Rise Restaurant is back?

How weird. I posted about JC yesterday and how it's time to set up another date, but being the lazy me, I didn't actually contact her. AND since that post is scheduled to come out in two days, she wouldn't have seen it yet... but today, I received a chat message from her asking if we'd have lunch next week.

It's bizarre! We haven't talked to each other since 3 months ago! I was talking to this French woman a week back. She's really into meditations and using music to speak to planets and communicate with souls... I absolutely adore her French accent, it's enough music for my ears just listening to her speak, BUT I digress. She was talking about how everything consists of particles vibrating, and how our conscious thoughts have a frequency. I'm not going to go into all the psychosomatic, energosomatic and mentalsomatic methods of healing (I don't even know what they are!) Basically, she was telling me that events that appear coincidental (like when I'm thinking of someone and they suddenly call, or when I really want ice cream and an ice cream truck pulls over), are really due to thought frequencies matching...

It's hard to pay attention when I was really more drawn to her French accent.

From Rise

Enough weirdness. This was from agggges ago at Rise Restaurant. I went to Rise a few years ago with SM, FL and tt, when it was still under the management of Hideki Okazaki, who owned the restaurant back then and was also head chef.

From Rise

The owner chef is now Kevin Seo. I was enquiring about Chef Okazaki, but no one seemed to know who I was talking about.... that was the whole reason why we decided to give Rise Restaurant another go and got pretty excited about it too, because THE best dish that we've ever had... was from Rise Restaurant years ago.

From Rise

Cold soup of cauliflower with celery ice-cream. See what I mean by cauliflower soup is usually served cold?

From Rise

Panko oyster. This is how oysters are meant to be- cooked! Had this at the Iron Chef event too, but it is quite a generic entree.

From Rise

I gotta say, the chef managed to maintain the beautiful appearance of each dish. This one was getting smoked in the cup!

From Rise

Smoked ocean trout carpaccio with truffle soy and fennel pickle.

From Rise

I did like the fennel pickle a lot, went really well with the smoked trout. One of my favourite dishes in this menu.

From Rise

Octopus and tiger prawn with mango granita and vinegar dressing (sunomono). This was a little weird. It's meant to be cold, yes, but it was REALLY cold... like abnormally cold for a salad. I can see what the chef was trying to do, because prawn and mango do kinda go well together, but for some reason... hm... didn't turn out quite good.

From Rise

This was their 12 hour slow braised pork belly with slow cooked yolk and lotus root.

From Rise

Upon lifting the shell, the egg yolk pops out. Interesting plating, very beautiful, and one can never go too wrong with pork belly, whether it's been braised or roasted.

From Rise

Sun was setting, bad lighting means Stanley chucks a tantrum. Toothfish marinated in blue cheese miso and cottage cheese "shira-ae". Didn't have any of this one because I get put off by blue cheese.

From Rise

Such a bad photo. Do forgive Stanley.

From Rise

Roasted Wagyu beef with wasabi soy jus, radish puree, okura and fungi mushroom. My choice for main~ like previously mentioned in another entry, not entirely sure how "wagyu" this is, but it wasn't bad. I was getting full by now. Restaurants seem to always leave the "wagyu" dishes till when I'm full, haha. Didn't really properly enjoy this one.

From Rise

I do like how they put pickles in a few dishes though, really helped with digestion and as a palate cleanser.

From Rise

Pre dessert course of lemongrass ginger granita with sake jelly and pickled ginger. I don't particularly enjoy ginger in my dishes, but this one was quite subtle, and since there weren't really large chunks or pieces of ginger in the actual dish, I could handle it. Definitely a weird blend of flavors though, I don't know about mixing lemongrass and ginger into a dessert-like granita.

From Rise

Finale~ I've already forgotten what this was, but I think it was brown sugar ice cream with creme brulee, tuile, and meringue with chocolate dirt at the bottom. I made that up. Looks right~ 

Overall, Rise Restaurant serves interesting dishes. I had a look recently at their website and it seems they changed their menu already since. Lots of creativity, beautifully presented dishes, service had always been and still is impeccable, but.... a lot of the dishes are probably too adventurous, which leaves one almost wondering what they're eating. Funny how most restaurants do really well for entrees and appetizers, but not so much for mains... 

Will I revisit Rise again? Hm... this one is more 50/50... I don't know... Might give them a year or two before trying again. Nothing unforgivable about this restaurant though, I quite like it actually.