Haute Cuisine

Went for lunch with my mum at LaFite at Shangri-La hotel since my parents had this voucher that offered a complimentary lunch for two. My little bro was supposed to come too, but he had tuition and probably would have starved to death anyway because you need quite an adult palate to enjoy the exotic appetisers.

Appetisers: Unlimited. That's the beauty of the concept, it's buffet style and you can eat as much you like until you die of boredom from eating the same dish three times.

Choice of: Salmon roll, Ahi (?) tuna with spicy mayonnaise, thinly sliced beef with garlic cream, tomato juice/soup, watermelon crumble, duck with asparagus, tomato with feta cheese.

I tried everything except the watermelon crumble and tomato juice. The French have weird tastes. All the stuff had funny-tasting sauces and spices sprinkled on them. Btw, caviar is GROSS. How on earth can it be a delicacy?!

Interlude: Potato and Leek soup. The smell creeped me out.

Main Course: I had the 'Melt-In-The-Mouth' Beef while my mum had 'Citrus Scallops'. The beef was supposedly braised for 48 hours straight in order to achieve maximum tenderness. And you know what? I believe them! It was super tender and tasty, and literally *melted* in the mouth. Since I hate celery, the nice waiter offered to substitute the celeried puree with mashed potato. The beef was served with a generous helping of tasty sauce, tiny French beans and a burnt onion ring on top! Nice touch. However, my mum's scallops came with orzo (a type of Italian pasta that looks like rice) and funny herbs sprinkled all over so she didn't enjoy it much. But I must say the scallops were extremely juicy.

Dessert: Eat from right to left! It consisted of 4 different mini-desserts on a little black tray. Again, the nice waiter agreed to substitute the green-tea cake with the chocolate cup; which consisted of braised banana in warm chocolate served in a tiny white cup and topped of with Oreo sprinklings. Next was a meringue strawberry followed by orange chocolate sticks. Last of all was a sugary-sweet strawberry marshmallow. Followed by a hot cup of capucinno, the day's meal was certainly a fine example of dining in fine French style ala haute cuisine.

PS Sorry there are no photographs! I wanted to bring my cam but I thought it would be very *jakun* to be snapping photographs in the middle of a posh restaurant. But you know what? The lady at the next table was snapping non-stop throughout the meal, Jeez!