The last time I had to do any homework was seven months ago. Singapore Restaurant Week was running its Autumn 2022 edition, and The Wife had shortlisted a bumper crop of 10 restaurants for me to rank.
It took me quite a while to review each of the individual menus, weigh their relative pros and cons and identify any unique must-try dishes.
We ended up eating at four places — Aapon for intriguing Bengali cuisine (pink guava soup!), Alegria for Mexican x Filipino fusion, Poisson for seafood and Beirut Grill for a hearty Lebanese lunch.
This time round, 120 restaurants are participating in the Spring 2023 edition, a significant 50% increase from last season. And among them, 32 are taking part for the very first time.
I didn’t want to work so hard and requested The Wife to cut down on her shortlist and, well, keep it short. Thankfully, she managed to restrain herself and handed me a used envelope with six names penciled in on the back.
Like before, I would have to scrutinise each of her painstakingly-selected restaurants and rank them in order of my preference. She will then make the final call as to how many, and which specific ones, we’ll end up visiting.
All meals will be charged to The Wife’s trusty UOB Lady’s Card, which boasts an eyewatering earn rate of 6 airline miles per dollar until Feb 2024. Before you start criticising me for mooching off her hard-earned money, rest assured that I’ll be wiring her the full amount after each bill is settled.
So, in descending order (where #1 is most preferred), here are the six restaurants that made the cut this season.
For easy reference, I’ve also linked each one to their respective menus and, where available, embedded an IG post that includes their handle. Note that the menu URLs only work until 30 Apr 2023, when the current Restaurant Week season ends.
1. Basilico
I’m generally not a big fan of buffets, given that most places struggle with getting the right balance of quality, choice and price. But the compact menu at Basilico looks promising and doesn’t try to be everything to everybody.
We’ve actually been there before, a long long time ago, and have fond memories of their extensive cheese selection. My expectations are high for their “seasonal selection of over 40 artisanal Italian aged cheeses”, and hope that it’s as good as I remember.
2. Griglia Open Fire Italian Kitchen
The idea of sharing a huge Porterhouse steak has always been enticing to us, and we’ve been talking about trying it out sometime. Well, maybe that sometime is finally going to happen and Griglia is going to be the place.
Clocking in at a very respectable 800 grams, we might struggle with finishing it all at one go, but you can be sure that we’ll do our very best. Although, I have to say that their other main dish — an entire grilled turbot — sounds really good too, and we might have a last minute change of heart.
3. Lusitano Restaurant
We’re familiar with Spanish food, and have even visited the country twice. But even though Portugal is just next door to Spain, its cuisine is quite foreign to us. The closest we’ve ever gotten are the tasty pork chop buns in Macau, but I have a feeling that they don’t quite do it justice.
The menu features exotic-sounding dishes like Figados de Galinha, Espaguete ao Molho de Crème de Cogumelos and Lombo de Robalo. Who knows, the meal might be so fantastic that it may even make us put Portugal on our travel bucket list.
4. Akanoya Robatayaki
I had traveled to Tokyo for work 26 times and made it a point to try out all kinds of Japanese cuisine, courtesy of the company’s expense account. But for some reason, I’ve never actually eaten at a robatayaki restaurant before. Ironically, my first time might actually be in Singapore.
We’ve walked past Akanoya Robatayaki along Tanglin Road many times, but it always seemed too upscale (i.e. expensive) to consider stepping in. For Restaurant Week, they’re only offering lunch, but the S$48++/pax price point is quite compelling.
5. Amò
Two things caught my attention when I was going through the menu at Amò. First was the “chorizo glazed Spanish turbot”, offered as one of the two choices of mains for both lunch and dinner. I was thinking that if we decided to stick with the Porterhouse at Griglia, we could make up for missing the turbot by having it here.
Second was that the restaurant is in the same family as Gemma Steakhouse, where we had a delightful lunch a year ago, also during Restaurant Week. The food was delizioso, the ambience was nice and the service was excellent. Chances are good that Amò wouldn’t be too far off.
6. Gyutan-Tan
When it comes to yakiniku, one of my favourites is gyutan, or beef tongue. So, when I realised that Gyutan-Tan specialised in serving that not-so-common cut, I was intrigued. It was like if the late world-renowned food critic, Benjamin Buford Blue, was obsessed about gyutan instead of shrimp:
“Anyway, like I was sayin’, gyutan is the fruit of the land. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. There’s uh, gyutan curry, gyutan sumiyaki, gyutan stew. Pan-fried, deep-fried, stir-fried. There’s gyutan hamburg, gyutan carpaccio, gyutan gyoza, gyutan salad, gyutan spaghetti, gyutan onigiri, gyutan shabu-shabu, gyutan don, gyutan ramen. That- that’s about it.”
Final Decision
Ok, my homework is done! All that’s left is for The Wife to make her final decision and submit the bookings.
Which restaurants will we eventually visit? Will they meet our expectations? For the answers to these questions and more, tune in again next month.
Featured image credit: DiningCity Singapore
