Tras Street at Tanjong Pagar Road

20
taste
taste 21
thesundaytimes May 18, 2014
May 18, 2014 thesundaytimes
PHOTOS: LIM YAOHUI FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES, JEKYLL & HYDE, HOUSE OF DANDY, BAM!, FLEUR DE SEL
Along Tras Street, you will find food and beverage establishments such as (from left) Cafe Gavroche, Gattopardo Ristorante Di Mare and Buttero.
Giving up engineering for cooking
Justyn Toh
When he was 21, chef Leong Khai Git started studying
an engineering degree course at the National University
of Singapore.
But he dropped out in his last year as he felt that
engineering was not his cup of tea and decided to go to
cooking school.
He had come to love cooking when he was 18.
On the first dish he made, he says: “I think it was
pancakes. It was for my then girlfriend.”
After that, he would always be in charge of preparing
the food and manning the flames at barbecues with his
friends and family.
Now, he has his own restaurant, Dibs, in Duxton
Hill. He named the five-month-old restaurant after the
slang term for “first claim”, which is similar to the Singlish word “chope” or to reserve.
The 40-seat restaurant focuses on off-cuts and underused ingredients, such as pork cheeks and cockles.
Leong, 29, says: “Basically, the food here has no
genre. It is as simple as that. It reflects my training from
my past cooking stints, with a lot of Asian twists.”
Some dishes include Smokey Cockles ($7), a dish of
blood cockles cooked in bacon dashi stock and smoked
chillies.
After dropping out of engineering school, he
have eaten is the balut, a boiled developing duck embryo in its shell. It’s hard to stomach.
What is your favourite ingredient to cook
with?
enrolled in Le Cordon Bleu in Sydney for a year-long example, for pork cheeks, we sous vide, batter and then I would have to go with crab. I love how there are so
diploma programme.
deep fry them. They become something like Japanese many varieties of crabs, and how they differ each sea“I was only 24 then, and I decided
katsu, which is different from the son. I particularly like female crabs because of the roe.
It’s a concentration of flavours. We currently have only
on the Sydney campus as I can’t learn
traditional braised pork cheeks.
one crab item on our menu, crab cakes, but we plan on
languages for nuts. So the France campus would be a bit difficult for me,”
What is your guilty pleasure? adding another one soon.
he says.
Bak chor mee or minced pork nooAfter obtaining his Diplome De
dles. I can eat that for every meal. Who would you dine with, dead or alive, and
Cuisine, he worked at hotels and resIn fact, I tried doing that before for what would you eat with him/her?
taurants such as international cuisine
two to three days. I like the one at I would dine with my late maternal grandmother. I
restaurant Greenhouse at The
Ghim Moh Market, near my home. didn’t know her very well, but I heard she could cook. I
would cook to impress her, and would probably make
Ritz-Carlton here, Italian restaurant
Gaia Ristorante & Bar at Goodwood
What is your favourite cui- braised pork leg as I heard she made that really well.
Park Hotel and Quest Restaurant in
sine?
Etihad Towers in Abu Dhabi, which
It would have to be Japanese. I Where does your creativity stem from?
serves molecular Asian cuisine.
love how it’s simple, fresh, tasty It’s from things that I like to eat. Generally, whatever is
He was there for six months and
and comforting. I like anything on the menu is something that I would like to eat. I
don’t believe that I can cook it if I don’t like it.
then came back and worked at Gaia
that has uni (sea urchin).
From there, it branches off to becoming a balance of
for another six months before opening Dibs.
flavours and textures.
Would you dare to eat fugu or puffer fish?
What do you think of the Singapore food scene? I have eaten fugu in Japan. It is quite interesting; there’s
What chefs inspire you and how?
I feel that the food in Singapore is very repetitive. The
a tingling sensation with a bit of numbness.
For creativity, I look towards David Chang, the founder
restaurants are the same. Italian restaurants will serve
of Momofuku Restaurant Group.
cabonara, or aglio olio pasta. It is always pasta.
Is fugu the most adventurous dish you have
He doesn’t have any boundaries. He’ll do a test, and
tried?
if it works, he’ll sell it. He doesn’t have a specific cuisine
How is Dibs different?
We want to do something that will surprise people. For I don’t think so. I think the most adventurous dish I to adhere to.
GATTOPARDO RISTORANTE DI MARE
BUTTERO
JEKYLL & HYDE
What: The Sicilian seafood restaurant relocated to
Tras Street at the beginning of February after its lease at
Hotel Fort Canning ended in December last year.
