Savour 2012

So last weekend, I bought tickets for us to visit Savour 2012. This is the debut launch of the culinary and gourmet event complete with expert master classes, live demos and you get to taste cuisine by award winning restaurants helmed by celebrity chefs! They include chefs from the world's top 100 and Michelin-star restaurants. What's more amazing is that the organizers managed to transport an entire room into an air-conditioned grocery store where you can do your culinary shopping of items and products not found in Singapore.

I went for the event with an open mind and open heart to try out many different types of cuisine and I wasn't let down definitely.

 It was quite a wet day and it started drizzling slightly about 30minutes after we got there but that didn't keep us from walking around in search of good food!

The crowd starting building up about 1pm. We opted for the afternoon session which was from 1130am to 4pm. The night session starts from about 6pm - 11pm.

There were so many cuisine to try it was simply impossible to eat all of them sadly. Wish I could have gone on another day to try more of the food available.

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We started first off with Chef Julien Royer

JAAN, Singapore

No. 39 on The S.Pellegrino's World's 50 Best Restaurants 2010

Venison Tartare

Pickled kohlrabi, mushroom ketchup, porcini crumbs and spring herbs

$15

We didn't exactly have this. It was just conveniently laid out on a table for display right there and then. They did a pretty good job in luring customers in because of that and had some excellent marketing skills lol.

Wild Caught Langoustine

Bread and butter crust, Kabocha pumpkin, "fir" vinaigrette

$21

I was really excited to try this and also because Karina was raving about it on Twitter the day before. It was SO GOOD! Omg. The lobster really melts in your mouth and the pumpkin puree is the most excellent combination with it. Yum.

Choconuts

Sable breton, tanariva mousse, peanut and caramel

$12

This was also from the same restaurant but we didn't get it. We really should have though. I look at this picture right now and all I can think of is kicking myself in the butt for not trying this ):

We moved on to try some Vietnamese cuisine cos J was really interested in tasting them.

Chef Bien Nguyen

Xu Restaurant, Vietnam

Restauranteur of the Year, Asian Gastronomic Awards of Excellence 2011

He was very friendly and made sure that the customers were served and not left hanging at the counter. Very considerate and had no top chef 'airs' at all!

Coconut Braised Pork Belly

with picked red cabbage & caramelised daikon

$12

The pork belly was slightly fatty though but it was good fats and the coconut embraced the pork belly with a slight tinge of sweetness to the savoury pork. I guess this was good and really value for money and I actually really liked the pickled red cabbage in the dish.

Next up was Chef Alvin Leung

Bo Innovation, Hong Kong

2 Michelin Stars

No. 64 on The S.Pellegrino World's 50 Best Restaurants 2011

Saw the chef walking past later on. I remember him as the chef that keeps appearing on MiO tv on Li Channel with the really cool and spunky hair lol

We had the Molecular Xiao Long Bao

$6

I know it doesn't really look like a XLB and neither does it really taste like a XLB actually. I think this was made using some high tech culinary machine or something actually, hence the name, molecular. But it does have a very thick and creamy pasty filling, not like the splash of awesome soup you get from a Ding Tai Fung XLB. (speaking of which, I'm going for XLB steamboat buffet later on. Can't wait!)

Egg Waffles

with black truffle and vanilla ice-cream

$12

This was quite the big hit amongst the people there. I saw almost everyone holding a plate of it. The waffle was really good I must say and it went nicely with the vanilla ice cream which had vanilla beans in it. YES vanilla beans. The black truffle gave this really wonderful kick to the whole dessert and there was this really thick sauce as well which I wish they didn't drizzle that much of it onto the waffle since the sauce was pretty thick. Kinda have a feeling that the sauce and the filling of the XLB have almost the same ingredients in them.

This was Chef  Emmanuel Stroobant from St-Pierre, Singapore.

Didn't manage to try his food but I guess him being in Singapore makes it easier for us to head down to his restaurant and try his food, unlike the chefs that were specially flown in.

