Jiak Kim House

The friends took us out to dinner at Jiak Kim House on 5 Jiak Kim Street. We kept the dinner venue a secret from the birthday boy till it was time to drive to restaurant. He couldn't laughed when I said "drive to the old Zouk on Jiak Kim Street." Oh man! Memories indeed, for good or bad, Zouk was a huge part of our growing up years.

We wanted an early dinner. At 6pm, it was bright and happy. Saw the three go-downs and laughed. We have never appeared at Zouk this early. And to think that we were here now looking at the buildings' new chapter of life, we wondered what the ghosts think. 

The restaurant is beautifully done. Spacious interiors and a high ceiling made it very chic and comfortable. Thought has been given to lighting and table spacing. Jiak Kim House is sited exactly at Velvet Underground. LOLOL The dining hall is the dance hall. Even the washrooms are in the same direction. I suppose the piping and plumbing remained. Hahaha.

The food is excellent. Chef TQ has outdone himself. We ordered prudently since none of us wanted to over-eat. The menu offered Southeast Asian flavors with a twist. That was right up our tastebuds. These are our spice and sambal buddies. Loved the array!  The kitchen sent out complimentary amuse-bouche and appetizers of mini glutinous rice loaves with cheese and butter, as well as chilled momotaro somen with ikura. 

We shared one Tingkat for us four instead of two — seven-herbed crab cake with assam mayo, lamb goulash croquette with mint coriander coulis, Spanish mackerel otak-otak with green curry, and chilli crab kueh pie tee with kaffir lime. We almost ordered the full portion of otak-otak! It was delicious. 

I absolutely dislike those jellyfish appetizers at Chinese restaurants. While I wasn't hot about the chilled Alaskan crab and jellyfish, I appreciated that it had Thai green pepper sauce and soursop sorbet to make the dish more interesting. But I didn't dare to take more than a bite of the jellyfish. Passed on the crab. 

Had to try the Mdm Lee's lotus leaf rice and ayam taliwang. If you like chicken, this is a good grilled iteration. Nothing to complain about because the marinade was shiok. The lotus leaf rice came in a small manageable bit, and tbh, one person could eat that, especially if that was your one dish. The rice was cooked in a lovely broth and it was nicely perfumed with mushrooms. 

There were so many meats to choose from. Picked three for tonight. There was a fun iteration of beef rendang in the form of 'beef tongue to tail' — shortribs, braised oxtail, torched tongue with domino potatoes and rojak salad. We would have loved to order a larger sized rojak salad! That was absolutely refreshing. I was wondering whether to get a fish, but the table wanted the tandoori lamb rack. Okaaaaay. The portion came nicely with four pieces of superbly tender lamb chops with curried lamb mash and mint coriander ganoush. 

The opeh laksa leaf fettuccine was piquant and surprisingly tasty. It came with prawns, mud crab, mussels, fish and scallops. There was laksa bisque, ulam mixed herbs and not-spicy sambal. One person could eat all that, but we chose to share so that we could eat other things!

We got to dessert. Two orders of that, as opposed to one Tingkat. LOLOL They got us at 'dark chocolate and buah keluak ganache with kirsch cream namelaka'. That was splendid. It's one of the best iterations of buah keluak in dessert we've had in Singapore! We were disciplined and had one drink each. They have cocktails. I avoided that and asked for a simple gin and tonic. The man totally enjoyed this dinner and the awesome company of our dear friends.