Dishes on its menu include the Calamari ($28),
strips of squid and orange wedges in a red prawn sauce
with barley and tarragon; Polipo ($34), a dish of
charred octopus, Sicilian olives, sun dried tomatoes
and celery root; and Bucatini Con Le Sarde ($30), classic Sicilian noodle with fresh sardines.
Where: 34 and 36 Tras Street
Open: Noon to 2.30pm (Monday to Friday), 6.30 to
10.30pm (Monday to Saturday), closed on Sunday
Info: Call 6338-5498 or e-mail
reservations@gattopardo.com.sg. Go to
www.gattopardo.com.sg
What: The three-week-old Buttero is the newest restaurant to open in Tras Street. The casual 42-seat eatery
serves rustic Italian fare as well as wholesome meats
done on a charcoal grill or rotisserie.
Dishes include paccheri with eggplant ragu and oregano with pine nuts and ricotta ($22); pappardelle with
Spanner crab, garlic and tomato sauce ($25); porchetta
or roast crackling pork from the rotisserie with braised
beans ($32); and a salt-crusted whole barramundi with
rosemary, garlic, and lemon marmellata ($34). Lunch
specials include sandwiches and pasta.
Where: 54 Tras Street
Open: Noon to 3pm, 6 to 10.30pm (Monday to Saturday), closed on Sunday
Info: Call 6438-7737
What: The cocktail bar, which houses a nail salon in a
separate section of its premises in the day, serves a list
of unique speciality cocktails.
Bartenders can also
create bespoke cocktails
on request.
Cocktails on its current menu include ones
such as the Summer
Shenanigans, made
with almond liqueur,
fresh lime and coriander ($23); Vineyard Rendezvous, three shots of
Suntory Kakubin whisky and kyoho grape
liqueur ($28); and The Gluttony cocktail ($23, left),
which is better known as Mr Bean.
It is made with beancurd pudding, butterscotch,
hazelnut liqueur vodka and kaya.
Where: 49 Tras Street
Open: 6pm to 1am (Monday to Thursday), 6pm to
2am (Friday and Saturday), closed on Sunday
Info: Call 6222-3349, e-mailfound@49tras.st or go to
www.49tras.st
FLEUR DE SEL
rltan@sph.com.sg
Follow Rebecca Lynne Tan on Twitter
@STrebeccatan
Nos. 34 & 36
Gattopardo
No. 38 BAM!
No. 40
Conclave
No. 54
Buttero
No. 60
Sushi Mitsuya
No. 64
Fleur De Sel
No. 66
Brasserie
Gavroche
No. 49
Jekyll
& Hyde
No. 74
House Of
Dandy
Orchid
Hotel
No. 57
Kko Kko
Nara
No. 61
My Private
Chef
No. 69
Cafe
Gavroche
SEAH
STREET
ice across the street when one of their compatriots runs
out.
Feel like having a different style of cocktail or a particular spirit? Head to the other cocktail bar down the
road.
Mr Lino Sauro, 44, chef-owner of Gattopardo, says:
“We (the chefs) all knew each other from before. All of
us offer a different type of cuisine and we cannot be
happier to create an amazing and unique gastronomic
corner in an already super saturated dining scene in
Singapore.”
Brasserie Gavroche and Cafe Gavroche’s chef-owner
Frederic Colin, 40, adds: “We recommend diners to
other restaurants and to have drinks at the cocktail
bars, we complement one another with the quality and
variety of restaurants in Tras Street.”
Tras Street was named in 1898 after a Malaysian
town, according to the National Library Board’s
Infopedia.
Located on the fringe of Chinatown and away from
the main thoroughfare of Tanjong Pagar Road, it was
lined with homes and businesses in the early days.
While other parts of the historic neighbourhood
flourished, Tras Street mostly remained quiet. Still, it
seems notoriety has plagued the street throughout the
years.
Thugs with parangs smashed a coffee shop in 1961,
while in the mid-noughties, KTV hostesses were
nabbed on suspicion of consuming drugs.
A semi-retired clothing business owner who
declined to be named and who has owned “a couple of
shophouses” in Tras Street since the early 1990s, says
the street was a “sleepy” one. It housed mostly trading
and commodity businesses.
The sleazy KTV bars started moving in in the late
1990s but the street has “cleaned up” and most have
moved out, he says.
These days, in fact, the street is often abuzz with diners and those after pre- or post-dinner tipples. In fact, it
is not uncommon to see people walking in the middle
of the one-way street, and hopping from a restaurant
to a bar, or chatting outside the food and beverage
establishments.
Buttero’s chef Campbell says the street would be perfect for a “street party”.