I was VERY SAD that I didn't get to try Chef Alain Passard's food for some silly reason ): His Pumpkin Veloute with pancetta looked so nice in the photos but was definitely pricey as well.

After stuffing ourselves, we went up to check out the rest of the activities on site. They had a Gourmet Market on the 2nd level of the pit building that sold every ingredient that you could possibly imagine. Meat, fruits, vegetables, whole foods, italian anti-pasti, lamb, beef, cheese and so much more!

There were also free tastings for so many items and you could just try them out for fun.

Taylors of Harrogate's scones and tea. Their scones are so warm and delicious and DIVINE!

Oysters in ice crates

And the cheese. Omg the cheese. I know I'm not a huge fan of eating cheese alone like that but they had so many cheeses! And the best part of all, which I'm still very amazed at, is that they're FREE FOR ALL. Everyone was just crowding around and eating cheese LOL.

I was very sad that they didn't had Gruyere cheese though, one of the best cheeses in the world cos I really wanted to purchase some. ):

They also had all sorts of ham for you to try and they slice them up on the spot.

Went to check out the No-Bake Chocolate Banana Cake workshop for kids by Wendy Choh from BIG O Cafe. So cute looking at all the kids making banana chocolate cakes!

This is what one of their end products look like. Looks pretty decent eh?

Some boy who was very excited about bananas and decides to eat them instead of making his cake LOL

The butterfly lady with cool purple hair and the very adorable little girl

We also attended courses on our own. This was a home barista course whereby the trainer teaches you how to make coffee the traditional way and we got the taste the coffee she made as well. It was an amusing experience because the sound system keep having problems and there were actually two posters on the right hand side of the white panels but they fell down one by one. It was also slightly hard to see what the trainer was actually doing unless you sit really close or she actually lifts up the coffee contraption to show us.

There was also a tiramisu course where the pastry chef made it from scratch and gave us the recipe for it even! haha. The best course I attended there was probably the food styling workshop where there were two trainers showing us how to style food and how to take a GOOD photo shot out of the food. I only found the photographer giving great tips, the stylist not so much. They are actually the same stylist and photographer that appeared in Xiaxue's Guide to Life. Here's the website if you're interested to watch it: Xiaxue's Guide To Life EP117 - Food Styling

We visited another area of the pit building and they had all sorts of food there as well, including candy shops, coffee stalls, macaroons and cakes for tasting. Above is Oriole Cafe's boss making a cuppa coffee. We decided to settle for some lamb chops cos they smelt SO GOOD! They are from GreenGrocer. I believe they do catering as well cos I heard from mentioning to some other gentleman.

We had the 45 days GRAINfed Australian Lamb Chops. $18. Grainfed leh. Don't mess.

It smelt really good I must say and J very nicely sliced the meat up for me (:

How can one resist lamb chops seriously?

Fairy cakes!

For our last stop, we decided to spend our money on a dessert and J busted the last $9 on an apple cider. haha. 

We had dessert from Chef Sam Leong

Forest, Singapore

Five Star Diamond Award, American Academy of Hospitality Sciences

This was the Siam Chocolate Banana Ganache

with Thai-tea ice-cream and berries

$12

Oh the chocolate banana ganache was SO GOODDDDD. Yums. It was like the perfect end to wrap up our visit to Savour. The chocolate was slightly sticky and the chocolate crust was so crisp. I think by that time, we were pretty stuffed so I couldn't really enjoy myself thoroughly cos I was so full! The thai-tea ice cream tasted slightly overpowering though.

One last photo to end off our day at the event.

Anyway we quickly scooted off and I popped by the flyer to meet the Timbre people cos they're having Rock & Roots 2012 as well! I think most of them were busy so didn't manage to catch a glimpse of them haha.

 

Outfit of the day. J make me take a photo with a weird poppy-looking like flower that he picked up from the side of the road. I really stuffed myself silly that day and the bodycon dress wasn't helping at all in hiding the evidence of my gourmet indulgence hoho. Luckily I had a cardigan to help cover up!

If you must know, after the Savour event, I went for MELBEN CRABS. What in the world..... That's coming up in the next post (: