Au Petit Salut

Au Petit Salut

It was out 5^th wedding anniversary and my husband decided to bring me to somewhere romantic for dinner. Au Petit Salut! An award winning restaurant nestled on a hillock at Harding Road.

Squid

The restaurant boasts extensive selection of duck, beef, lamb, seafood and a fair selection of traditional French desserts as well. Crème Brulee, Souffle, melted Valrhona chocolate and profiteroles are some of the all time favourites.

Pan seared duck foie gras

The restaurant offers both al fresco and indoor setting. The ambience and service of the restaurant is a bit less than a fine-dining restaurant. The restaurant offers both set menu and ala cart. The food was absolutely delicious! I definitely recommend all to have a go at this. But mind you the price tag is quite hefty of about $100 per person if you take a 3 course. Do remember to make a reservation if you don’t want to be disappointed. Enjoy!

Hand-made pasta with lobster tail

Confit duck leg - signature dish

Souffle with chocolate truffle

Address: 40C Harding Road, Singapore 249548

Telephone: (65) 64751976

Special Green Bean Dessert with Gula Melaka & Durian

Green beans with gula melaka & durian

It’s one of those days when you crave for something sweet to eat and I happen to have leftover durian sitting in the fridge.  So I decided to make my special green bean dessert with gula Melaka and durian. This is a recipe passed on from my dad. Yes, you read right. My dad is the cook of the family!! Every member of my dad’s family can cook. They all take over my late grandmother who was a glorious and talented cook. And I guess I took after my dad, the passion and love for cooking. But I must admit that I am not as good as them.

Ready to eat

Nevertheless, this is a fairly simple recipe. My husband said it was good. He’s never tried this before and even suggested that I share this recipe with everyone out there. So that’s what I’m doing now. Hope you all enjoy it as much.

DMZ, Korea

DMZ

It is often said that the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) is the most dangerous place in the world. This is probably because the 4km strip of land that separates the 2 sides of Korea bristles is filled with troops, guard posts, tanks, missile, bunkers, land mines and other tools of destruction.

Mine signs along the journey to DMZ

This is definitely a must place to go. It really is an eye opener of how vast a difference it is between the two countries. To go there, it is only allowed by tour. There are a few things that you can do there. We chose the tour which allowed us to go thru one of the incursion tunnels built secretly by North Korea right to the border of South Korea which was recently discovered. The tunnel is about 5ft height at the most. So if you are taller than that, there will definitely be a lot of bending to do and knocking on the head! You must be wondering what head knocking I’m talking about. Not gonna tell you about it. You can discover it when you are there. As you join the tour you will hear extraordinary stories of what the tour guides have to say. It will probably take about half a day. I highly recommend this.

We were not allowed to take any photos when there. However, we were brought to another side of it where we could take pictures from a distant. Here are some of them:

Photo Line - you are not allowed to take any photos after the yellow line

The view of North Korea taken from the yellow line

Messages left by the South Korean soldiers on the fence

Modern Korean Cuisine, Shinsegae

Shinsegae - Flagshop store, Myeong-dong

Shinsegae is one of the first department store and discount store of Korea. We went to their flagship store in Myeong-dong which is the pride of Shinsegae. The Main Store consists of the “main building”, which is a premium and very first department store of Korea and the other parts, “new building” and “urban style department store”.

You can really go crazy shopping there as you will be spoilt with the vast choices and variety there. It has up to 14 floors!! There is practically everything under the sun for everyone with different interest to shop, eat, relax and even learn. Ranging from beauty salons, Food Market, Women’s Career Fashion, Cosmetics/Accessories, Young wear, Men’s Wear, Men’s Accessories, Kids, Sport, Home Collection, Restaurants even Shinsegae Cultural Hall and Gallery!!

After walking for hours we decided to stop for dinner. We went to the Restaurant Floor which is 10F. The entire floor houses up to 10 different restaurants ranging from Korean, Italian, Chinese, and Japanese to café/bistro style. After looking around, we decided to go with the Modern Korean Cuisine. 

Modern Korean Cuisine Restaurant

Barbequed minced meat

There was quite a variety to the menu and we decided to ask the manager to recommend their specialty. As a result, we ordered barbequed minced meat, and octopus to go with rice. An array of side dishes was provided including radish, kimchi, bean sprouts with sesame oil, “doenjang” (bean paste) soup and salad. The Kimchi was superb. Think we asked for re-fills twice! Haha..

Variety of side dishes

Everything was delicious, especially the barbequed meat which has a fragrant slight burnt charcoal aroma to it. It was slightly sweet and garnished with some crispy stuff at the side. We just couldn’t get enough of it. We want to ask what the side garnish was but the manager and all the waiters were so busy then we finished everything before we could get their attention to ask! Even the octopus was cooked to perfection, spicy and tender. 

Stir fried octopus

I highly recommend this restaurant to those who want to try Korean food for the first time. I reckon that you will definitely fall in love with Korean food thereafter.

Address:

Modern Korean Cruisine

10F, Shinsegae Department Store

53-50 Chungmuro Iga,

Jung-gu, Seoul.

How to get there:

Hoehyeon Station, Subway Line 4 Exit 7

Korean Fried Chicken (Two-Two)

Two-Two Chicken

If you have never tried Korean fried chicken, you have got to try the Two-Two fried chicken joint in Korea. Two-Two is supposedly the original and best Korean fried chicken chain. Once you’ve tried it, you will definitely be back for more. Two-Two, is sometimes called by its Korean transliteration, Dul Dul. They have many outlets around Korea, but we tried the one at Myeong-dong.

They have a few types of fried chicken consisting of a few permutations such as regular fried chicken, fried with sweet garlic sauce, half and half, chicken tenders (for the lazy one) and a few local side dishes. I could not decide on which to try and decided to go with the half and half if the regular fried chicken the sweet garlic sauce.

Fried Chicken - Sweet garlic sauce

Fried Chicken - Regular

The regular fried chicken is surprisingly juicy. Their plain fried chicken with optional sauce for dipping is perfect beer chicken. The crust is delicate, almost not-existent. It was well marinated and had crackling crispy skin and surprisingly not to greasy. The meat was juicy on the inside even for the breast meat. The garlic sauce was actually piquant (sweet, salty, garlicky and tangy). The skin was still crispy and drenched with the sauce. Sesame seed was sprinkled on for the extra fragrance. Overall, we preferred the regular fried chicken. So much so that we actually went back one more time on the last day for lunch! Yum Yum!! 

Price: 26,000W for 2 pax with beer

Location: Locate the Cinema at Myeong Dong metro, cross the main street and look out for Pacific Hotel. The restaurant is just next to it.