Burpple Beyond Vol. 3


Heya!

Are you ready for a new volume of Burpple Beyond eats? Burpple has been actively adding more and more restaurants to the 1-for-1 scheme so things are really exciting for us diners! 

Here we go!

Shin Minori

#02-08, 88 East Coast Road, Katong Square 423371

Ambience: Shin Minori looks fancy-ish, but it serves more casual Japanese food. It is a order-as-much-as-you-can buffet restaurant.

Comments on Food:

Orders are usually by one piece so don't get a shock when one pathetic piece of sushi or tofu appears at your table as the photos always show more than one piece. We had quite a laugh when one sad stick of skewered food arrived. You can easily key in the number of portions you want.

You can order various handrolls.

Some seared salmon sushi and jellyfish ones. Fried mini crabs in the background.

A sashimi seafood platter, and various maki rolls. 
Sashimi was fresh and satisfying, while a lot of the sushi had cheese in it. Unagi with cheese, crab with cheese, etc. Found it rather strange and it's not really my cup of tea really.

Staff was excellent despite the lunch surge and never ending platters to serve.

After the meal we were served a mango sorbet and a piece of honeydew each. Overall the food quality was okay but not as 'fine' as the decor suggests. Nothing really outstanding, as expected from a buffet. If you're okay with variety over quality, this is it.

Bill came up to about $120 for 4 people, so that's about $30 each.

Reservation by Chope: Yes
Rating: 6.5/10

Glasshouse by DHM

260 Orchard Road, #01-40/#02-03 The Heeren, Singapore (238855) Nearest MRT: Somerset

Ambience: A pretty, modernly furnished spot.

Comments on Food:


Trimmed Entrecote Steak

Ordered a medium rare steak, but it came out closer to medium. The 'legendary' sauce was good though.

And though Glasshouse is known for their steak and fries, the pastas stole the show. 

Pesto Pasta

Truffle Mushroom Pasta

Reservation by Chope: Yes
Rating: 7/10

Amber Ember
730 Upper Serangoon Rd, #01-01, Singapore 534613

Ambience:
The cafe was packed on a weekend afternoon. You might want to pray for your neighbouring tables to not be a rowdy bunch as the seats are pretty close to one another.

Comments on Food:
We ordered Fowl Play (limited edition, supposedly) and Mr Taiko.  Fowl Play was flavourful but a tad dry and Mr Taiko felt like a 99% egg mayo sandwich with a 1% mentaiko flavour. Egg mayo per se has a very distinguished taste that is not easy to complement. Hence, it might not be the best combination after all.



Drinks wise, I really did not expect a cafe to only have “black” or “white” coffee choices, except for McCafe that is. We had the white coffee and an orange lemongrass soda. The coffee was drinkable, nothing fantastic. The orange lemongrass soda was an utter disappointment - I could imagine the preparation to be along the line of “Step 1: Pour plain soda. Step 2: Throw some leaves and hope law of physics can be defied so that the flavours can diffused into the drink in time”.

In all, you are just getting quite a pricey toasted sandwich with Burpple Beyond. Definitely a no-go at its full price.

Rating: 4/10
Reservation by Chope: No

Porta

1 Unity St, Singapore 237983
(Fort Canning MRT, or a short walk from Liang Court)

Ambience: Funky chic, a little fancier than your usual restaurant. We loved the decor and furniture. It's a bit chilly, probably because they share a central AC system with the hotel.

We had date night here! Unfortunately we were seated near a noisy group so that was just bad luck then.

Comments on Food:

You can choose from the 3 course set meal, which comprises of an appetiser, main course and a dessert. Check out their menu here.

We chose the Spicy Salmon Tartare, and Spanish Octopus.



We're accustomed to eating small octopus, like in sushi or Asian dishes. I don't think I have ever eaten such a huge leg before! Flavourful grilled taste, with some chilli sauce things that looks like lao gan ma (but doesn't taste like it, HAHA) on the plate. Smear them all over.


Salmon was refreshing with ingredients like lime, pear, and a crispy seaweed cracker. I ate it like nacho and guacamole - scooped the salmon up and put it on the cracker. Yum!

Main courses were the Duck Ragout and Iberian Pork. You can also choose from steak, burgers, and some other pastas.


Duck ragout - the noodles were like upsized banmian. Haha! With duck meat.
I'm glad it isn't the the thick tomato paste sauce, which I dislike  Instead, fresh tomatoes and Parmesan sauce was used, so you get more of a juicy kind of sauce.


Iberian Pork was gooood! If I recall correctly from a travel show, Iberian pork is special because it has a higher fat content, and the flavour is enhanced as the piggies eat a diet of acorns.

Tomatoes were juicy and delicious too. I love small round fancy tomatoes! There's some mash hidden under all the juicy goodness.

Dessert was the least outstanding in the set course.
Some dessert options were unavailable so we chose the Key Lime meringue with lemongrass/kaffir lime (?) jelly and some sort of pudding custard things.

Not a fan of lemongrass so I only enjoyed the meringue. Otherwise, this had the potential to be a nice way to cleanse your palate.


We also ended up with the Black Forest lava cake, served with the cherries on the side. Not much ooze, nor was it very hot, but still decent nonetheless.


Staff was also very helpful, polite and professional.

If you're looking for a nice quiet meal to mark an occasion, why not Porta? I really enjoyed my experience here.

Rating: 9/10
Reservation by: Chope

We hope you enjoyed this post!

Bon Appetit!
Skye, Rae,Yu Ting, Marshall

Don't miss our previous volumes:

Burpple Beyond Vol 2

Burpple Beyond Vol 1



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