The 3rd stop for Restaurant Week is J's, a Latin-American restaurant nestled along Purvis street. As I swing open the front door, I was greeted warmly by Joy, the Managing Director of the restaurant. Joy introduced herself, ushered us to our table before excusing herself to attend to another couple who arrived at the front door.
With a name like J's, the first thing that popped into my mind was J represents Joy, which is the name of the owner. Later, I realised that not only does J represents the culmination of the many years that Joy dreamt of owning her own restaurant which provides quality food & good service, J also signifies Joy's desire to create a space for her son, friends and community & the Upper Room (located on the 2nd floor) is available for such use.
As we sat at the table, I was half waiting for them to provide us with a menu. Well, I was in for a surprise when the scroll of paper placed in the empty glass was the menu.
Posing with our my very first personalised menu :) It seemed to me that the smaller establishments are making an effort to provide personalised service to differentiate themselves from the big players. I still recalled seeing a personal place-card when we visited Little Diner's last year during Restaurant Week. Sometimes, I think these little gestures go a long way in customers' memories.
There were only 2 starter to choose from, so we ended up with one of each to try.
Popper & Meatball, which consisted of chipotle meatball and jalapeno popper with citrus couscous and mixed greens. Leecher (unwillingly) had mango and avocado salad, consisted of mixed greens with mango, avocado, walnuts, feta cheese, citrus couscous and citrus dressing. I have a special liking towards citrus couscous & I even finished the mixed greens on the platter. What an achievement, haha!
Break time before the main courses arrived. Take a break, snap a picture, lol!
With 3 main courses to choose from, we decided forgo the vegetarian paella and instead, opted for beef & fish.
Leecher's order of Barramundi Filet, served with pan roasted fillet of wild caught barramundi with baby vegetables, mushy peas, potato laces and jus reduction. When the plate arrived, it was like a work of art! I had to take a couple of pictures to capture the essence of the plating while ignoring Leecher's dagger-like stares to start eating.
As for me, I opted for the usual Sirloin Beef, consisted of grilled Australian grain fed 120 days beef sirloin with cabbage, leeks fricassee and saffron rice puree. Joy came over to the table once again and explained that the sirloin beef is one of their signature dishes (the other being Chicken "Adobo" which was not offered as part of RW's menu). As I sank my teeth into the beef, I was surprised to find that it was really juicy and tender!
The mandatory "main-course" pic before we start dinner proper, heh!
Moving onto desserts & once again, we tried the 2 options that were available.
Chocolate & Lemongrass ice creams. Needless to say, chocolate ice cream worked wonders for me, but somehow lemongrass ice cream tasted really weird. Even though it was refreshing, I couldn't bring myself to take another bite. On the contrary, Leecher loved it and before I knew it, he finished everything, lol! We also had churros layered with salted caramel bananas, fresh mangoes and coconut-infused mascarpone sabayon. I've always paired churros with chocolate sauce, so this new pairing was quite innovative even though I'm not a fan of bananas. Another of their mouth-watering desserts is "Bocas Negras", a flourless chocolate cake that I would to try for the next trip.
J's7 Purvis Street#01-01 Singapore 188586Tel: 6887 4787
