rump steak salad

this was a most memorable dinner for the 5 of us on 2.8.2013.

it started with a friend who turned down our invite to join a group makan because he “had too much good food” & “overwhelmed” with work. then he whatsapped us to say he was going for this jamie’s italain dinner.  then started a string of delectable food photos on group whatsapp, so we were quite underwhelmed by his reasons & logic. but it was forgivable as he was invited for this pre-food tasting at jamie’s. 🙂

that’s not the end of the story of course. we were having this birthday dinner at Mikuni for another friend 2+ weeks back. an email reminder went out 1-2days before & he was emphatically pushing for some details to be done his way..haha.. so when we sat down for dinner & he was nowhere to be found, we told ourselves he could not have forgotten & guess what when we finally decided to call 1/2hr later he was at home and had already had dinner with his mom, very commendable of course. 🙂

anyway that was how this make-up birthmonth (alas, even the birth month had passed!) dinner came about. hahaha…

it was not possible to make a phone reservation at jamie’s, so we arranged to queue for a reservation. on 2.8.2013, 1 of us queued for 45mins & gotten a reservation at 7.05pm. we finally got our table at 8.55pm!

calamari

nachos

so we got ourselves seated at the bar & entertained ourselves for almost 2hrs. fortunately we were such good friends it was very enjoyable just chatting & taking some finger food with prosecco. the calamari was very good, tasty inside with crispy slightly fluffy batter like tempura. the nachos & the tomato sauce dip was great too!

jamie’s italian at 9pm

time (even 2hrs) passed quickly when you were having fun. it was time for us to get a table. our friend struck up a conversation with the very friendly, affable, helpful Amy, the manager, who recognised him from the earlier food tasting. before we knew it, we were ushered to a private room.

meat & fish planks

Seeing that we had waited almost 3hrs to finally get seated, Amy arranged to serve us their popular fish & meat planks antipasti.

both were very good.  the meat plank had cheese with fruit jam on crackers, some pickles, salami, beef, ham & St Daniels prosciutto (aged ham).  the fish plank came with fish fritters, mussels & clams, some mackerels on toast, & some salmon carpaccio (that looked like tuna?)

we also had very nice polenta and some croquettes – both were very good! 🙂

squid ink pasta with seafood

white truffle risotto

we were kind of full actually after the planks so we ordered only 3 mains. the aussie grain-fed rump steak salad(top photo) was excellent with BBQ charred flavour & tender for rump cut, & the salad was great. 🙂

the white truffle risotto was very fragrant tasty & much to my liking.  our friend though said it was not as fragrant as what he had last time for food tasting. 🙂 the seafood squid ink pasta was also very tasty though it was not squid ink sauce but pasta only with a plain sauce.

2 of us were not much into dessert so we shared just 1 panna cotta for 5pax & we all had coffee/tea. it was good too! 🙂

it was an excellent dinner outing for the 5 of us! more the company & time together, but the food was good too. on this night also we were given a private room plus complimentary antipasti. because of the excellent service by Amy & also Renci (a very pleasant cheery Singapore girl studying medicine at glasgow, & as it turned out 1 of our RI friend son’s primary school classmate – small world indeed!), the host gave a cash tip on top of the usual ++ service charge. 🙂

i estimated the food including 2 planks, 3 mains, 1 dessert, 5 coffee/tea & the earlier prosecco & bar food (calamari & nachos) would cost $325 (excluding the tip & assuming the planks were not complimentary). though the service floored us, the food was good & maybe just slightly different from usual fare. at this price, I would certainly go back again but not if i have to wait in queue & 1,2 or 3 hrs to get seated (we heard some waited 5hrs). that’s just me. w/o my wonderful friend, i would not have tried for this adventure & gain the unexpected which made life interesting (this time round it was a very pleasant surprise).

anyway i later checked on the internet & jamie’s was booked full for oct2013 dinners (there were some lunch lots & i booked one), and very few lots in Nov2013.

c.h.e.f andy