Friends in high places
Wild card test kitchen with Marcus Tan
After a long week of work most often the last thing I want to do is socialise. When I started working as a chef I was initially quite obsessed with the rock and roll lifestyle that I believed it entailed. I am definitely one that read Kitchen confidential and White Heat and of course watched Munchies and just assumed that I needed to stay up late, smoke a lot of ciggies and drink anything that came my way. The call for the last few bottles of open wine in the ice bucket that “must be finished” has more than once left me fuzzy headed on Monday morning.
Nowadays I have a more healthy relationship with cigarettes and alcohol and I’m finally more boundaried around when you can have my work. This means you get me in my working hours and that won’t be sliding into a post shift 3/4am drinking session anymore.
So as I say, I’m not one for the Sunday social but we must make exceptions, notably when friends come calling and the opportunity to taste an inspirational chefs first test of a concept he’s looking to bring to Singapore.
Marcus Tan is one of the first cooks I met in Singapore, notably at our mutual friends Vivien and Petes wedding, we were pretty drunk, dancing, singing but also chatting each others ears off about food and hospo; leading to me doing some shifts at Fool wine where he was exec chef. He also graciously helped organise a pop up for Bits and Bobs at Fool Wine, giving us the opportunity to showcase our food to a lot of Singaporean pals.
Marcus is now going out on his own and trialling a style of food that feels more close to home; drawing on familiar Singaporean flavours but presented in a modern, whimsical and comforting fashion. He’s his biggest critic but knows what he wants and how to execute it and also where the pitfalls are. I feel honoured to have tried these dishes on their first iteration. Make no mistake, this isn’t a review but instead my way of celebrating a new guard of chefs coming through the ranks and bringing something truly new the table.
On to what we ate.
The first bite was a chicken liver parfait on a longan gem biscuit; sweet and buttery and rich from the chicken liver parfait, it melted in the mouth and was a perfect first bite. It’s quite a fun nod to Fool where they had the Chicken liver eclair and also an understated way of using the whole chicken across the menu without shouting about it from the rooftops.
The next few courses moved into familiar flavour territory. The cold laksa was a shot of shrimp head and coconut with a broth that had heat from chilli and spices but was cooling from its temp and the pleasantly fresh shrimp, scallop and hamachi. Maximum flavour, I wish Laksa was this intense.
Conceptually I feel skewers and open fire cooking will be at the heart of Marcus’ concept and the next bites felt like a move in a really interesting direction. Chicken wings with a fragrant marinade butchered to give ease of eating just as you would find in a yakitori joint but with fermented chicken rice chilli as it’s accompaniment. Presentation wise, familiar to a hawker but with the finesse and touch of a chef that’s drilled into the details.
We loved the cabbage skewer, actually at the table we reckoned it would be a boring eat, Singaporeans are not actually known for their love of veggies. But again, the thought and focus on the presentation, how the skewer would eat, maximisation of caramelisation whilst keeping the heart soft and a calamansi aioli thick with the fragrance of kaffir lime left this dish as a sleeper hit. I kept returning to the flavour of shao kao and gently caramelised cabbage.
The larger format dishes were super delicious but with a few agreed caveats from the table. The lotus bread; essentially a bao with grilled chicken thigh and salad was smoky and sweet but we felt that given the previous chicken wings we would have wanted something like pork belly instead. However given the use of the whole chicken across the menu and presumably that his concept would be a la carte, this is a non issue.
The hanger steak with rice noodle was in an exceptionally flavoured broth but lightly thickened. Collectively we felt that a hor fun noodle would have worked better. I guess theres a fine line between drawing on hawker influence but not making it too ‘authentic’. The market bean salad, again very understated on the menu was insane, subtle spice in the peanut sauce and a level of freshness from the bean sprouts and beans. This was next level seasoning.
I had seen Marcus dessert on his instagram a couple of weeks before for a private do he was doing and It seriously peeked my interested. A mango pudding set in a fish mould with sago and coconut sauce. Again a play on local flavour, elevated but maybe more direct in it’s seasoning. The sago in coconut sauce has the moreish texture of riz au lait and the texture on the mango pudding just melted. Pete suggests it was like a mango panna cotta, and I would concur. It was playful, a talking point but more than anything, direct in its flavour.
As discussed, this doesn’t feature as a review because this was a friends and family dinner and a way of seeing a proof of concept from Marcus. He’s a chef that has a clear vision of his flavours and can execute at a high level so to eat this food in its early stages is pretty exciting as I can now start to imagine what kind of service or interior design will go into his restaurant. I personally have moved on from ‘fine’, ‘stuffy’ establishments, I look for comfort, vibe and democratisation as the driving force of a restaurants design. Think Kiln or smoking goat as standard bearers in that, lets hope Marcus creates such a space and then maybe you’ll find me being more social on a Sunday again.