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Народный художникЪ V Рейха Вася ЛожкинЪ.

В РиЖ! За РиЖ!

Edmund White has two books on the list: A Boy's Own Story and The Beautiful Room is Empty, two-thirds of the fictionalized autobiographical trilogy. Having written many books, the sad thing is his fictionalized autobiographies, not his other novels, made the list, perhaps attesting to his lack of imagination. 

Our book club's notes on A Boy's Own Story can be found here. It's about a poor little rich boy growing up gay. The narrator is very obnoxious. 

I read The Beautiful Room is Empty some time ago. About the life of a teenager, culminating in the Stonewall Riot. I thought it was very very good, that's why I recommended the book club to write the first of the trilogy. 

(969 novels)

Boy's Story: 3.3 stars
Beautiful Room: 4.5 stars

music.

books.

fuck everything else.

Ranked 43rd in the world and 1st in Asia, people tell me Iggy's has three michelin stars although I also heard contradicting rumors such as Singapore restaurants will never get michelin stars because we import our food frozen, not freshly slaughtered. I don't care if a restaurant has accolades; I care for the service, food and ambience. 

Reserve a table a week in advance but we did it 3 days in advance and had to sit at the counter. Walk in long corridor: Very exclusive, sits maybe 30 people. Nice ambience: dim lighting but also very quiet so every word you say softly may be heard by others. Not the best place for spies, traitors, business secrets and family disputes but good for breakups if you don't want your partner to make a fuss. 


For hor d'oeuvres, we ordered Iggy's Salad, Ocean Trout, Hamachi and Foie Gras. For the main, both of us had Wagyu Cheek. For desserts, I had chocolate cake and my sister had sesame. 

I like it that the bread was warm and it tasted sweet with olive oil. The amuse bouche, which is what the chef amuses his or her guests with, was quite amusing. It was a 1/8 slice of a tomato, which was surprisingly salty at first then immensely sweet. Very appetizing. An Essence of Tomato accompanied it but that tasted strange, having a taste of ham in it, like drinking tomato-ham juice. Fun but not delicious.

My sister didn't like Iggy's Salad. She doesn't like citrus in food (which unfortunately happened to pervade many of our dishes). Too much hollandaise, too little mesclun. The truffle was too thinly sliced! 

My Hamachi was weird because it was neither hot nor cold. 


My second appetizer was foie gras with warm pear soup, mango and brioche (HIGH FAT BREAD) crumbs. At this point, I noticed they use a lot of fruits  and bread crumbs in their dishes. The foie gras itself was good but not as good as Prive's: this one still retained its liver stink and wasn't cooked quite evenly so only most parts, not all, melted in the mouth. But again it was very fun! There was a popping sound on the dish and when I ate it, the popping sound emitted from my mouth! Dunno if anyone remembers: when I was a child, there was a sort of grain-like sweets and when you put it in the mouth, they popped and popped. I suspect the chef put a little and milder form of that sweet in it.

My sister's Ocean Trout looked sad. Like French Kitchen's chef, this chef needs aesthetic lessons too. Much love to the caviar and fresh fish. But my sister said the potato salad didn't match the dish.

The waiter said Wagyu cheek was their most popular main for their set lunch - and I thought, Naturally, waygu is the most expensive meat. Like who will eat capellini? This was a fusion dish: waygu beef in a kind of Chinese broth with winter melon. The wagyu was cooked for 40 hours! But unfortunately, it wasn't very impressive. My sister complained that it was neither hot nor cold and mine was lukewarm and claimed that the beef stew at French Kitchen was tastier. The bread crumbs soaked up all the soup, leaving the wagyu dry. I said to my sister, "Your mother's winter melon tastes better, softer."


Dessert: a chocolate mousse/jelly with a German chocolate cake which had a strip of coconut running in between two plies. On the cake was very bitter and strong earl grey ice cream and the foam was made of champagne and something else. I didn't like it when I took my first mouthful but as I ate, it got better and better although it didn't reach the stage of Wowness. Unlike my sister, I have no prejudice towards any kind of food and thought that the orange went well with chocolate.

My sister had a more simple dessert: cream, sesame ice cream on pound cake. Perhaps because of the wine I took (although I always rinse my mouth with water before tasting a new dish), the first mouthful of cake was so very salty in a good and strange way. I took a second spoonful and it was better but still I didn't think it great. My sister who ate the whole of it (minus two mouths) said this was the best dish, packed a punch, not salty at all, had the WOW factor. This dessert is, the waiter informed the handsome loner beside us, Iggy's (the owner) favorite.

The handsome loner: an American Chinese man with colored tattoos on his arms. And while he ate, he took down notes and my sister observed him very closely. After he commented to the waiters and chef how excellent the food was, my sister turned to me and said, "You should be a food critic. Your palate is better than his; you're more critical." 

I said, "Maybe he's a nice guy or maybe the head chef cooked his food and left the apprentices to do ours." 

He ate so much, dish after dish, and drank like a fish without getting red. And he talked to the waiters and the chef. I'm having a crush on him. My sister urged me to go talk to him but I don't do straight men!

Here's a picture of how cute he is!




When we were leaving, he talked to us and told us he is from Washington and is hired by Iggy to work in the kitchen. (explains why he was so kind to the food.) Asked us to go back. He's so cute! How not to go back?! If you sit at the counter, you can see the going-ons of the kitchen. Imagine sitting there and watching him cook. Can melt like ice cream on a hot day.

But I wondered why the waiters were more attentive to him than to us! The head waiter kept chatting with him, not us. For example, I ordered wine to go with my wagyu and the head waiter didn't even explain what wine it was to me. (The wine is excellent by the way, 2007 torbreck juveniles.) There was a sort of arrogance in the waiters but it is hard to pinpoint what it was so it is difficult to criticized them.

Overall, a pleasant but not a breathtaking experience.

Rating: 4.347 stars

Selling


By Lowell:

Only Love (excellent condition)   $6





Whirlpool (spine creases but still in good condition)  $5






By Dodd:

Move Heaven and Earth (excellent condition)   $6




Meet ups only. Preferably at Jurong East/ Boon Lay/ Bukit Batok/ Chua Chu Kang MRT stations. Email me at neon_no_iro@hotmail.com

Self described centrist James Howard Kunstler is this week’s guest and we discuss capitalism, collapse, suburbs, Jim’s play Big Slide, and how the American public may or may not be to blame. There is no free lunch, unless you work for Goldman Sachs. If you work for Goldman Sachs there may be such a thing as a free luncheonette. Also featured this week is music from the Bill Murray Experience, Chris ‘Isto’ White, Scott Joplin, Antonio Quijano and Edgar Abraham, MIA, and Fabian Andre. Download this episode at dietsoap.podomatic.com or subscribe via iTunes.

Originally published at Diet Soap. Please leave any comments there.