Coucou is a Swiss restaurant at 9 Craig Road with a very cute Swiss interior with cuckoo clocks on the white walls. They are timed differently, so every now and then, there is a cacophony of cuckoo-ing. It also has antlers as lighting (like Gaston in Beauty and the Beast).
For one evening, we felt that we had travelled again and were in Switzerland, which was happiness-inducing. There is very attractive outdoor seating too, though this may be a bit warm at lunchtime, so not as Swiss-like.
The Food
On our visit, we had a half platter of Assiette Valaisanne, a selection of Swiss Cold Cuts and Cheese, and that day’s special, Vitello Tonnato, to start. These went well with the Swiss cider (from apple, pear and quince – $80 for 750ml) that we ordered. Vitello Tonnato is one of our favourite dishes – it is cold, sliced veal covered in a tuna mayonnaise sauce. It sounds like an odd combination, but it works!
We also ordered a Green Salad with “Grand Pere” dressing to go with our starters. The salad costs $8 per person, and a serving for two came in a huge wooden bowl and was more than sufficient for our party of 5. It was a perfect complement to the cold cuts.
Asparagus Special from a previous visit
Malakoff Cheese Dome (also from a previous visit!)
Swiss Fondue
One of the highlights of the meal was our excellent main course – the Fondue Moitié-Moitié – an original Swiss recipe of Gruyère AOP & Vacherin, at $35 per head (minimum 2 persons). A serving for two was enough for five of us as we ordered other mains. The fondue comes in a large cast iron pot which is lit up in front of you so that the cheese mix becomes hot and bubbly, and you dip your bread into it using long fondue forks. You can also add on pickles, potatoes, or vegetables at $5 each to go with the fondue.
“Hot and bubbly” fondue
In addition to this, the other mains we chose were Rösti served with Veal Sausage and Onion Confit ($24) and Rösti Open-Burger with Beef Patty, Melted Swiss Raclette Cheese, Onion and Rucola ($32). Rösti is a typical Swiss dish consisting mainly of shredded potatoes which are sautéed or shallow-fried in a pan until they are a bit crispy. Both dishes were served in a pan and were very well cooked and presented. The veal sausage and beef patties were excellent quality and really tasty.
Rosti open-burger
Veal sausage and onion confit rosti
Dessert
Although we were already quite full, we were tempted by the desserts which we saw at other tables and were glad we ordered them. Without a doubt, the highlight was the Meringue & Double Crème de la Gruyère – Swiss Meringues, Red Fruits, Gruyère Double Cream. This was a large serving and the double cream was really thick and delicious when combined with the fruit and meringues.
Meringue & Double Cream de la Gruyère
Ovaltine Mousse
The Dessert of the Day
Overall: The service at Coucou is efficient and friendly and the food is authentic and of high quality. We thoroughly enjoyed our evening’s visit to Switzerland and will definitely return again soon.
Favourite Dish: Definitely the fondue! A must try.
Price: $$$
P.S. There are also a large variety of wonderful and unusual (in Singapore) Swiss wines and organic cider to choose from.
The Masses, at 85 Beach Road, describes itself as a Franco-Asian restaurant that serves food that Monsieur, Mademoiselle and Ah Ma would love.
What we like most about it is that it has an innovative menu that changes fairly frequently. Other than a few popular staples, there are always new exciting dishes to try! The vibe is casual, with lots of posters, good music in the background (well, good for us 80s music-loving people anyway) and even French-style seating outside on the sidewalk to cater for the evening crowd. Picture the sidewalks of Paris whilst ignoring traffic and the building works along Beach Road.
The ‘Chef’ Menu
Our group were all quite ravenous on the evening we visited, so we each ordered the ‘Chef Menu’ (only available at dinner) which is priced at $65.
This started with homemade bread which included brioche and a very good sourdough, accompanied by umami butter, caramel kaya, truffle butter and miso butter. The bread was good and the spreads were interesting and tasty.
This was followed by a one-bite snack: a choice of either one oyster or one kueh pie tee. The oyster was really fresh, juicy and ours came with a traditional dressing (there was a choice of two dressings), and the kueh pie tee, served on a bed of roasted rice, was delicious too – filled with juicy sweet crabmeat. Both snacks were small and appetising and a good start to the meal.
Kueh Pie Tee
Oyster!
Starter
After the snack, there is a choice of one of three starters: Foie Gras, Escargot or Char Siew Lamb Rib. This was a difficult choice to make as everything appealed to us so we each chose one of each. It was the first time we had tried the foie gras. It was cooked with cocoa nibs, spice and cherries which perfectly complemented the rich taste of the foie gras. This dish is one that we would definitely order again.
“spice and cherries which perfectly complemented the rich taste of the foie gras”
Chef Dylan is good in his combination of East-West flavours and this is evident in the excellent char siew lamb rib – another of the long-lasting items on the menu and obviously a favourite with the diners. We have tried this on previous occasions and it was again cooked to perfection, falling off the bone and not overly fatty, which lamb rib can be. It was served with a delicious lebanese-style mint labneh ( a thick yoghurt).
In addition, the final starter – the escargot, was new on the menu. There was a generous portion of escargot, beautifully presented with chanterelles on a hot plate and topped with a parmesan puff pastry. It was delicious, but a bit too rich and filling for us, as we are more accustomed to the traditional serving of escargot with garlic butter.
Escargot with puff pastry
Our mains
Of the four mains available, we chose the Dover Sole Meuniere and the Galician Striploin. The other mains were pork chop, and croquelet, which we did not try.
The dover sole was quite small, much smaller than the usual ones we see in England, but it was sweet and tasty, and deliciously served with clams, citrus fruit and capers. It is served on the bone, for those of you who don’t like fish on the bone, beware, as it is quite bony, but that was fine with us. Would we order this again? The majority of our group (i.e. all but the one who does not like fish on the bone) said yes – as it was light but very tasty, and the bread, snack and starters had already started to fill us up.