PECK
T
Buttero’s chef Campbell says: “I think there is room
for everyone. And I like the fact that the street is a little
bit gritty. I like being off the main area and being a
dirty little secret.”
Mr Jeff Ho, 37, co-owner of cocktail bar Jekyll &
Hyde, says: “It was relatively under-developed and we
saw an opportunity as we felt we could help improve
the vibe of the area.”
Rental rates, he adds, are also reasonable. When an
area is too crowded and popular, rentals tend to be
driven up, he says.
A SundayLife! check with restaurateurs, real-estate
agents and property management companies found
that rentals range from about $7 to $10 per square feet
(psf), up from about $6 psf about two years ago.
In the Duxton Road and Hill, and in the Club Street
and Ann Siang Hill areas, rentals can range between
$10 and $15 psf.
Mr Simon Monteiro, 47, a conservation shophouse
specialist who also deals in real estate, says he has seen
the area blossom since he started dealing with properties in the historic neighbourhood 17 years ago.
He says: “It was only in the last two to three years
that the street started to develop. It used to be littered
with pubs, but that has changed.”
Ms Krystal Khor, 41, of real estate and property management company Mondania, which manages about
half of the properties in Tras Street, says her company
has been “working for many years to bring up the
standard of tenants in the street”. She has been working with properties in the street since 2007.
She says: “We try our best to bring in a good profile
of tenants. If all the units are rented out to food and
beverage businesses that will not be a good thing
either. We are selective as we do not want our tenants
to cannibalise one another.”
Indeed, ask restaurant and bar owners about the
competition among them, and they will say otherwise.
In fact, it there is more camaraderie than competition among food and beverage business owners here.
Jekyll & Hyde’s Mr Ho says he has lent chairs to
BAM!, while House Of Dandy’s owner Guy MacGregor
says Cafe and Brasserie Gavroche have helped serve
food when his bar has run out.
Owners are more than willing to send a bucket of
TRAS S
TREET
Logan Campbell, 36, a New Zealand-born chef who
used to head Lucio’s, one of Sydney’s best-known and
Rebecca Lynne Tan
established Italian restaurants – serves rustic Italian
Food correspondent
fare including pastas, as well as barbecued and grilled
meats.
Restaurateurs and real-estate management comparas Street, the once dingy and slightly
notorious street off Tanjong Pagar Road, has nies say more food and beverage outlets are slated to
transformed into a thriving food and bever- open in this part of Tras Street soon.
The area is flanked by a myriad of other food and
age neighbourhood.
Bustling restaurants and trendy cocktail beverage offerings, from the Japanese eateries at
bars are now located alongside advertising offices, yoga Orchid Hotel, to the restaurants and bars at Icon Vilstudios and fund management firms. Only a few KTV lage, to others at 100AM mall and along Tanjong Pagar
bars still remain on the conservation shophouse-lined Road.
Restaurateurs and cocktail bar owners SundayLife!
street.
About 13 food and beverage outlets, excluding spoke to say they were drawn to the street for several
karaoke bars, now line the part of Tras Street between reasons.
One is the area’s proximity to the
Cook and Wallich streets.
Central Business District, as well as to
This is a far cry from the food
residential, commercial and hotel
offerings there three to four years
properties. For instance, the street is
ago.
SoShiok
a stone’s throw from Orchid Hotel,
Back then, the street was
Amara Singapore and the recently
known mostly for popular
opened Carlton City Hotel. Another
late-night Korean fried chicken resDownload the app for
hotel, Oasia, is also being developed.
taurant Kko Kko Nara, and the
other food features
The restaurants target mainly disnow-defunct European restaurant
cerning diners from the corporate secTable 66, which relocated in 2011
tor. So the location makes it more
to Winstedt Road and relaunched
convenient for customers to dine
itself as Skyve Wine Bistro.
Download a QR code
there, restaurateurs say.
Now, the street is home to two
reader app on your
Also, many of the chefs who have
French restaurants – 2-1/2-year-old
smartphone and scan this
set up restaurants in the street have
Brasserie
Gavroche
and
code for more information.
their own following, having previouseight-month-old Fleur De Sel; two
ly worked at top hotels and restaucocktail bars – House Of Dandy
rants in Singapore.
and Jekyll & Hyde; cafe-bar Cafe
Other pull factors include the reasonable rentals
Gavroche; year-old Japanese restaurant Sushi Mitsuya;
and private dining and cooking studio My Private and the conservation area’s charm.
The fact that it is also located away from the hustle
Chef.
