PaiGu

I went to Crave with my coworkers last night. The night was fun but the food was kind of hit-and-miss.

As usual, the ambience was dark and moody¹, as was our waitress. For a party our size, she really should have been more amicable if she was thinking about her tip. Not only was she cold and unhelpful, she was rather snotty².

The food took a while to come, but that may have been due to the size of our party (but 1 hour for dessert – really?). To start, I had the smoked duck carpaccio, which was quite lovely. The ground pistachios gave the arugala a nutty taste and some texture, making the otherwise bland greens much more interesting. They were quite liberal in dousing the duck meat in orange-ginger sauce, considering that the meat was already very well marinated, but in between mouthfuls of the greens and the duck meat, it didn’t seem to get in the way of the subtle smokey taste. The peppercorns were a bit strong, although they do give the dish a nice dash of colour.

I chose my entree for its interesting description. “Malibu chicken” was a dish of coconut-crusted chicken breast, with a rum mango pina colada sauce, served with basmati rice, sautéed asparagus, red pepper, red onion and baby corn topped with crispy plantain chips. In the end, the dish did not live up to its description. There’s something wrong when the crispy plantain chips, a finishing garnish, has the best taste of the entire entree. The dish failed for several reasons. The chicken breast was not marinated under the batter, the batter was fried for too long, and it was not sticking to the chicken breast at all. The last is an easy problem to solve for anyone who’s ever made fried chicken or pork. All you have to do to get the batter to stick to the meat is dip the meat in eggs before applying the batter! Surely, the chef at Crave should have been capable of such a simple addition to the recipe. The fact that the batter kept coming off meant that most of the time I was eating the (un-marinated) chicken breast and the (over-fried) batter separately. Not all that enjoyable, as you can imagine.

The sauce was also rather strange. The taste of pina colada was too strong, and quite frankly, a weird combination with the fried chicken breast. Maybe if they put more rum into the sauce, I could’ve overlooked the strange taste, but alas, the combination was simply not right. The sauteed vegetables and asparagus were rather bland, although the basmati rice was surprisingly fragrant. A last, saving characteristic for a wholly unimpressive dish.

To compliment the meal, I had a glass of Wolf Blass Riesling, which was on the dry end for a riesling (probably a 1 on the sugar scale) to my disappointment. It ended up working out nicely though, since the sauce on both the appetizer and the main were sweeter than expected.

For dessert, I had the Crav’in chocolate brownie. Dessert is always my favourite course, and this one certainly satisfied my sugar craving! The chocolate-peanut gelato was just superb, and I loved the whole peanuts hidden throughout (I always love a good crunch). The brownie was very rich and dense, so much so that I couldn’t finish it. But overall, a great way to end the night.

Would I come back? $55 (including tax and tip) for a three-course meal doesn’t exactly scream enticing to me, especially when the main was so disappointing, but maybe for a date if I’m craving (haha) over-priced food.

Rating:

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1. What’s with this trend of poorly lit restaurants? Is it like the more expensive a place is, the darker it should be? [↩]
2. When I asked my coworker what was on the side of his appetizer – something that looked like bacon – she interjected with “It’s panchetta.” “Oh, ok… Wait, I know what that is! That’s bacon!” I swear her nose was pointing to the ceiling when she stalked away. [↩]

I’ve been planning to make this dish for weeks, ever since I bought madras curry, but never got around to it. Unfortunately, I didn’t have coconut milk, which is like a blasphemy when making thai-style curry dishes, but I’m a university student, so give me a break.
Luckily, beef and potatoes is the one thing that tastes good with curry even without coconut milk. And madras curry isn’t that spicy, so I just added sugar instead of coconut to soften the curry taste.
My measurements are never exact so you may have to tweak the numbers a bit.

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Hello everyone,

I am TheSassyChef’s pantry, and let me say, what an honour it is to be invited here today. I am so glad TheSassyChef has finally decided to share her culinary experiences with the World Wide Web, because I was worried for a minute that she might let her food-obsession consume her in her solitary life as a student. But my worrying was for naught it seems.

She asked me to introduce myself today because I am one of her confidants, as they say, and one of the only people in her life who understands how important food is to her. I have seen her through the good, the bad, and the ugly, and my contents hold the secret of her many ups and downs. But today, we’ll only talk about the ups.

As pantries go, I am an undeniably Asian one. I am always stocked with sushi rice, soy sauce, black vinegar, Guilin chili sauce, and sesame oil, and I can only recall one instance when I did not have any cornflour, but TheSassyChef has assured me that will never happen again.

In the past year, I’ve also seen a shift from quintessentially Chinese ingredients, such as black bean sauce and oyster sauce, to Thai and southeast Asian flavours, such as fish sauce, coconut milk, and red curry paste. The most aromatic ingredients are probably the dry Kaffir and Bay leaves, and the rice cooking wine. My favourite ingredient, and her best-kept-secret, is the store-bought peanut satay sauce.

TheSassyChef has also been flirting with the domain of baking, although less successfully. I have had to make room for baking flour, brown sugar, molasses, artificial vanilla flavour, nutmeg, cinnamon, oatmeal, and chocolate chips. I’ve also had to make room for tomato sauce, garlic, and basil for the times TheSassyChef craves pasta (she’s also against store-bought pasta).

TheSassyChef tells me she doesn’t like using pre-made chicken soup base, or artificial flavours like ginger or onion powder when there’s real ginger and onion to be had, but she nonetheless keeps them around all the time. What a lazy hypocrite.

And finally, the newest additions to my collection are sushi ingredients: dry seaweed sheets, rice vinegar, sesame seeds, and Japanese mayonnaise.

So that’s that. Don’t tell her I said this, but personally I don’t think she’s found her place yet in the culinary world. One of these days, my little girl will grow up to be a big and powerful overlord-type chef, or at least an excellent wife, but until then, I’ll encourage her in all her culinary endeavors. I hope you do, too!

Ta ta!

Sincerely,

TheSassyPantry