BAM! - It's Monday, for goodness' sakes. hurray.
Labels:
hidden finds,
japanese,
pairing,
sake,
tapas,
tras street,
will return
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Monday, sucks, period. That is, until you remember that we share a city with a bunch of roving alcoholic devotees; you'll never be shortchanged of the best drinking deals in town even on the bluest day of the week. When it's all too much to deal with - the smoothest libations, the cosiest nooks and rich bites - BAM! is there to cosset you in ingenious fare and put out that raging fire with sparkling cool bottles of the best sakes.
Venture to conspire after a tumultuous day at work at BAM! where they do a Sake-Tapas Tasting every Monday from 6 - 8pm. It's not the generic over-the-counter-top kind of sessions, instead, revel in a full-fledged congruous pairing of 5 sakes and 5 tapas at S$48++ per person. (note, teething issues have been ironed out from it's launch on the 5th June and better pairings have been implemented). Spanish Chef Pepe Moncayo may be a through-bred, but his dishes provides a pleasing break from tradition with his fastidious ode to 'Modern Shudo' where sake is employed to bring out the umami flavors in food; this paves the way for toothsome bites. Dishes are unmanned by a specific country or cuisine, instead they are all presented with the finesse of Japanese Teishouku, small but power packed.
We begin with the Ura Gasanryu Honjouzo from Yamagata. It's aromatic and fresh notes starts the evening rolling to a slow start. This is served alongside 2 innocuous looking golden brown cubes which comes with a swath of honey aioli that is sweet with a good refreshing sharpness thanks to a good lashing of vinegar. The ankimo tofu is topped with shirashu and avruga caivar and it's polarising. The pungency of monkfish liver lingers long after you've completely smashed that first tipple.
Second course is a perfect bite of spring, Padron peppers are laced with the anarchists of seeds -sesame and flanked with a creamy goma sauce before the final flourish of bonito flakes. It's spicy notes are a fabulous cradle for the accompanying sake, a Chikuha Noto Junmai from Ishikawa, made using Noto Yamadanishiki rice. Emanating warm banana wafts on the nose, this gives way to spices and sweeter ripened muscat grapes on the palate.
Note that this dish has been swapped out of the current tasting menu due to it's velvety nature making it somewhat of a challenging dish to operate functional pairings with. If you must know, the Sakura Ebi Omelette with smoked apple and panko sounds equally divine.
Tedorigawa Shukon Junmai Ginjou from Yamagata and Sakunohana Ginjou Karakuchi are the next two sakes to whet our alcoholic palettes. The former has a balanced acidity and a clean after taste, prized qualities that were cleanly eliminated with the pairing of the Salmon Skins, Ikura, Mashed potato and lime ponzu sauce. (this has also been changed for scarmoza a la plancha on the 4th course). That aside, the dish read as a statement of principles, good ingredients, faultless flavors, careful execution and an eye for color punctuation, that definitely took away from the dreary nature of Monday. By this stage, conversation would have picked up several notches on the volume scale, the crew expressing a certain reluctance to accept the fate of Tuesday. Yes, BAM! on Monday seems like a pretty swell idea at this point.
If you've bought into my lure of Monday happy tipples, save your pretty penny for BAM! sake and tapas tasting night. And at $48++ for a 5 sake and 5 tapas pairing, you'll not be able to fathom the non-obtrusive and flawless service standards, it doesn't come with a back massage but we'll let that slide.
BAM!
38 Tras Street
S(078977)
t: 6226 0500
Operating Hours:
Mon: 6 - 10 30pm
Tues - Thurs: 12pm - 2pm; 6pm - 10 30pm
Fri: 12 - 2pm; 6 - 11 30pm
Sat: 6 - 11 30pm
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