Satsuma Shochu Dining Bar, Laurent's Cafe & Chocolate Bar

an early day due to afternoon chemical patho lectures being cancelled (which must be due to the dismal attendance the past few days) and not like it matters anyway since we have been self declaring our holidays, Kelly, Jason and Michelle found ourselves in the lazy area of robertson quay when michelle suggested this place for value lunches... well it could have been super value if one of us had the amex card - its 1-for-1 with a minimum of 4 diners..
satsuma is in this cute circular structure so we sat in the core of this structure in our very own little booth..great for privacy - not like it matters, seeing how we were the only diners around and besides the echo and all that our laughs will still be deafening nontheless..

Salad Bowl, $4

something extremely healthy to keep away the pangs, we liked the brown bean paste dip very very much..the carrot sticks tasted very good with it. This comes when you are seated, so if you hate raw vegetables you better tell them otherwise you'd be charged for nothing..

Spicy Cod Roe Spaghetti, $12

Michelle and i shared this. We didn't think it was that great cos the pasta was a little overdone and hence soggy from all the cream. This dish made me miss the cappelini from Iggy's (a different genre altogether but somehow i thought of that) and michelle was reminded of the version at waruku which she feels is on par with this.. This is the only dish we ordered that wasn't a lunch set, the following few are, and comes with a lime sorbet.

Sashimi Bowl, $18

okay, now this dish makes me miss the chiraishi don at wasabi tei alot! i always have the compulsion to order the chiraishis from the jap restaurants i first try out..the sashimi was acceptably fresh i suppose, though i feel it is not as fresh and firm as the one from wasabi tei..

Oyster Omelette Rice, $13

This was Michelle's. It came piping hot in a hotplate of broth and it tasted as great as it looked! The rice was wrapped in the omelette, and the oyster was huge...the rice was lovely, it was thoroughly flavoured by the oysters and the broth, and the thin layer of omelette was tasty too...

Mixed Grill Rice, $18

This was Kelly's. The very blur waiter got stunned when i asked him what meats were in the mixed grill, and was staring to the high of heavens trying to recall what were the bloody components of this dish. blurr staff in a hotel restaurant!! tsk tsk...he was not only unfamiliar with the menu...he even served our dessert before we were done with our mains! aiyoooh...must send for retraining..

anyway, doesn't this dish look impressive? there's another mixed grill set also but that doesn't have fish, this does. It also has steak, cucumber wrapped in bacon, unagi, chicken ball, and mushrooms. The rice also has some meat floss and mushrooms..i tried abit of the unagi and it was not bad, though abit rubbery. The mushroom i tried was also not bad, reminiscent of Shin Kushiya's mushrooms. She enjoyed her set very much..

Lime Sorbet

This lime sorbet came before we finished eating so we (or rather I) asked to get it served later...so when it finally came (we were damn worried that they'd serve the ever generic watermelon in place of our sorbet cos we were so fussy) we (or rather I) were visibly relieved, and then being even more picky, jason wondered out loud whether the sorbet earlier was of a different colour so again we summoned the waitress who said it was the same flavour just that the other batch melted so they made it again..

okay this was rather refreshing, and leaves the bitter lime taste at the end, something which proves they used the real fruit instead of some flavouring. I'm not a fan of citrus fruits (especially oranges) so I really couldnt tahan the sourness of this sorbet... and yes i do not like watermelons...japanese restaurants should stop serving it at the end of the meals and come up with something more originial like this sorbet! This comes with the lunch set.

I like the architecture of the gallery hotel...oh this place is really really charming, the whole geometrical asymmetry and colour derangements of gallery hotel, the lovely apartments by the river along the pierside, and all the good eats around here...da mario's pizzeria is round the corner, and so is epicurious and brasserie wolf, I shall frequent these eateries more and pop into the cafes and chill out with a cuppa...

and cos of michelle's intense craving for her souffle, we moved onto Laurent's Chocolate cafe..the chocolatey aroma was strong man though we became immune to it after awhile..(when we were arguing which senses were the most important to us - and jason commented 70 % of the pleasure of eating comes from the smell )

the famous no photo taking policy stands, and these photos were the hard work of using magazine covers to shield our very indiscrete photo-taking action...the staff will oblige if you want them to take group photos though..

Chocolate Tart, $6.80

This was really really good! the dark chocolate layer and i suspect the middle layer is milk chocolate with hazelnut, and the base is this hard-flaked biscuit crust which I really really liked. The favourite of us 3 who shared this.

Flourless Chocolate cake

This was quite light, I still prefer dense and fudgey cakes better. Nonetheless, it was good if you like your chocolate cakes not creamy. That's cream next to the cake.

Chocolate Souffle, $15

a 30 minutes for this one (and the run to put extra parking coupons) was well worth it , i think this is the best souffle i've ever ever tried. It was huge (much bigger than iggy's) and the crust was fantastically crispy, and the inside was soft and super chocolatey. There's a mini jug of hot melted chocolate and raspberry sorbet accompanying it. I'm going to try the other souffles in the list, in particular the rum and raisin one.

This place is the perfect place to chill out with a book and just soak in the lovely scent of the chocolate and the lazy ambience...im reminded of the royce chocolates- cookies and cream coffee thing we did at pacific coffee, short =)

and amongst the things we talked about, the dream of creating a stoma where nothing we eat ever gets stored unnecessarily, marriage being slavery thats made to seem civilised, babies being parasites zapping up all our nutrients and money and resources (it doesn't count functioning as a stoma especially with its saliva circulating all around hahahahaha) got us in fits.... we terrorised jason with our cynical ideas and tried to educate him about the reality of relationships...wake up, jason!

we passed by this place and i thought of you, Chiara!

Ice-cream Mochi, $2 each

while the sleepys left for home, kelly and i continued our gastronomic adventure...we popped by Beard Papa at the basement of Takashimaya for their Ice cream Mochi. This time we tried the Chocolate coconut flavour (which taste like frozen Kueh) and the Sakura flavour (which is just like sugar dusted mochi encapsulating the vanilla icecream ie nothing sensational)

we preferred the other 2 flavours we tried previously..the chocolate peanut butter and the white chocolate raspberry ones, which I'd blog about later.

We went to catch Vicy Cristina Barcelona, armed with our usual extra large popcorn ($7) from Cineleisure. The popcorn was quite warm and nicely sugar coated! and the show was not bad as well, the scenery of spain was gorgeous and woody allen did a great job showing how the relationships become more and more entangled and how new relationships do change the dynamics of the existing ones, making you rethink whether you are really contented with what you have...fulfillment and contentment are just both relative states of mind, don't you think? just like discovering new restaurants, you think you might have found the one but no, there's definitely more to try, more to surprise, more to amaze the insatiable taste buds!

Champagne Grapes

We found this at the basement of Takashimaya at the exit point of Cold Storage and oh boy these grapes were fantastic! they are from korea. the skin peels off when you bite into it and the gummy like insides emerge, this was great if not for the irrititaing seeds in the middle...i bought 2 bunches of this for $10, each packet is otherwise $6.50. it doesn't get packaged by weight though, its actually by the bunch, so you'd have to choose carefully.

Satsuma Shochu Dining Bar 1 Nanson Road #01-10 / #02-10 The Gallery Hotel

Laurent's Cafe & Chocolate Bar 80 Mohamed Sultan Road #01-11 The Pier @ Robertson