Hathaway at Dempsey Hill

I've been curious about Hathaway at Dempsey, but there's been no push to visit. Till M and M called for a get-together and we all trooped out to Hathaway for dinner. It was great seeing everyone. Of course we had superb conversation. Very politically incorrect. Much hilarity. 

A table of six meant that we could check out its full a la carte menu and still order specials. Started by owner-chef Ivan Ting (of earlier Bread Yard/The Grange Collective) in December 2021, Hathaway has changed menu offerings from nyonya to something more Javanese/Padang, and shifted its pricing since it opened. Hathaway's kitchen itself isn't halal though. However, its meats are sourced from halal suppliers and restaurant serves no lard and pork. They do offer alcohol and wine pairing with the set menus. 

Ordered many items and doubles of some since the portions were small. There were grilled bone marrow, I liked the razor clams loads! The clams were de-shelled and layered with cheong fun, and sat in a delicious umami kombu fish broth of soy garlic relish! Too fun. Nobody wanted the tempoyak except two brave souls. LOLOL They were absolutely gleeful about it. It's fermented durians, or pekasam. Never mind the fermentation. The durian paste itself would just kill me. 

Then the bulkier mains arrived. Nasi ulam (basmati was used) served as the base for all the gravy and such. We had grilled eggplant with lychee curry topped with fresh pomelo, young jackfruit curry, beef cheeks in rawon, Issan ribeye steak, and a fried quail. Mmmm.... all these went so well on nasi ulam. Ooof! The milkfish sinigang with its sinigang broth and other ingredients of mustard frills, radish, tomatoes and ladies' finger was surprisingly piquant and rather good. 

I was rather stunned by the $12 pricing for four pieces of begedil served with sambal jam that I forgot to order the belimbing that I was curious about. That sambal jam was quite decent though; it wasn't spicy since it was supposed to be sambal manis. The stark contrast in the taste came about because I just had begedil at lunch that day, from Hjh Maimunah. LOL Obviously Hjh Maminuah's begedil is wayyyy better.

Made it to dessert since this table has a sweet tooth. Three were had — a classic mango sticky rice with coconut, pengat pisang french toast with apom berkuah ice-cream, and a puteri salat with salted gula jawa ice-cream. I actually didn't mind the salted gula jawa ice-cream; almost considered asking for an extra scoop. Heh!