This dish was officially christened "Pineapple Crumble" by Shelter in the Woods, a French restaurant with a Japanese chef. (I'm not sure how much this chef influences the menu, but we were served pão de queijo - Jap-styled cheese mochi which originated from Brazil, possibly from the large Japanese diaspora community there - as an appetiser.)
But as you can see, it is almost nothing like the typical hearty and butter-rich crumble. Instead, it was light and refreshing, with crystalline lemongrass jelly as the base ingredient.
As you can see, they did have some of the typical pastry crumble, but the more significant source of crunch was probably the pineapple chips, which are the whitish bits you see up close in the image below. These reminded me of the freeze-dried pineapple chips which I've seen in Vietnam.
The darker pineapple bits were syruped pineapple, which tasted a lot like pineapple compote or cooked/caramelised pineapple. There was also supposed to be pineapple granité according to the menu, which is a sugared and blended pineapple... but either it was the syrupped pineapple that they were referring to, or else it was mixed in somewhere with the jelly and inconspicuous enough that I didn't even notice it.
Finally, there were bits of mint leaves scattered here and there, along with a bit of crushed ice, if I'm not wrong. It was topped off with a light vanilla ice cream, possibly gelato.
Overall, it was a really unique and refreshing combination. I liked the lemongrass jelly, mint leaf and ice combination. These struck me as "cool" in feel.
The two types of pineapple complemented those elements with some "warmth", especially the compote-like pineapple. The pineapple chips added a different kind of crunch. And the ice cream helped bridge the gap between the cool (due to its temperature) and the warmth (owing to its cream). Now, I don't really know how to explain what I mean by warmth, but I suppose it has something to do with heartiness, creaminess like in the ice cream, and sweet-sourness in the softness of the compote-like pineapple.
I thought the actual pastry crumble was odd and didn't jive with any of the ingredients except for the ice cream and caramelised pineapple, but these were too sparse for the medley to make any sense. So it was probably better off without the crumble.
It cost $14++, which is a bit steep for a dessert, but given its uniqueness and relatively large serving, I think it was reasonable.
As you can see, they did have some of the typical pastry crumble, but the more significant source of crunch was probably the pineapple chips, which are the whitish bits you see up close in the image below. These reminded me of the freeze-dried pineapple chips which I've seen in Vietnam.
Finally, there were bits of mint leaves scattered here and there, along with a bit of crushed ice, if I'm not wrong. It was topped off with a light vanilla ice cream, possibly gelato.
Overall, it was a really unique and refreshing combination. I liked the lemongrass jelly, mint leaf and ice combination. These struck me as "cool" in feel.
The two types of pineapple complemented those elements with some "warmth", especially the compote-like pineapple. The pineapple chips added a different kind of crunch. And the ice cream helped bridge the gap between the cool (due to its temperature) and the warmth (owing to its cream). Now, I don't really know how to explain what I mean by warmth, but I suppose it has something to do with heartiness, creaminess like in the ice cream, and sweet-sourness in the softness of the compote-like pineapple.
I thought the actual pastry crumble was odd and didn't jive with any of the ingredients except for the ice cream and caramelised pineapple, but these were too sparse for the medley to make any sense. So it was probably better off without the crumble.
It cost $14++, which is a bit steep for a dessert, but given its uniqueness and relatively large serving, I think it was reasonable.
Check out more unusual ice creams here!
It was very... beefy. But the capers did well to complement it, due to their vinegary sour taste I think.
Overall, an interesting restaurant experience. But I'm not sure I'll go back because of the price... in that I'm not sure that the quality matched the cost.
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Just for the record, I also tried steak tartare for the first time. The closest I had previously tried was raw mutton kibbeh nayyeh in Aman, Jordan, and beef carpacio, both of which I quite liked. But this was my first time trying raw beef done in the typical tartare style - with raw egg (I thought it cute that they used quail egg) and capers.
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And the other interesting (but not too unusual) item we tried was their foie gras platter. It was saltier and sweeter than most other foie gras I'd tried.
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