Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Fish Mart Sakuraya, Seventh Heaven, 2am Dessert Bar

Salmon, Swordfish
My family likes to come to Fish Mart Sakuraya(3 South Buona Vista Road
#02-01 The Village Centre)
for our sashimi fix - whether to dine in or takeaway. There is no service charge here - you select your fish from the many in the fridge (all packaged like in Jap supermarkets and priced based on weight) and they'd slice it up for you and serve it as above - nothing too fancy but the fish is really quite fresh. The swordfish was particularly firm and sweet today.

Yellowtail

This cut was a little too red and tasted quite bloody..

Grilled spicy salmon belly, $6
This was tender and tasty, and not as spicy as the first time I tried it.

Seaweed $2

My family likes this so we had 3 of this. We also had the seasoned scallop but we were too fast for the camera...

Soba, $8

The noodles were good - chewy and the broth was the clear miso soup.
Inari, Tamago, $2 for each
The sweet beancurd here thoroughly wraps the rice like a dumpling skin (not like some places that cut corners) and the tamago average.

Unagi Handroll, $4

They price the unagi here higher than what I'd expect, the eel alone is a whooping $19 for one slab (and it is not huge, we had it the previous time).

Next on my planned itinenary was Seventh Heaven (10 Raeburn Park) cos it was on the way to the Marina Barrage.
Valentine's Day is HELL for all the dessert places (and everywhere else where guys wine and dine girls)..They actually forgot our reservation and had to shift us to make way for a bigger group...big faux pas there but they were so sincerely apologetic (read on about how they made amends =P) about it that we didn't mind.

The service here otherwise is superbly friendly - it feels like a family run place. This place is opened by some young entrepreneurs and they seemed to have roped in their folks to help - there was an old couple who served the tables - drinks, orders, photos (heh). They were extremely pleasant and chatty with their guests.

We had 2 Sampler I menus ($13.90 each) - 3 scoops each. Sampler II menus have flavours decided by the house and is slightly cheaper.

Vanilla, Chocolate Whisky, Butter Pecan
My sister had the French Vanilla almost all to herself and she liked that it was special cos of the spiciness of the French Vanilla. The rest of us seem to gobble through our icecream so we cant really appreciate the plainess and the fine vanilla taste.
Everyone thought the whisky in the Chocolate Whisky was strong. And Shiok. Yup, I guess you get the picture that we like stronger flavours.
I like the Butter Pecan and scotch - buttery smooth and the nutty aroma complements the scotch perfectly.

Coffee Crunch,Baileys, Lychee Martini

My dad liked the coffee crunch - it has these gritty bits of coffee bean in it. Surprisingly, my brother liked the lychee martini - I think Seventh Heaven has the best rendition thus far.

Once again, after sampling so many flavours, the Baileys was quite mild - I guess our taste buds have been more than overwhelmed. My mom prefers the Baileys that Haagan Daaz used to carry.

When my mom was paying up, the young lady then surprised us (or rather we surprised her by leaving so fast) with a chocolate cake that she was baking for us! She asked if we wanted to hang out more cos she was baking a cake for us ... That was really sweet of her - we weren't expecting anything even thought they got our reservations mixed up. Just as well because the two times I was here at Seventh Heaven I didn't try the cake!
The chocolate lava cake is good - you will like it if you like dark chocolate. It is like a souffle - Beneath the crisp top is the warm dark chocolate sauce. There is no hint of sweetness at all - pure cocoa goodness.The scoop of vanilla icecream was huge (i think this is the ala carte serving) and my sister was so happy!
We then went to the Marina Barrage after that and that whole place was jammed even at 1030pm. And there wasn't any traffic police! There were traffic police last Sunday evening when there werent that many cars but tonight there wasn't! It was a tight squeeze and parking was a nightmare. And there were so many families and people and noise that its such a bad idea to bring your date there after dinner. She won't feel very special and private with all that commotion getting in and out and sharing the gorgeous scenery with screaming kids.

Then I hurried to Holland Village to join Michelle, Emily and subsequently a very happy Celene for desserts at 2 am dessert bar(21A Lorong Liput Holland Village) .

Once again the reservations got mixed up but we managed to secure a table (although it wasnt at the bar which we wanted cos we wanted to see our desserts being made) - but they are not as nice as Seventh Heaven giving us an extra dessert.

Plus, the service here was painfully slow - they seemed to have forgotten about us after the arrival of our chocolate tart. Celene came much later but she only missed the first dessert..dessert pictures below are in choronological order (unlike Michelle's where they appear based on how good they tasted). Go to nevertrustascrawnyfoodie.blogspot.com for a better description cos I was sitting far far away from the waiter and I couldnt hear him chant the makings of our dessert. He really described everything from the tiniest morsel and drop of sauce I was quite amused.

Chocolate tart

Warm Tart, Wild Nettle, Salted Caramel, Blood orange Sorbet

We saw them flame the top of the chocolate tart before serving it - warms the chocolate and the fluid dark chocolate was really yummy with the crisp tart pastry!

Cheeesecake Espuma

Sable,Strawberry Powder, Fizzy
Actually we saw this served in the next table and it looked so impressively MASSIVE that we decided to change the order from the Twix (which also looked huge when I saw it online) to this.
The cheese was really light and foamy (actually a little to light for my liking) but delicious with the pastry crumbs.

Deconstructed Strawberry Cheesecake

Smoked white chocolate, Wild strawberry Panna Cotta, Pate de fruit, White Chocolate Rice Crispies, Rose Petal Sorbet


This was our favourite dessert. The cheese was really good, the icecream also had this lovely floral scent. Cel was the lone soul who tried the petals and couldnt taste anything. None of us liked the rice crispies.

Blackberry parfait, lychee air, basil, pine nut cake, lychee rose ice cream

Those blueberry balls were yummy! It was really tasty to eat with the cake and the foam. We were supposed to take a whiff of the thyme in the glass before savouring the dessert but honestly, I couldnt appreciate how it altered the taste. As M mentioned, it prolongs the pleasure simply because it prolongs the process of eating the desserts. Guys will not like this place cos i think the sweets'd be gone in a gobble, before the waiter finishes his chant of the makings of the dessert.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

oh dear, u went to seventh heaven and 2am in one day? your stomach can take it eh? lol

up till now i haven try 2sm, no budget. haha but been wanting to try seventh heaven just that they are a bit out of the way

julie said...

haha yeah, my stomach can take almost anything in any volume...

well...i won't really go back to 2am again cos im not such a big fan of dessert degustation but I like icecream so I won't mind seventh heaven again!

Fen said...

I do miss lychee martini from 7th Heaven... but sad to say, my dining buddy refuse to drop by again due to the location and he is personally not a fan of that category of ice-cream...

As for 2am dessert bar, I recall having difficulty interpreting their menu... Have no clues of what to order but the photos you have posted do look good... are each dessert still priced between 10 to 15 bucks? Indeed an expensive place... Surprise to hear that you are giving 2am a miss... Maybe it might be the same experience as what I had at The Pastry Bar...