Looking for Steak? Try "The Steakhouse"

Had a walk around Clark Quay and suddenly feel like eating something nice so i decided to do a search online to check whether there are any good steaks around. (It has been time of the year that i craved for some steak, nice one.)

Going online, and done a search and found saw some recommendations about this restaurant called The Steakhouse and mostly they have some good reviews except one or two where the customers complained of bad service. Anyway i am craving for good steak so what the heck, lets give it a try.

The restaurant has quite a good ambience. I arrived quite early about 6pm, just when they are opening for dinner, so i am the only guest besides another table that is only drinking some beer.

I am brought to a seat, and given a menu to select my steak. There are about 4 or 5 choices of steak and prices are quite reasonable considering that it is a steakhouse with some fine cuts of beef. If you know some steakhouses charge extremely high prices for fine cuts of steak. I ordered a Filet Mignon and Grilled Asparagus.

Filet Mignon is is a steakcut of beef taken from the tenderloin. It is is the most tender cut of beef, and is the most expensive. As it contains less connective tissue, it is the most tender portion of the whole cow.


Food
Filet Mignon (300g) Medium
Medium Filet Mignon with red wine sauce

Presentation:
The steak is served chargrilled and the it is placed together with just some salad and half a tomato. The purpose of such simple presentation is to have the steak piece stand out, which i appreciate. The size is of the 300g steak is slightly smaller than the size of a guy's clenched fist. Since it is a medium raw style that i had ordered, blood can still be seen in the cut steak.

Taste:
The 1st bite into the steak have a slight tinge of blood taste, but subsequent bites of the steak do not taste of any blood. The saltiness of the meat is just nice. It is a wonderful piece of meat i would say. Though there are slight tinge of blood in the meat, there are no blood that flows out during the subsequent cuts of the meat.

The red wine sauce is the perfect sauce that compliments the meat. If you do not like the taste of blood in your mouth, this sauce covers the blood smell easily.

Grilled Asparagus

Presentation:

The asparagus are quite huge but they have cut it into half. There is a pinch of rock salt on the asparagus and also olive oil can be seen at the bottom of the bowl.

Taste:

The asparagus is quite good, and though i am not a big fan of asparagus, i still finished the whole portion of them. It is not overly cooked but has that slighly saltish taste.

The Steakhouse Service attitude

I had seen quite some bad comments on the service attitude. I am served with a lady waitress that dont seem to like me. She couldnt give me much introduction to the portions of the meat that they have on their menu. This lady also told me outright that they do not serve water. What saved the day for their service is that another male waiter served me a glass of water after serving me the steak and asparagus. I guess he sensed that i may have a hard time swallowing the steak without any liquid. Quite a considerate service. I guess it depends on who is serving you.

RatingsFood Presentation: 4/5
Food Taste: 4/5
Service Attitude: 3.5/5
Cleanliness: 4/5
Ambience: 4/5
Value for Money: 3.5/5

The Steakhouse in Clark Quay is a good place for some good steak with a reasonable price. Their service level may be dragged down by some individual but it is definitely a good place to go for some fine steak.

RECOMMENDED

Bistro Petit Salut

Located along the stretch of Chip Bee Garden restaurants, is this french bistro Petit Salut. It just so happen that a friend of mine also went to another Au Petit Salut restaurant but at Demsey Hill on the same day.

Bistro Petit Salut offers authentic French fare, and the restaurant provides both indoor and alfresco dining experience for diners. The environment is rather cosy with warm lightings and is of a contemporary style. There are quite a wide variety of choices for the food. Being a french restaurant, their wine list consist of a huge selection. Wine lovers will be spoilt for choices.


Food
Cold cut platter of smoked speck bacon, pork pâté, duck rillette, pistachio sausage and sliced Parma ham (S$24)

Presentation:
The starter comes with some greens and slightly crushed walnuts. There are simple dashes of olive oil on the plate for decorating the dish. Being in a platter of different kinds of processed meat, I am not totally in the know of what each type of meat that i am eating, though i can guess a few. Though i am not able to tell which is which, this platter overall is a very good starter, the portion is quite huge and almost fill half of my stomach.

Taste:
This is a very strong platter to start with. For people with a light palate, this dish will prove to be too strong a starter. This is especially true for the duck rillette. Most of the meat are smoked and has a slight peppery taste. The parma ham is too salty. After this starter, you may want to rinse your mouth with water to clear your palate for the main course.


Seared onglet beef “Café de Paris” with French fries (S$30)

Presentation:
Onglet beef is also known as the prime cut of beef in english. The Onglet beef comes with french fries, that lies on top of some onions. The sauce is green in colour and it is not that appetising if seen in the bright day light. The medium cooked beef retains the pinkish colour on the inner part of the meat, while the outer part is slightly charred.

Taste:
I had ordered the beef to be medium done. The outer portion is well done but the inner part is still juicy and tender. However as the cut of the meat is not uniform throughout the whole piece, some of the thinner portions were well done. Even though the thinner portions were well-done, the chef done the meat just right, that is the meat is not too tough.
The green sauce, could be their special sauce but overall it is a little too salty. What i can taste from the sauce is mostly pepper, and a little bit of mushroom.
The fries tasted normal, but it is lightly salted.


Floating Island (S$10)
Poached meringue and Crème Anglaise topped with almonds and caramel

Presentation:
Floating Island is simply poached meringue and Crème Anglaise topped with almonds and caramel. Why this dessert is called floating island is because the meringue lies in the center of the plate and surrounding it is the Crème.
Crème Anglaise is a light pouring custard used as a dessert cream or sauce. It is a mix of sugar, egg yolks and hot milk, often flavoured with vanilla. It is also known as English Cream.
The web of solidified caramel put some patterns on the otherwise white meringue and the finishing touches of the almod makes the dessert looks nicely decorated.

