Last minute booking /Revolver

Y (April '23) 

SCORE:GOOD ENOUGH TO GO AGAIN

HIGHLIGHTS: Paneer Tikka| Grilled Maitake | bone marrow Kulchette

VALUE: $350/head for largest tasting menu without booze (don't remember how many courses)

One of my oldest buddies from college stopped by this past week. He's a Singaporean now settled in the bay area. I wanted to bring him and his partner to a place that would be local food, but more ang moh palate friendly, and not the usuals as he's been in Singapore plenty of times. In the past my go to would have been Kin at Straits clan, however now that that space is used for global chef's show-and-tell, I find Revolver a good spot to bring foreigners to.. As S quite rightly put it, Revolver is brown people food... but for white people palates. Lucky for us, they still had a counter spot available using their handy dandy web tool, we were looking to dine on a random tuesday, after all. I decided to bring my buddy and his partner there for dinner.

I went on a Tuesday evening, for the first seating. I had been there several times before, and so was expecting a solid meal that would be appealing to my guests. We were presented with a menu that had 4 different tasting menu options and optional add ons beyond that! Talk about decision making fatigue after a day of grumbling at minions not taking decisions. True to my inner pig, I literally asked the chef which one gave me the most things to try, and he told us the omakase - so that's what we went with.

amuse bouche up - it was 2 plates. One plate had four little bites, usual heavy hitters of Uni and caviar were on display needless to say. The green rice crispies that the caviar sat atop had an odd chewy remnant that took a while to digest. the croquette on the top left was made of corn, and I wasn't entirely thrilled - was hoping to have some ham in there or something else to follow the strong flavours of the previous few bites. The second plate of snacks were these baby squids that were served in an oil with curry leaf that was quite a nice contrast to the soft flavor of the squid. All in all, they were all interesting enough, but nothing to write home about

The next course had me quite conflicted. it was a maitake grilled mushroom. Absolutely delicious, with the smokeyness of the flames that were roaring in front of us, and just the right balance between outer crunch and inner tenderness.. can't tell if I'm describing mushrooms or something else. hmm. It was plated with an equally delicious sauce of morels. I love morel mushrooms. Now where I'm conflicted is the two put together was just too much mushroom in one bite. I ended up devouring the two separately.

Next up is a dish that has been consistently my favorite dish at this restaurant, and this visit was no exception - the Paneer tikka. Deliciously soft paneer grilled perfectly, and served with a pesto and a sambal relish on top. really nicely done, the sambal beautifully balanced the creaminess in the paneer. I highly recommend this, even for the die hard carnivores

The next few courses were sort of just running through the numbers and the flex factor. I mean, it's hard to fault them, but at the same time, I'm indifferent to ordering them again. Lobster tossed with tamarind, an A5 steak with 3 sauces, 3 kulchettes stuffed with comte topped with: caviar, butter chicken and bone marrow respectively. If you want to impress someone that gets googly eyed with fancy ingredients, get them additional rounds of this section of the meal

We had a great time, with friendly service, the chefs knew when to chat with us, when to let our conversation flow. I'm a big fan of the music here - classic rock tracks for most of the meal.