Dover Sole Meuniere
The striploin was quite tough and, for that reason, not to everyone’s liking. It was again served with a perfect complement of savoy cabbage, bone marrow, truffle rice, winter truffles and pickles. However, the meat, though tough, was very tasty and was topped with a delicious scallion yorkshire pudding (not sure why, perhaps it was missing from someone’s croquelet where its rightful place should have been but we’re not complaining). The verdict? Half of the group would order it again (the ones with stronger jaws) as it was really tasty, and the other half (wimps with weak jaws / blunt teeth) said that they wouldn’t.
Galician Striploin
Dessert
We were all really full by the dessert course, and most of us opted for the lychee martini popsicles. These were a delight to have – refreshing and a perfect end to the meal. It was presented as a beautiful little ice lolly, made with vodka and topped with lychees and fresh flowers. In addition to this, one of our group had the valrhona chocolate mousse and mint ice cream which was also delicious. It was a heavier dessert, for those who still had space in their stomachs by the dessert course.
Lychee Martini Popsicle
Valrhona Chocolate Mousse and mint ice cream
Chef Dylan grew up in a family of hawkers, and trained in European cooking. His creativity in his dishes is evident, and the price of his food is very reasonable considering the seasonal ingredients and creative cooking techniques being used. His combination of European and Asian flavours really works for us, and we would highly recommend a visit to his restaurant.
There are also wine pairing options for the Chef Menu for $34, and a choice of interesting raw wines and cocktails.
Our favourites
Other dishes we would recommend are the C&C&C&C pasta (crabmeat, chorizo, caviar, confit lemon and lobster sauce), zucchini flowers filled with cream cheese and mascarpone, purple cabbage (with scallop and ikura dashi and prawn head butter) and the duck confit served with wok-hey kuay teow. We will need to visit another time to try other interesting sounding dishes like the jerusalem artichoke, vichyssoise and pork pithivier.
There are also two set lunch menus priced at $33.90 and $45.90 if you don’t have time for a long, leisurely dinner.
Overall: The service is always great at The Masses and the menu is constantly changing which means we are always coming back to try new dishes!
Favourite dish: The lamb rib! (But I normally love the non-set-menu C&C&C&C pasta!)
Price : $$
*Our meal was $65 pp for the dinner set lunch and there are also two set lunch menus priced at $33.90 and $45.90.
Monte Risaia at 59 Duxton Road offers several Japanese and Italian Omakase menus. We love both these cuisines and decided to try it out. We also like counter dining where you can see your meal being prepared and this restaurant has counter dining which can seat about 12 (fewer with safe-distancing).
Ambience
The interior was dark and modern with a black and wood colour scheme and the chefs were dressed in black: Picture lots of activity behind the counter and bumbling cauldrons of pasta water. We went for the Omakase dinner course with three appetisers, a pasta and a meat dish for $98 per person. There was also a seasonal Omakase menu which was at a higher price of $138 (everything up to the chef). Other available menus were an Omakase pasta dinner priced at $68 with three appetisers and two types of pasta and an Omakase “main” dinner at $80 with three appetisers and two meat courses.
Our first course was a totally Italian complimentary starter platter of bread, olives, olive oil and Parma ham. It was really good – high-quality olive oil and Parma ham. Really delicious and a great way to start our meal.
“It was really good – high-quality olive oil and Parma ham”
Appetisers
This was followed by the three appetisers. The first was a Japanese style hamachi sashimi/carpaccio topped with Ikura. It was good fresh fish in a fusiony dressing. This was followed by an uni (sea urchin) chawanmushi which was deliciously creamy and subtle. The final appetiser was seafood in a clear plain Japanese dashi broth. It came beautifully wrapped in parchment paper in the style of an Italian seafood pasta but inside was the fresh seafood in the clear and tasty dashi.
Hamachi Carpaccio
Uni Chawanmushi
Seafood with dashi
Pasta
Next to come was the pasta course. It sounded simple : spaghetti in tomato sauce – but what a spaghetti in tomato sauce! We are big fans of Japanese style pasta and this lived up to our fairly high expectations. The chef, who hails from Tokyo, used to work in an Italian restaurant there. He made the tomato sauce in front of us using his various dashi broths and the nicely al-dente spaghetti (bubbling in said cauldron in front of us) was then added to that. The pasta was then topped with shiso instead of traditional Italian basil. We are still dreaming about it now and it’s been a few weeks.
“but what a spaghetti in tomato sauce!”
Wagyu Course
The final course was a Wagyu steak course. This was beautifully cooked, sliced and presented with tomatoes, endive and a very good horseradish sauce which had something crunchy in it (the way Tsukune does sometimes). If I had to guess, which I didn’t, I would have said that this was quite likely chopped cartilage. We didn’t ask – just in case it put off the more squeamish amongst us.
Wagyu steak course
Dessert and Drinks
The meal ended with a custardy burnt caramel dessert with sea salt on the side. It came in a little espresso cup and was a perfect end to the meal.
We had our meal with a bottle of sake. To this day, we are undecided if wine or sake goes better with an Italian-Japanese meal. The only way to find out is to try the different permutations again in future – a good reason to return.
Custardy burnt caramel dessert with sea salt on the side.
“…undecided if wine or sake goes better with an Italian-Japanese meal”
Overall: The service was very friendly and it was enjoyable to watch the chefs creating each beautiful plate.
Favourite dish: Pasta. Will have to return for the Omakase pasta menu.
Price : $$$ (Expensive but not exorbitant for Omakase)
*Our meal was $98 pp. Price of sake: about $120 for the bottle we chose.
