A Late Dinner at Gunther's

He was quite surprised to secure a booking via SMS for the restaurant on the day itself. The last time he tried, he was told to make bookings earlier. They have heard quite a bit about Gunther's Restaurant (serving Modern French cuisine that he likes) and have also tried their famous Cold Angel hair pasta with Oscietra caviar at one of the Savour carnivals a few years back. That dish was perhaps one of the biggest reason we have for wanting to come to the restaurant to try out their other offerings.

He made the dinner reservation at 7.30pm and the other reason for coming here for dinner was for the other reason that she was having a meeting nearby. She wasn't quite that punctual despite him coming from much further away. So I think we started to eat only around 9...

The chef served up some complementary amuse bouche. It was a small finger portion of batter-coated fried shrimp with truffled mayo:

With compliments from the chef

For starters, we shared a Langoustine meunière with, garlic and lemon and a Carpaccio of Japanese Omi beef, Tartare style, crispy potato. It took quite a while to decide as we were seriously thinking of going for a full version of the cold angel hair pasta. But we thought we ought to give the other starters a chance too and we didn't regret the decision.

Langoustine meuniere

Carparccio of Omi beef

We both fancied the Langoustine better. The lemon and garlic that's on the plates are just for show. You do get to taste them infused in the Langoustine. The acidity of the lemon blended superbly with the garlic.  But neither one overpowered the Langoustine. We thought the beef tartare was not too bad either. The thinly sliced marbled beef seems to dissolved into on our tongues without leaving too much off a beefy aftertaste that we would normally associate poorer grade beef with.

For mains, she had the Coquille pasta with pork belly and light truffle cream sauce.. everything with truffle is a sure bet.

He ordered the Dry aged Entrecote with shallat confit and bordelaise sauce.

Her choice

His Choice

We both felt that the mains weren't that particularly impressive though. But for him who wasn't a fan of corn, the sliced piece of corn came along complementing the steak rather well. He felt the meat wasn't particularly tastier enough despite that the flavors ought to be more concentrated with the dry aging process.

As for her pasta, the presentation seemed somewhat sloppy. It was a sea of monotone orange. And it didn't taste exceptionally different from other places that serves pasta. Maybe the lesson here is not to order Italian stuff from French restaurants.. Something she always seems to like to do. But she was probably more tired from the long meeting to feel overly disappointed with this dish.

Chef Gunther came out to greet us before desserts. We asked if he was participating in the upcoming Savour festival. His reply was along the lines: "Nah.. no need. Too exp also. Plus I am doing OK already.. People now know me."

Complimentary desserts for those who did not order desserts

The service staff was pretty attentive throughout. Making sure he was OK in his 45min wait for her. Also for going through and recommending suitable pairings and explaining the dishes that were served.

 Ratings

1. Will we come back? Maybe.. for more exceptional occasions

2. Will we introduce friends? Yes if they want something good and french

3. Will we bring our family? Not likely