 7 courses. I will say $128 is reasonable in Singapore context for the quality and quantity of food we got at Naked Finn.
The cocktails are also their specialty. Most of their cocktails are fruit-based, they will use fresh fruits to make sorbet and blend it with various alcohol. I ordered a rockmelon Cointreau concoction ($18) and sis ordered a lychee something ($18). Both were very potent, lots of alcohol added, I like! haha ;)
The cocktails were so good that I cannot resist ordering another one, Kyoho grape with Calpis and vodka ($20). The kyoho grape cocktail taste the best! I had a hard time choosing my drinks cause every one of them sounded so good. They have orange, pink guava, finished with Cointreau and Kronenbourg Blanc ($18), as well as the calamansi- and sour plum-infused syrup with vodka ($18) and tasty mango, orange and rum ($18). I wish I can try all of them!
Kyoho grape cocktail
The restaurant décor - very simplistic as you can see. Similar to a greenhouse concept and they used plastic panes instead of glass walls and the light will reflect off the plastic panes at night. very romantic :)
I will definitely go back again as I read they will change the menu often depending on which items are in season. And also to try the other cocktails that so appeal to me :)))
have been wanting to try Koh grill & sushi bar after seeing all the raves on its' "Shiok Maki". the sushi bar is conveniently located at Wisma Orchard's Food Republic 4th floor, very easy to find.
came twice on Friday evenings and the queue is so long that we gave up the idea of eating here. last Sunday, i dropped by with my sis at 4pm and tadah it's relatively empty, we got a seat immediately :)
we ordered the 2nd generation shiok maki which uses prawn instead of unagi as my sis does not eat the latter. this dish didn't disappoint, i would say it's the star of our meal, the rest of the dishes were pretty forgettable :( as their name goes: "grill and sushi bar", it's best to stick to their skewer and maki items.
they served us the wrong maki initially, gave us the unagi instead of prawn. we didn't realize that until we ate a piece each. told them that they got our order wrong and they changed it to the prawn one for us. glad for their mistake as i managed to try both unagi and prawn =p
the cheese and salmon on top of the shiok maki taste perfect with the fried prawn and mentaiko. they are very generous with the mentaiko and it provides a nice crunch to the maki, yummy. we polished all 8 pieces in no time. i also love the pink ginger that came with the dish. Sushi Tei used to serve pink ginger but they changed it to yellow ginger few years ago, very much prefer the pink one.
shiok maki (unagi) $16.80 for 8 pieces
2nd generation shiok maki (prawn) $16.80 for 8 pieces
very bleah seafood fried rice, it taste decent but nothing wow about it, like zi char fried rice nia haha ($10)
we also ordered some skewers but they look so different from the menu
shitake mushroom ($2) and foie gras ($8). the foie gras picture on the menu looks like a decent kidney-shaped size but it turned out to be just small foie gras cubes lol #feelcheated
oyster wrapped with pork ($4), chicken skin ($2) and pork cheek ($3 or $4), again menu picture looks much nicer =|
chicken wing
these skewers taste decent but again nothing to wow about. can find better skewers at nanbantei or shin kushiya!
but what breaks the meal is the service!!! omg it's bad bad bad. even though it's not crowded, you can hardly get the attention of the staff without waiting for like 5 minutes, they seem to be on a constant disappearing act. they don't bother to bring us our tea, much less refilling our tea and other meal requests.
we asked this particular staff to serve our green tea twice before she did it. when we asked her to refill our tea, she just raised her palm in our face and walked away. she also did that to every customer who's trying to get her attention as she walked down the aisle gua gua gua. best part is she asked us to wait but she never came back at all.
everyone of them looked so bitter like they were being tortured, not a hint of a smile. the ironic thing is there's this slogan on the cashier counter saying "greet customers with a smile always" LOL
maybe i had too high expectations of this place, i just ended up disappointed. the only reason i will go back is for the shiok maki, but then again, queue so long just to eat shiok maki also don't make sense. so i doubt i will be returning a 2nd time. give me itacho anytime!!!
took half day leave on v day as i am still in CNY mood that week and can't bear to work the full day. on my way home after work, i went to fetch the niece from school. it was raining cats and dogs that afternoon and i got a culture shock when i reached the school gate haha.
the small gate was swamped with parents, domestic helpers and grandparents all trying to catch a glimpse of the children. it doesn't help that it's raining and big umbrellas all around. so hard to hear the teacher announcing which classes are coming out now and there's no way one can make it to the front to look for their child without jostling with umbrellas and getting wet. the place was chaotic and after this incident, i am super impressed by my mother who does this on a daily basis, rain or shine.
after 20 mins of waiting, i finally made it to the front to pick up my niece. haha *pat myself on the back* but really lose to those auntie who push and shove. 原来接孩子放学也是一门技术 and we always think stay-at-home mum 很好当。new found respect for them!
