After dinner drinks at City Spaces

Not to be overly dramatic but our dinner at Jaan was our last meal together for the year of 2008. G was to fly off to India the next day and so we decided to have our post-Christmas, pre-new year celebration before she leaves.

We eventually decided to go to Jaan. After my amazing dining experience at Jaan on my mother's birthday, I knew that under the helm of Chef Andre Chiang, Jaan would be able to offer us a more than satisfactory meal.

Satisfactory is understated.

The dinner we had was way amazing. I must say that the chef has outdone himself.

We each ordered the découverte meal which consisted of five courses excluding the desserts and petit fours.

For me, the meal was almost like a culinary journey, a discovery of food and my senses.

It started off on a high note. The first dish was Brittany lobster in two-ways. The first was minced under a bed of apple-basil tapioca tartine and the second was the claw of the lobster.

This dish was served with a peach ravioli that burst in your mouth complementing with the freshness of the lobster and the sweet and tartness of the apple-basil tartine.


Duo of Brittany lobster, apple-basil tapioca tartine, peach ravioli

The second dish is my personal favourite.
It's a roasted live scallop served on a puree of blue-violet potato and a cigar of wild mushroom.

The freshness and tender scallop that was nicely roasted to give it a slightly smoky flavour. The potato puree was a surprise, a really pleasant surprise because it did justice to the scallop. And the puff pastry cigar of wild mushrooms was simply amazing. The smoky, rich flavours of the mushrooms encased in the buttery rolled up puff pastry completed the dish, just like that.


Roasted giant live scallop with wild mushroom cigar

Our third dish was a consommé . It does seem that in recent months that the consommé has become a perrenial favourite at restaurants tables.

This consommé of kaffir lime and lemongrass has strong hints of Thai-Asian influence. Its lightness in terms of flavour helped cleansed our palate of the rich flavours of the previous two plates. The stone crab salad served on the side of the consommé was also freshening with its focus mainly on the freshness of the seafood.


Kaffir lime and lemongrass consommé with stone-crab tartine

Moving on to the mains, we had black truffle butter spaghetti. This is a fine example of the use of a few, top quality ingredients to create a mouth-watering dish.


Black truffle spaghetti

Next up was the slow roasted lamb fillet with wild rice souffle with cumin-scented pumpkin sauce. While it was a dish done well, I can't help but to feel just a little let down by the sheer fact that the dish was not as exciting as the previous dishes. It marred a little on the conventional side. That aside, this lamb fillet was roasted to the right doneness-medium rare. And I am still a huge fan of his popped wild rice.


Slow-roasted lamb with crispy wild rice souffle 'carbonara' served on cumin-scented pumpkin puree

By the end of the appetisers and mains, both G and I were already on a food high. The remaining desserts, however, continued to surprise our palates and tastebuds. The pre-dessert was a plum granita served with sabayon and julienned green apple slices. The granita really hit the spot with its sourness and tartness.


Pre-dessert

The dessert platter, most of which were vegetable-inspired, sent us on a journey of exploration. We cautiously poked at them. I must say that these may be one of the most interesting platter of dessert that I have tried. The artichoke crème brûlée with tarragon ice cream were amongst the better desserts. I never thought that I would actually like crème brûlée.

Coincidentally, the both of us left the safest for the last- Named 'Snicker 2009', it was the chef's take on the snickers. It was interesting but after the vegetable desserts, it was really no big deal.

Vegetable inspired desserts

I was already brimming with food when we were served our petit fours- Financiers (or friands), chocolate marshmallow, chocolate macaron, raspberry white chocolate and dark chocolate with mint. That really ended our meal on a really sweet note.

After two dinners at Andre Chiang's Jaan, I must say that I'm suitably impressed. This is the next restaurant in Singapore to look out for. Unlike the previous Jaan which tended to err on the traditional side, Jaan under Chef Andre Chiang is really innovative French fine dining at its best.

This isn't surprising given that Chef Andre Chiang has worked under a few top French chefs such as Alain Duccase and Joel Robuchon.

One thing for sure: I'm definitely going back to Jaan soon.