Stuff to eat. Mostly around St. Louis.
2am:dessertbar
The "World's 50 Best" awards are a bit of a sham, but seeing that Singaporean Janice Wong had won Best Pastry Chef in 2013 & 2014 had me intrigued. Her restaurant, 2am:dessertbar, is tucked away behind and above a bar in Holland Village. Known for their beautiful, inventive, and delicious desserts, I decided it was something I shouldn't pass up. 2am opens at 3pm and closes at 2am, making it a fun late night stop for a cocktail and treat. Patricia and I opted to go at 4pm on a weekday because we're just that wild.
2am dessert bar Singapore Entrance
From the restaurant's website, I thought it was going to be dark and moody, with spotlights aiming down at the table, creating an air of theater and mystery. Instead, it was like pretty much any other restaurant. Even the music seemed slightly off; I had imagined the kind of music you might hear at a W Hotel would be playing, all helping to create a very cool experience.
With only two other tables taken when we arrived, we had our choice of seats. We ended up at the bar, right where the wall curve upwards.
Reviews of 2am constantly reference terrible service and I will wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. The waiter did everything he could to avoid us, and when we finally got him at our table, it seemed like every request was a chore. I think if we had asked for one more thing (god forbid we want some water), his reaction would have been like this.
2am dessert bar singapore interior
2am dessert bar chefs singapore
2am dessert bar singapore
Service and ambiance aside, we decided we'd get three desserts to split. Aggravatingly, all three were brought out at the same time. If we had ordered two desserts, for one person, I can understand that; but you would think that when two people order three desserts, that they would space it or at least give us a heads up—especially when each dessert has parts that will melt. Instead of a leisurely mid-day meal, we had to scarf down all three desserts in a hurry so we could actually taste them.
2am dessert bar plating singapore
The first dessert was [symple_highlight color="blue"]Purple[/symple_highlight]: purple potato puree, blackberry parfait, fruit leather, lavender marshmallows, fruits of the forest sorbet. It seems like a waste to put so much work into so many elements when it all ends up tasting the same. As the dish melted (very quickly), we both agreed that it all just sort of tasted like a berry sorbet. We tasted no lavender and no purple potato.
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2am dessert bar purple desserts singapore
2am dessert bar singapore purple berry
The [symple_highlight color="blue"]Hojicha Sesame[/symple_highlight] was the highlight of the desserts, namely because of the tofu parfait and hojicha custard. The tofu was dense and creamy, and when paired with the smoky hojicha, it was perfect. The dish should have focused on that and only that.
The right side of the plate had a pear vodka sorbet, what tasted like ginger jellies, and a mushroom crumble. I don't even understand this side of the plate. I didn't think the flavors added anything to the idea of hojicha and sesame, nor did I think they were particularly good. Not only that, but the crumble itself was chewy and stale. The left side of the plate was the best of the day; the right side was the worst.
2am dessert bar hojicha sesame singapore
2am dessert bar hojicha sesame dessert singapore
2am dessert bar hojicha sesame tofu singapore
Our final dessert was [symple_highlight color="blue"]Popcorn[/symple_highlight], a mix of sweet and salty with a very, very tart passionfruit sorbet. Ignoring the stale popcorn (I still don't know if we were supposed to eat it or not—we asked the waiter and he just kind of raised his eyebrows at us), this dish didn't work composed as it was. You had to smash it all up into a mess, melding the flavors together to get it to work.
It did nothing for me. It didn't evoke the taste of popcorn. All it did was taste like salty passionfruit.
2am dessert bar popcorn dessert singapore
2am dessert bar popcorn singapore
2am dessert bar popcorn passionfruit dessert singapore
Like many other people who have gone to 2am:dessertbar, I was hugely disappointed. The desserts are beautiful and complex, but all that work is wasted when it doesn't taste good. It's sort of like this famous Miss America contestant: she looks good, but that's about it. I thought this would be a no-brainer entry into my Best Desserts of 2015 list, but it won't be appearing there. Perhaps the 2am team should take notes from Bob Zugmaier and Sarah Blue about how to make a dessert that's both beautiful and delicious.
