Montrachet
Cuisine: French

http://www.montrachet.com.au

224 Given Terrace
Paddington Q 4064
07 3367 0030

There are some food stalls in Singapore which only open for 2 hours a day sometimes less, if they run out of the ONE scrumptious dish that they sell. But people will still line up for 1 hour outside. They COULD open for longer and make more money since their food is so sought after, yet they don’t seem to want or need more money/more business/more customers. Often the things we want the most are the most difficult to attain or maybe its the challenge that draws us in. Either way these places are so popular when they do open that perhaps they really don’t need more business.

Montrachet falls into this category. This French restaurant has wonderful food for your dinner, so long as you do not wish to eat on a Friday night or on the weekend. But I don’t care, I’ll start my weekends early! I’ll eat out on a school night!

The service was lovely, and our waiter was very friendly. Montrachet is a little restaurant tucked amongst the boutiques of Paddington. We sat outside and enjoyed the cool night air. There were quite a few things on the menu that I was trying to decide between. But in the end we decided unanimously to have the degustation menu (The whole table has to have the degustation). Since we were indulging, why not go all out?

The degustation menu changes, so you will certainly experience different dishes than I had. Be careful not to leave the table if you are expecting another course to come out as your fellow guests may steal your food.

This was our degustation to the best of my recollection.

Prawn wrapped in a thin pastry (filo or spring roll pastry, I can’t remember). You will wonder why there is only one, because its so yummy and you’re hungry you will think you could eat at least 10. But you should know that you have quite a way to go before the end, so just be patient.

Yummy bread! I don’t know why this bread tasted so good, but it did. And you will want to save some of it for the souffle (trust me, you won’t have to wait long).

I can’t remember what this one was. It was delicious and I think a kind of seafood – lobster? crab? prawn? scallop? some combination of those? Fried in a batter. Again I could have eaten 10 of these if there weren’t more courses to come.

Ahhhh the Soufflé aux Crabe et Gruyère. Double baked soufflé with sand crab meat and gruyère cheese finished with a light cream bisque. Magnifique! This is what you have conserved your bread for. To dip in the creamy sauce.

Another fried parcel of goodness. Possibly fish?

Lamb cutlet with an eggplant tart. I loved this. I love lamb, and this was excellent. If you’re lucky like we were, someone on your table doesn’t like eggplant and you can steal their tart.

Cheese! You have a choice between two cheeses. This was the one that wasn’t Roquefort (a blue cheese).

And ahh dessert. The culmination of your evening. You have a choice of two desserts. For us we could choose between an insanely chocolately chocolate torte or what I remember was panna cotta.

The chocolate dessert will melt right in your mouth. But its quite a large slice and so dense and rich that unless you are a crazy chocolate fiend like Yang you probably won’t be able to finish it.

The panna cotta was wonderful. It came with a berry sauce. I could definately eat a whole one of those again. I didn’t get to try their creme brulee. At the start of the evening I considered ordering it in addition to the degustation. But when you near the end you will realise that it is just not possible to eat any more than they have already given you.

But you will come back, you say to yourself. You will return, and the creme brulee will be yours.