bf came over in the afternoon and we went out for dinner and a movie :) he also gave me my prezzie, my 1st chronograph watch! we first saw this watch during our Taiwan holiday last Dec but I did not get it back then. I have this thing for rose gold ever since my tw trip, almost every accessory I bought from tw is rose gold coloured! Happy to add this watch to my collection :)
we went to swatch to alter the straps and also to decide again between black and white face. decided to stick to black face cause easier to match :)
while waiting for the watch to be done, he was saying to me: "no roses for you this year but got rose gold watch, better la hor, this rose won't wilt" haha 死的也给他讲成活的, no wonder he's in sales XD
can’t think of what to buy for him so I made him walk around with me to look for his prezzie but mission failed. We went to esprit but nothing lehhh and ended up taking oftd shot instead haha
Kraviz Dress from LB, Studded Blazer from Megagamie, it was raining that day so the blazer is perfect
dinner was at Chijmes’ SUN Japanese Dining, yummy yummy. he said he decided on this restaurant because of the zodiac prediction we saw at river hongbao a few days ago. the prediction was saying that couples under the rabbit zodiac should go more often to places that they went together before as it will help to 促进感情 for the snakey year, superstitious much? we celebrated v day at SUN 4 years ago in 2009, i guess we still look the same right haha
THEN
NOW
sashimi, king prawn sushi roll, tofu with beef slice, steak with foie gras, hokkaido mini ramen
all the dishes are very nice!!! my favourite is the foie gras, very crispy on the outside. ramen broth is good as well, pork-based! the prawn sushi roll is also comparable to sushi tei's phoenix roll. happy tummy!
dessert time! 4 years ago, we wanted to try the signature tofu cheesecake but we were rushing for a movie and didn't had time for dessert. we keep saying to go back and try the tofu cheesecake but never got down to it. this time, he made sure we reached early and booked a later timing for movie so that we have time for dessert yay~
being greedy, we had 2 dessert, tofu cheesecake and brownie =p sweet ending to the meal!
some of my asos loots came on v day but i returned all of them cause they were impulse purchases before cny haha
1st March UPDATE: i finally found something nice for his belated v day prezzie hehe. he's in vietnam till 3rd Mar so i can only give it to him when he's back. more on that in the next post :)
baby and i celebrated our 7th anniversary on 1st Jan 2013 :)
silly him made this collage using an old pic of us, this was taken at phuket in 2011 while we were riding ATV, i look so cock lol.
countdown the night before at his friend's house, we had a potluck party and a belated xmas gift exchange lol. there were bee hoon, curry chicken, sushi, sashimi, salad, roasted chicken and 12 cupcakes for dessert yum!
the girls played mahjong and watched different countries' countdown on cable tv while the guys played poker.
taipei 101's fireworks rocks! so pretty! maybe i will try counting down there 1 year but our taipei friend told us the crowd is crazy!
played mj till 2am, 1st day of 2013 already lost at mahjong, whattttt haha...
on new year's day, bf and i went for a movie and dinner. watched jackie chan's CZ 12. i kind of like it as it's funny and smooth actions from the man jackie chan himself. worth the PH price ticket!
our oftd shot at the cathay
took this photo and realized we captured the poster behind nicely in the frame haha. very obvious who's the wolf and who's the sheep in our case! 7年前, 小绵羊被色狼骗了 hoo hoo hoo =x
after running some errands at orchard, we went for dinner at chikuwa tei :) ohhh the sashimi heaven!
Chikuwa Tei
9 Mohamed Sultan Road
#01-01
Tel: 6738 9395
Operating Hours
Daily: 11:30 - 15:00
Daily: 18:00 - 22:00
there were no queue as we reached at about 8.30pm. got a seat pretty fast and service was attentive to the point of annoyance lol. it was all good at first as the staff recommended some dishes to us. after ordering, i just want some privacy and quiet moments to chit chat with bf but the waitress keep coming over every few minutes to ask if everything is ok and whether we need anything else. our conversation keep getting interrupted!!! but ok nvm food came next and it made me less annoyed. HEE
the MUST-order sashimi moriwase! consists of salmon, swordfish, tuna and amberjack
each slice is super thick la!
chawanmushi, soft shell crab and mentaiko cod fish. all taste superb! egg and fish was smooth and silky while the soft shell crab is not too oily
yuzu ice cream for dessert! i love anything yuzu *swoons* this was damn refreshing!
will come back again if i am craving for sashimi :) the amberjack is awesome!
Happy 7th anniversary baby! It is not an entirely smooth ride for us to reach where we are hence I am so glad that we made an effort to stay together all these years. Though at times you annoy me so much, but we will still put in effort to work it out. You always give in to me in the end and I am so appreciative of that :)
I tend to not take life too seriously and prefer to be happy-go-lucky and free-spirited, I needed someone who can give me that kind of space and freedom and not be all broody on me. Someone who is adventurous enough, can bring me fun and excitement in life and yet be serious when necessary. You fulfilled all of that. Your sense of humour, your ability to make me laugh, your confidence and your easygoing-ness are some of the things that I love so much in you.
We have a lot of similar interests and yet enough differences to define ourselves in the relationship. You are all that I can ask for.
In 2013, let’s Live. Laugh. Love. together =D