Sidney Street Cafe
Let's be real: there are heaps of good-to-great restaurants in St. Louis, but two stand at the top - Gerard Craft's Niche and Kevin Nashan's Sidney Street Cafe. You can argue, but you'd be wrong. If you're looking to impress, seduce, congratulate, or wallow in self pity, these are the places to do it. The dinner you see below was of the congratulatory kind - a dinner to celebrate me! I decided to leave the corporate world and make Whiskey and Soba my full-time job. I have total faith in both Nashan (and Craft), so I'm willing to be more experimental in my ordering at their restaurants. I typically avoid sweetbreads (thymus gland), but Sidney Street found one of my weaknesses: the Vietnamese bahn mi sandwich.
Sidney Street's version put smoked then fried sweetbreads over a sourdough griddle cake, then thinly sliced jalapeños, radishes, cucumber, fermented daikon, and a dill aioli on top. A few springs of cilantro - a bahn mi necessity - made their way on at the end. The sweetbreads were crunchy and delicate, a surprisingly fitting substitution for the typical sliced pork and pork pate. The crunch and smoke gave a meaty element, while the texture inside had that pate-like softness.
The veal dumplings are a menu staple, one that I thought I remembered eating long ago and not caring for. Wrong. These little dumplings pack a punch of flavor mostly thanks to their teriyaki and honey glaze, but the cilantro salsa on top gives it a bright freshness that makes it pop. With each entree comes a soup or salad, and each evening there's a special salad option. My dad opted for the special, which had pickled rhubarb and a chimichurri dressing. I only got a small bite, but the dressing was the herbaceous explosion one would expect from a chimichurri.
How the hell is a chilled pea and mint soup so good? Someone tell me? I feel like people are going to think I'm lying when I say this soup was flat out amazing (or they'll accuse me of secretly working for Nashan, as someone did previously), but I promise you I'm not.
My dad went the healthy route for his entree, ordering steamed halibut over asparagus and a lemon nage, topped with a halibut chicharron salad. Five balls of dirty farro with crawfish lined the plate. The way he hesitantly gave me only a tiny bite of just fish - no asparagus, no farro, no chicarrons - made me think he enjoyed his meal.
I was fortunate enough to get their lamb Wellington, just days before it was removed from the menu. It's a perfect example of Sidney Street taking a classic dish - Beef Wellington - and playfully spinning it into something beautiful and different.
Lamb loin topped with herbs and wrapped in puff pastry is the dish's focal point, flanked by crispy lamb sweetbreads, creamed nettles, and a few drops of some kind of intense lemon puree. The little cauldron on the right side of the dish is a Merguez meatball ragout, a dish so good that I'm salivating just thinking about it again. It's cheesy, it's meaty, it's spicy; it should be an appetizer of its own.
If I went back again tonight, I'd get the grilled quail. The tiny, adorable bird is grilled and served over harissa tossed papas bravas (fried potatoes), charred carrots, and chimichurri. It's a perfect dish for summer with its smoke and char flavors. Oh, vanilla ice cream and a chocolate chip cookie! Wrong. That ice cream is popcorn flavored, and unlike most popcorn ice creams I've had, it doesn't taste like movie theater butter/a popcorn Jelly Belly. It tastes like creamy, delicious popcorn. Get it.Dessert of the year so far for me right here, folks. I typically detest deconstructed dishes. I don't want to order tiramisu only to receive a plate of Dippin' Dots. But this...this was something special. A crumbled piece of moist, wonderful carrot cake is served with shards of crispy ginger meringue, dabs of passion fruit gel, black currants, cheesecake puree (a "holy shit" delicious ingredient), and a carrot-passion fruit sorbet.
Pastry chef Bob Zugmaier and his crew looked at what the rest of the kitchen was doing with entrees and apps, said "let's show them what we can", then dropped the mic with this.
