Date: 04 August 2007 19:00 (Saturday)
Morton's, The Steakhouse - The Creme de la Creme of Steak Houses....
Before you start wondering if Wen and I are some multi-millionaires who live a life filled with riches and excesses, let me put to rest that suspicion you have. No, we are not multi-millionaires and we do not live a life of riches. The dinning of the past week may seem to indicate so but that's far from the truth. We do indulge in excesses though...
BUT, this meal is not one of those excesses. It is a necessity... because ? years ago on this very day, in a dinky dark corner in the now defunct Devil's Bar, I looked at Wen in her eyes and my heart screamed out to me "this is the one!" after which i, without any hesitation, planted a kiss on her lips. ? years ago, she stole my heart away from me... And so, this meal at Morton's isn't about Excesses... it's a celebration of the start of a perfect union that happened ? years ago...
And so after our pre-dinner drink at Axis bar & Lounge, we made our way to Morton's! Oh what joy to be able to dine in this restaurant which we have been fantasizing for such a long time!
Let me first talk about why everyone should go to Morton's for a meal....
1) Excellent Service! - All restaurants should learn a thing or two from Morton's. The waiters and waitresses were very professional and the managers were very attentive to the needs of the customers.
2) Table front presentation of food - Yup, the waiter in charge of serving you will push this trolley filled with all the dishes they serve and explain to you what each dish is about. Doesn't matter that it seems rather silly when a waiter picks up a lobster and tells you that if you order lobster, this is what you will get...
3) Excellent Service! - I called up to make reservations about 2 weeks back and informed them that i would be celebrating our anniversary. They made our table really special. They sprinkled little stars on the table to make us feel special. They gave us a booth seat even though i did not request for it. The printed menu on our table had a congratulatory message wishing us a Happy Anniversary. Nice small touches...
4) Excellent Service! - At the end of the meal, they even gave us a complimentary Warm Chocolate cake. They came over to take a picture of us and within minutes presented us with a nice photo frame with the picture taken and wishing us a Happy Anniversary. So so sweet of them....
We started off with the free Onion Bread that they serve all their patrons before dinner. The bloody bread was ENORMOUS! We were completely stunned when we saw the bread... it's bigger than the size of my stomach! But the onion bread was very very nice.... very flavourful and freshly baked.
Next, we had a look at the wine menu and i think the cheapest bottle of wine we could find was a $148 bottle of Pinot Noir from Australia which you can get for $37 in Cold Storage. It's not that they only carry expensive wines.... it's just how they priced their wines. If i had known this to be the case, I would have been better off paying the $60 corkage and bringing my own bottle of wine!
Anyway, we decided to go with a bottle of Chateau Belgrave, Haut-Medoc 1999. We've had this before though we can't remember where. After all the nice 2006 whites we've had in the past week, this bottle was a disappointment. It's not too bad... just highly forgettable. I guess it holds true about how when you pay peanuts, you get monkeys... This bottle cost us $150. A pretty expensive bottle of monkey if you asked me... Again, dun get me wrong, if i had paid $60 for this bottle of wine, i would have said it was fantastic, but at $150... i couldn't help but feel that the wine did me injustice...
Next up was a half dozen oysters...
Oysters were rather massive in my opinion but the waiter served it with an apology saying that the oysters are a little small today so they decided to give us 7 instead of 6. Duh! But i wasn't going to start complaining....
Next up was the Lobster Bisque which we had requested to have one portion split into 2. Wen and i aren't such big eaters and we usually rather have more in variation than in size. The Lobster Bisque was really quite good though not the best. For the best Lobster Bisque, look no further than St Julien at Fullerton's Waterhouse...
The picture above is how it looks with the portioned Split... thank goodness we did not order a bowl each!
We ordered 2 extra side dishes to go with our mains and that would be the Asparagus in Hollandaise Sauce and the Lyonnaise Potatoes. I'm going to be blunt here... the Asparagus tasted like... Asparagus. And with the Hollandaise Sauce, it tasted like... Asparagus with Hollandaise sauce! And if you have to pay $25 for a plate of Asparagus with Hollandaise Sauce, you would feel a tad stupid after... which is how i felt.
The Lyonnaise Potatoes on the other hand was simply out of this world. Grilled to perfection! Crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside... Didn't matter that i felt stupid paying $15 for a small plate of potatoes... they were good! This is one dish not to be missed when you visit Morton's...
And then... the highlight of the evening! The US Prime Rib-eye... Ok, for those who have never been to Morton's and you are planning to go and you are not a big eater, for the love of Mankind... order just one steak and share it with your partner. Don't feel shy about asking them to split your steak order! Here's the reason why.... Wen and i may not be big eaters but we still do put in a substantial amount of food into our stomachs during meal times. For Steaks, Wen usually struggles to finish 120 grams while i do perfect with 150 grams. That's a total of 270 grams between us. Morton serves their steak in 400 grams portions.... that is massive! At 400 grams here, you are not even talking about eating a cow.... you are talking about eating the cow, it's parents, it's grand-parents and half of it's first uncle!
Ok, i think you get the picture... Now, the quality of the steak.... i'm going to be curt here. I have had better... much better... for possibly half the price. The best steak i had was when both Wen and i were in the U.S. We were in Las Vegas and we went to this steak place called Smith & Wollensky Same posh setting, same posh menu, same excellent service, a fraction of Morton's prices...
In Singapore, many restaurants do their steaks very well... the only difference is that most restaurants do not use US beef and while i am not the biggest fans of the US of A, i got to say they have the best cows in the world. If these restaurants started investing in US Cows for their steaks, they would do a meaner steak than Morton's. I enjoyed my steak... so did Wen... but we both felt a little silly paying $80 for it. The steak was at best .... mediocre...
We ended the dinner with the complimentary Warm Chocolate Cake. Now, this one was really good and it wasn't because it was free.... Served with a scoop of Vanilla ice cream and an inedible candle on ice. The sponge of the cake was the perfect texture and the hot chocolate contained in those sponges were simply orgasmic!
It was supposed to be a perfect evening for the 2 of us... celebrating our anniversary in a restaurant we have wanted to visit for so long. But we ended up damaged twice over.... we damaged our digestive systems big time. We had to literally roll out of the restaurant. I could have walked out of the restaurant without my pants and no one would bat an eye lid simply because my stomach would have been covering any obscene parts. Our wallets also got damaged big time... super big time. I had exchanged my UOB Credit card points for a $100 voucher and thought i would spend no more than $250... final dinner bill... $402.53. For that price, i could have gotten a degustation menu for 2 at Iggy's without alcohol!
But like i said.... this isn't one of those excesses we have in life. It's a necessity... when you come into the realisation that the one you love means the world to you, Morton's extravagant bill is really just peanuts. A very big peanut....
Morton's, The Steakhouse
Oriental Hotel
5 Raffles Avenue, Marina Square
4th Storey
Singapore 039797
Tel: 63393740
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