Totally lifting this off Ruoxi’s page over at Chi Fun – her review of our evening at Ember when Jeff was in town. Totally delicious meal; and still memorable, even though it was my third trip there.
PS has been raving about ember for a while, so on her third trip to this restaurant, I made it a point to tag along, with Dawn as a late substitute for WW.It is just as well that Dawn’s there because I’ve been meaning to treat her to foie gras for her birthday, and Ember has not one, or two, but 4 different versions on their menu, all pan seared as per my preferences too. The two versions we ended up ordering were devoured in no time, the high quality liver, creamy without any grainy-ness of mediocre foie melting soft, the organ’s unctuousness tempered by the stewed apples and chutnied and spiced pears.
oyster poppers
Of course, one shouldn’t, even if one could, make a meal solely out of foie gras, so we also ordered oyster poppers for an aquatic source of cholesterol, fat oysters lighted battered and tempura-ed, their juices squirting outwards as we bit into them. A series of sauces accompany the oysters but I prefer them naked, with a hint of lemon. The standout appetizer turned out not to be the foie gras, but a spicy pasta dish littered with sakura ebi shrimp, its taste an uncanny proxy for hae bee hiam, many times more refined.
Chilean Seabass
PS is a consummate saleswoman, convincing both PR and Dawn to order her favorite main course, the chilean sea bass. Environmentalists would probably throw a fit on the inclusion of this endangered by overfishing species on Ember’s menu. But we are weak, and choose not to confront the moral dilemma but instead just fully enjoy the fish, its pristine white flesh that simply melts in the mouth (a rather unusual sensation when talking about fish), the creamy bacon infused mushroom ragout providing an added savory dimension to the dish. Bacon appears again tucked amongst a bed of lentils on which my slab of duck confit laid. The duck was cooked a point, a crisped but grease-less exterior that gives with the slightest pressure of the knife to reveal flavorful, juicy meat. A little salty, but very correct, very french.
Rack of lamb
As yummy as my dish was, it suffered after a while from monotony, after which I turned my attentions to P’s lamb chops. P almost always orders lamb when he has the opportunity to, thus it is with good authority that he declares it to be very delicious, particularly when that view was validated by our entire dinner party. What makes it special was the south east asian spices that encrusted the generous portion of pink lamb, imparting a thai inspired flavor and would be what I consider fusion done well. And I just kept swiping the sides off his plate whenever P was not looking, enamored with the caramelized eggplant (only my favorite vegetable) and the more traditional potato gratin, a delicious and sinful side even though it did not necessarily add anything to the dish on a whole.
Compared to the fireworks encountered for the mains, dessert was comparably tame though uniformly executed. The apple tartin and banana tart both possessed buttery and crisp shells, and the lavender ice cream that accompanied the banana tart successfully imparted a restrained note of lavender without tasting like potpourri. It’s possibly the only version of lavender flavored food that I’ve ever tried and actually liked. Last dessert of the night was the ubiquitous molten chocolate cake with a candle for dawn to blow out for her day.
All that, along with a bottle of Cab Sauvignon named “No Regrets” (and not memorable) set us each about $75 poorer, our dinner partially subsidised by a Citibank discount. Not a bad price for a solid meal, and like PS– shall be returning to Ember soon.
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