Taste:
A lot of times, meringue are taken in the hard form, and it is a totally different texture in this poached cooking method. Meringue has the characteristics of disintegrating and melting in the mouth especially when it touches the tongue. The hard version usually will absorb all the water and disintegrates, making the mouth very dry, but leaves a sweet feeling in the mouth.
If you had taken poached egg before, the poached meringue tastes just like poached egg white (though it is really made from egg whites). When taken alone, without the creme, it is only slightly sweet. However when consumed with the creme, some people might find it a bit too sweet, though i find it still acceptable.
The caramel web add to the extra sweetness but I find that it is only suitable for display purposes as the caramel always sticks to my teeth when it enters the mouth. The almonds gave the dessert a welcome twist to the sweetness of the taste.
I would highly recommend this dessert and i wont hesitate to order it again.


Petit Salut Service Attitude
Considering that this bistro is located in part of Chip Bee garden, the service staff may not be giving full attention to the patrons. Most of the times, the interaction between the staff and the patrons are only when they take the order, and serve the dishes. I feel that the servers should check more on the patrons to ensure that things are going right and more interaction can be made.


Petit Salut Cleanliness
Speck and clean throughout the restaurant. Nothing much can be said.


Ratings
Food Presentation: 3.5/5
Food Taste: 4/5
Service Attitude: 2.5/5
Cleanliness: 4/5
Value for Money: 2.5/5

I would want to go back again to try their other main dishes and also the other desserts. I was also told that their escargots were good. I would be going back for the food and not their service. It is also a good place to hang out, though sometimes the other patrons could be speaking a bit too loudly, especially after they had drank some wines, that you can hear all their conversations.

Changing Appetites

It was after my national fireworks shooting and people were trying to rush home. I wanted to avoid that so i decided to walk around Marina Square area for food. Everywhere was packed with people.

I saw this restaurant with its huge letters "Changing Appetites" and with words "The All American & Dessert Cafe". I like dessert and so decided to give it a try.

Since i am alone, i managed to get a seat very quickly.

The menu looks good and i took some time before being able to decide what i want. The choices were quite a lot with explaination on each one.
Finally, I ordered a Honey Grilled BBQ steak and a Frankenstein Mudpie, both of which were recommended on the menu.

FOOD:
Honey Grilled BBQ Steak:



Presentation:
Nice and quite appetising, there were nachos crackers, onion carrots and cucumber salad, a piece of pineapple on top of the steak, a small cup of bbq sauce and a scoop of mash potatoes.

Taste:
Lets start off with the salad. I skipped the onions as i dont like them. The carrots were hard and cold, but luckily not old, else it would have tasted even more terrible.

The steak is totally bland in taste, even with the sauce on the outer layer fails to cover the bland taste. The bbq sauce porvided did little to add to the taste.
The whole steak is full of veins and i really had a hard time cutting it even with the steak knife provided. With all these veins, I also had a hard time chewing the pieces that i put in my mouth.
The pineapple is one of the best in the whole dish.

The nanchos were those that can be bought from supermarkets, so there isnt anything special except they gave your the bbq sauce which you can dip in.

The scoop of mash potatoes has got 2 layers, the outer layer are the mashed potatoes, which the texture is neither smooth nor coarse. The inner layer contains slim slices of potatoes that gave a different texture. This is either deliberate or they didnt do a clean job. It is also lacking the faint taste of milk.

Frankenstein Mudpie:



Presentation:
The mudpie has oreo on top of the mudpie together with choc sauce dripping down from the side of the mudpie. The small choc dots on the green layer are choc chips which there are plentiful of them. The colour combination together with the dripping dark choc sauce makes it look like a frankenstein. (You will have to use a bit of imagination here).
However what i cannot tolerate is the use a (mee rebus) plastic plate for the dessert, squishing the bottom of the mudpie. Dessert deserves better presentation which can be achieved by using a simple broadbase square plate.

Taste:
The green layer is essentially full of mint flavour and the choc layer is choc ice cream. The choc chips gave a different texture to the ice cream and it is fun pick each one out to crunch on them. The choc sauce and oreo couldn't give much additional flavours to the mudpie. In the mudpie that were 2 pieces of mashmallows which has been compressed and is quite smooth and melts in the mouth.


CA's Service attitude:
CA's service is quite horrendous.

1. Firstly, I was given a discriminating face by the captain when i told him 1 pax at the entrance. Well even though i am just 1 person, i am still a paying one. That doesn't give him the right to give me that kind of face.
   
   
2. Secondly, their own staff are quite impatient to each other. One staff was passing the dish to another and told her the table number but the receiving staff couldn't hear it and asked it again. The tone and face that came out wasn't friendly and it was almost a scream. This happened right in front of me, and this kind of incident should have been kept hidden from the customer.
   
   
3. Thirdly, the moment i put my fork down after eating my dessert, the captain immediately bring me the bill and stood there waiting for me to pay up. What kind of service is this. I have not even wiped my mouth. I told him to come back later without even looking at him.
   

CA's Cleanliness:
I witness this:
One waiter accidentally dropped some clean plastic spoons on the floor. THe next moment, he picked it up and put it back into the drawer. These plastic spoons are for the jar drinks which are on the menu, so i dont think i will be ordering any of that if i were to go back.

Ratings:
Food Presentation: 2.5/5
Food Taste: 2/5
Service: 1/5
Cleanliness: 1.5/5
I am definitely not going back given the type of discriminating service and poor cleanliness. The food is also not exceptionally good. I think my money is better spend elsewhere.