More recent entrants include Spanish tapas and and bustle of the main road also gives the street
exclusivity, restaurateurs say.
sake bar BAM!, which opened in December last year;
Many also cite the potential they see in the area, givand Sicilian seafood restaurant Gattopardo Ristorante en that it is the quietest and least developed of the
Di Mare, which relocated there from Hotel Fort Can- trendy Chinatown triangle, which includes popular
ning in January.
food and beverage enclaves such as Keong Saik Road,
The newest restaurant on the block opened three Duxton Hill and Road, and the Club Street and Ann
weeks ago. Buttero – which is headed and co-owned by Siang Hill areas.
PAGAR R
OAD
Tras transformed
He says: “We could have a block party or a festival
where each restaurant could serve its signature dish.
Each of the restaurants has something different and
interesting to offer.”
But food and beverage operators here are quick to
add that they may not be keen for the street to turn
into the next Club Street, which is known for being lively and having a high volume of diners and drinkers.
They say the influx of too many food and beverage
businesses would make the street too saturated, which
could in turn take away the street’s charm and exclusivity.
Alexandre Lozachmeur, 34, chef-owner of Fleur De
Sel, says “people bring people”, which has helped to improve the reputation of food and beverage outlets in
the street.
He says: “The street has become a destination, and
more people are beginning to talk about Tras Street but
if the street becomes like Club Street, it might be a little
too much.”
TANJONG
Tras Street at Tanjong Pagar Road
has shed its dingy image with new
bars and restaurants lining it
No. 76
Cafe@The
Showroom
WALLIC
H
STREET
ST GRAPHICS
HOUSE OF DANDY
What: The stylish Art Deco-inspired cocktail bar
(above) offers a range of cocktails. Some new ones to
come include the Fruit Pastis cocktail ($20) with
anise-flavoured liqueur, lemon juice, fresh grapes, dash
of vanilla sugar syrup and elderflower liqueur; and the
Milky Way cocktail ($22) with Black Cow Milk vodka,
creme de cacao white and dash of creme de menthe
white, served with a side of Black Cow cheese and in a
martini glass. Most cocktails cost $18 and up.
Where: 74 Tras Street
Open: 5pm till late (Monday to Saturday), closed on
Sunday
Info: Call 8661-2340 or e-mail
hod@house-of-dandy.com
What: French
chef Alexandre Lozachmeur (right)
serves up signature
dishes at this restaurant specialising in
classical French cuisine. Dishes include Le Canard,
slow-cooked seared
duck
breast,
braised
figs,
mashed potato and
cherry jus ($39); La
Lotte,
braised
monkfish with fennel, dried tomatoes, croutons and
bouillabaisse jus
($38); and Le
Boeuf,
ovenroasted bone-in
beef for two, served with house-made fries, salad, onions and Bordelaise sauce ($135).
A three-course set lunch starts at $38 a person,
while a four-course set dinner starts at $88 a person.
Where: 64 Tras Street
Open: Noon to 2pm (Monday to Friday), 6.30 to
10pm (Monday to Saturday), closed on Sunday
Info: Call 6222-6861 or go to www.fleurdesel.com.sg
What is a unique dish you have made?
It was back in Quest Restaurant, where I made this
Asian fruit and vegetable salad. It was a simple salad
with tamarind dressing.
It looked like a garden, but tasted like rojak.
What inspired your cockle and bacon dashi
dish?
I felt the need to do something
with cockles. It is a very underWHAT WOULD
used ingredient. I love to eat
YOUR LAST
cockles.
MEAL BE?
When I was young, I would
eat raw cockles dipped in any
I would have bak
kind of chilli sauce with my
chor mee, extra
mum.
chili, extra lard,
I decided to add it with
and my noodles
bacon dashi as I love bacon,
will be a mix of
and I wanted the umami flayellow noodles
and rice
vours from the dashi.
vermicelli.
Do you travel a lot? What is
your most satisfying meal
in your travels?
I do travel, and I’ve been to countries such as Norway,
Japan and New York for holidays. My most satisfying
meal was in Norway.
We were dog sledding, and then taken to a hut.
There was an old cast iron pot over a fire, and in the
pot was moose stew.
Simple and flavourful, it was very satisfying and
memorable.
ST PHOTO: MATTHIAS HO
BAM!
What: Bam!, which
serves Spanish tapas
and sake, opened in December last year. Tuck
into dishes such as kampong egg with baby sotong and chorizo ($16,
right), 36-months-aged
Joselito ham ($25); and
charcoal-grilled Kurobuta pork belly with caviar. ($58).
Where: 38 Tras Street
Open: 6pm to midnight (Monday to Saturday),
closed on Sunday.
Info: Call 6226-0500, e-mailreservation@bam.sg or
go to www.bam.sg