Gunther's treats and tea tips from Si Chuan Dou Hua
GUNTHER Hubrechsen seems pretty happy these days. His eponymous restaurant has been open for about eight months now to great response, and the dining room which can fit about 40 people is buzzing every day - partly due to his very good value $38 set lunch. But most of his fans head there for his light take on classical French cooking, and the wonderful things he does to Alaskan king crab and suckling pig.
What he likes best is to conjure up dishes according to the produce he has on hand. That means he doesn't like to stick to the routine of a menu and regularly offers spur of the moment dishes to customers. This penchant for surprise forms the premise for his World Gourmet Summit debut - a carte blanche menu offered just for this week, and for dinner only.
What this means is that you pay your $165++ (or $265++ on April 10 for a special wine-pairing menu) and just wait for chef Hubrechsen to feed you whatever he thinks you will like.
It doesn't mean that he comes up with one carte blanche menu for everybody in the restaurant. Each table will get a different menu, and each diner at the table will get something different from his or her companion.
At a preview tasting, he first whipped out a teaser plate of Spanish jabugo - wafer thin slices of lovely cured ham, followed by a cold, refreshing scallop carpaccio served in its shell, topped with generous truffle shavings and egg confit. The runny egg, earthy truffle and taste-of-the-sea scallops offered a comforting mouth feel with the luxury of truffles.
A delicious warm whole white asparagus was up next, with Hollandaise sauce, Spanish ham and hot fried mushrooms that had a lingering wok hei (heat from the wok) flavour. A server then came to show off a whole Brittany sole, roasted with a rich brown skin - before returning with a thin slice of firm, meaty flesh topped in two ways. One was a fricassee of tomato and mushroom - simple and tasty, and the other a Provencale style topping of herbs, tomatoes and spices that popped with flavour.
A char-grilled wagyu (marble 9) was suitably melt-in-the-mouth, accompanied by an addictive crispy potato wafer and onion confit. Finally, melting soft unctuous bone marrow married well with bouncy shell pasta, truffle servings and a rich sauce.
The meal ended with a light-as-air puff pastry topped with strawberries and chopped almond candy. The puff pastry was wispy thin and feathery light - totally in line with the chef's mantra which seems to be to 'enjoy the flavour, not the quantity'.
True enough, you can eat at Gunther's and not feel so stuffed you have to stagger out of the door - not so good for those who want bang for their buck, but good for those who appreciate clean flavours and consistent quality. You won't get innovative cooking here - and at times it can be somewhat one-dimensional and predictable as you wish he would challenge himself more. But it's not necessarily a bad thing - after all, he still delivers fine food with finesse, and that's saying a fair bit.
AT the World Gourmet Summit this year, Si Chuan Dou Hua Restaurant aims to teach diners the Art of Tea & Cuisine Pairing.
Executive chef Zeng Feng and tea master Zhu Wen Hua have jointly designed a seven-course Celebratory Menu, available from April 7-13 and priced at $148++ per person, so that the teas complement the dishes served.
For example, red robe tea goes best with sweeter food, and appropriately partners an ensemble of scallop, codfish and asparagus topped with honey-glazed sauce. Pu'er tea, which helps soothe tongues touched by too much spice, is a suitable companion to the fiery Sichuan pepper sauce that seasons a choice of wagyu beef or garoupa fillet.
To fully immerse diners in tea culture, the restaurant will also be holding a Feature Activity on April 11 entitled Romancing With Teas, which includes tea appreciation rituals and acrobatic tea-serving displays.
Apart from highlighting the relaxed, relaxing nature of tea culture and promoting the teahouse as an ideal place for socialising and conducting business, the restaurant seeks to demonstrate the intricacies and complexities involved in making a good cup of tea.
Teas from various plantations each have their own distinct taste due to differences in climate and growing environment - aficionados will add that even within the same plantation, tea from the topmost terraces tastes best.
Two or three times each year, the restaurant sends three tea masters to China so that they can carefully select and purchase each season's freshest batches directly from the plantations.
When brewing the tea, its taste will be affected by both water type - Si Chuan Dou Hua only uses mineral water because of the chemicals in tap water - and temperature. While boiling water is right for oolong and red teas, green and white teas favour water at 80-85 degrees Celsius.
It is with the soft-spoken, delicate gravity of the artist that tea master Wen Hua shows BT how to derive the fullest enjoyment from a cup of tea. Smell, see and taste, she instructs.
After an elaborate procedure in which she transfers red robe tea from an aroma cup to a shorter, fatter pin min cup, she inhales deeply the fragrance from the now-empty aroma cup, studies the reddish colour of the drink, and finally takes a sip, taking care to roll the brew around the entirety of her mouth before swallowing.
Admittedly, the subtle nuances of flavour may be lost on a palate of average discernment. Nevertheless, there is in Wen Hua's humble, earnest demeanour a compelling sincerity of craft and ritual, a genuine dedication and expertise, that one can only respect and admire.
Si Chuan Dou Hua
80 Raffles Place, #60-01 UOB Plaza
Tel : 6535-6006
