For us commonfolk, BLU Restaurant is not something that instantly pops into mind when one mentions European/French fine-dining. But it may ring a bell in certain circles given that the fact that it has received top awards from Wine and Dine and Singapore Tatler. Rather surprising was the fact that BLU has garnered a pretty impressive at www.hungrygowhere.com where one reviewer gushed that "Be prepared to be wowed by the weird and the wonderful, to have your palates tickled and teased, but at the end of the day still walk out of the restaurant and feel like you’ve had a pretty good damn meal.". 

More impressive still is the resume of its chef de cuisine, a one Kevin Cherkas, who has worked in three-michellin starred restaurants such as El Bulli and Arzak.   Thus, he comes from the school of 'progressive cooking' with strong influences of molecular gastronomy - think carrot foam, bacon ice cream and sous vide cooking. The highly-acclaimed Cherkas came over from Shangri-La Kuala Lumpur (well done!) to Singapore a few months ago to helm the kitchen at BLU.  A pretty long way to come given his Canadian roots.  In the world of fine dining, a restaurant is defined by the stature of its chef as much as it is by its owner and location.

The service at BLU was excellent, even by fine dining standards.  Waiters make small talk, crack (funny) jokes and are generally attentive.  Decor and atmosphere wise, above average.  There were numerous tables with good view from the 26th storey of the Western part of Singapore.  Cutlery and crockery were of good quality and creatively designed.  I liked that they used tiny stone tiles as a bread plate.  The furniture and panelling though could do with some revamp I felt - a little too tacky and they did not convey a sense of class.  With respect to value for money, well, I paid $400 (ouch!) for everything below plus two glasses of wines (a quarter of the cost!).  Consiering that the food could be customised, I thought it was of decent value.

Without much ado, with a 2006 New Zealand pinot noir on hand, we move on to the food.  There is no menu at this restaurant.  People get to choose what they want to eat.  They can opt for an appetiser, a main and then dessert or they just want mains or they want a starter and five desserts.  But normal people usually do the $139++ six course experience menu.  Cherkas comes to your table and asks what you like or don't like - mainly general items such as beef, fish or foie gras.  No, I doubt you can tell him you want white flour and cai por and expect some haute cuisine chwee kway.  So PY's favourites like escargot, beef and foie gras seemed pretty appropriate for the occasion.  

We start with dessert today for a change.  Our last dish for the night was a plant.  Serious man.  Here it is:

I think they had this plastic 'love' tree custom made.  You might be forgiven in thinking that the brown branches and trunks were chocolate but unfortunately they aren't.  The edible parts are the soil (crushed choc covered coffee beans), the two little green leaves (white choc with green colouring) and the pink blossoms (candy floss).  It was a nice surprise and I was just hooked on popping the coffee beans into my mouth.  Sure beats Super 3-in-1 coffee mix.

One of the highlights for the night was this dessert called "Breakfast" which was recommended by Cherkas:

This is definitely not your typical dessert.  It is served on two pieces of acrylic tiles with a piece of paper in between.  Printed on this sheet of paper is the bacon, beans, sausages and toast you see.  The piece de resistance then is the egg in the centre.  It is a pretty big piece, about twice the size of your regular chicken egg.  So the yolk is made of mango puree encased in an algin-membrane globule.  The whites are made from light coconut cream and the shell of hardened coconut fat.  In the egg and underneath it (to prop it up) is passion fruit sorbet.  It was a refreshing dish, and good given that we had some heavy dishes beforehand.  The amazing thing was the yolk, it gives you the "Wow, how did they do this" feeling and is a very classic technique of El Bulli called spherification where the mango puree is dropped into an algin-water mix to allow a membrane to form.  Even the mango puree's texture was perfect to resemble the physical characteristics of egg yolk.

Before this was what was my favourite dish and one of the most delicious things man must have ever created:

This was a nameless wagyu beef tenderloin Mexican style.  The brown sauce is spicy chocolate and the accompaniment is crispy potatoes in Japanese mayonnaise.  The powdery stuff you see is dehydrated coconut and the lump of red stuff at the top is a very yummy jalapeno chilli sauce.  The yellow thingies are corn polenta.  The potatoes were really amazing - crisp and heavenly with the mayonnaise.  The jalapenos were delectable too.  Yet, what definitely steals the show is the rare cooked wagyu beef.  The meat is nothing like what I've ever tasted and to describe the taste would be a challenge.  Imagine tasting countryside, meadows and farm - beef in its pure essence without the basic beefy smell.  The meat was nicely charred on the outside which gave it some crisp, probably done with a cooking torch.  One drawback of this dish was that it was slightly over complicated and the myriad of flavours did not really meld together.

Before this, was a very yummy sorbet to cleanse the palate:

This was a simple yet delightful amuse bouche (literally means to delight the mouth) between the courses.  It is simply yoghurt with a grape sorbet.  The grape you see there tastes 'spicy' because it has been carbonated.  How? Beats me.  A quick google search reveals this.  Some nifty equipment needed most definitely.

And yet another course, we have:

After all that post modern dishes, we have here a relatively unexciting pan fried foie gras entier.  But no less delicious, the trick is to cook to perfect the little morsel of fat.  A slight twist was the topping of Sichuan peppercorns.  Accompanying this were a cherry reduction and poached cherries together with crushed pistachios.  The last time I had foie gras was eons ago in France, probably in 2007.

Keeping to the creative theme, another wow dish was this parsnip puree with escargot:

Each escargot comes accompanied with a soft coconut meringue and the leaves you see are swiss chards (I think).  The branches are made of parsnip puree and topped with crushed almonds and bread crumbs.  Eating this was almost magical.  I was quite intrigued with the choice of parsnip, it complemented the taste of the cooked snails pretty well.

And finally, our appetiser:

A brie de meaux with a pieces of black truffle in the middle - the kind of thing Abramovich and the Sultan of Brunei eat as snacks.  This dish didn't exactly blow us off our feet and probably the chef wanted to build the dinner into a crescendo starting from a low base.  I felt the pattern thing to be a little unncessary and would have preferred a bit of toast or fruit instead.  The little black blobs and the pattern are balsamic vinegar jus and jelly together with dehydrated coconut.  I mopped everything up with bread and it was yum yum yummy.  Luckily brie is one of PY's favourite cheeses (she doesn't fancy blue cheese) - I couldn't afford to screw up the evening because before this was PY's 'main course':

And to make sure she couldn't say anything but "yes" I got a pair of diamond earrings from Soo Kee's solitaire collection.  So I popped the question, hopefully for the first and last time in my life, using diamonds, a piece of mango cut into an "M" and a piece of watermelon cut into an "E".  In case you were wondering, these were the same two acrylic plates used in the "breakfast" dessert.  So the "Will you marry ?" was drawn onto a piece of paper and placed in between.  I had contacted Cherkas a few days beforehand and he had very willingly obliged to make this evening extra special.  (Incidently, Cherkas told us that he himself had proposed to his beau in Langkawi and was getting married in June!)  For good measure, I told him it was best I get the whole thing over with right from the start otherwise I'd have nothing but butterflies in my stomach the entire night.

In case you're wondering, PY said yes :)

In case you're wondering, what I was served with while the above was served to PY:

 Food 8, Service 9, Atmosphere 7, Value for money 7

BLU Restaurant