Pinchos, Rochester Park

There has been a veritable drought of posts here on this blog, as I've been very busy and experiencing some emotional stresses this month. Anyway, one seeks refuge in good food and I decided to check out Pinchos, a spanish wine and tapas bar at Rochester Park, yesterday seeing that it was a Friday.

Pinchos is owned by the same group as Cassis (see my previous post here) and I had always walked past it to its more glamourous and seductive sister when deciding on what to eat. So imagine how I kicked myself for not checking it out sooner, when I did finally lunch there. My friend and I had the Tapas Platters A (SGD21) and B (SGD28) to share, and gratinated french snails in parsley butter SGD18 for twelve snails).

Here's the run-down of what we ate:

Tapas Platter A

Toasted Homemade Country Bread Topped with Fresh Tomato

Grilled Pork Sausage with dijon mustard

Handmade Duck Rillette served with cornichon on walntu bread

Deep-fried red snapper and caper croquettes served with tartar sauce

Tortilla espanola - classic spanish omelette

Tapas Platter B

Toasted Homemade Country Bread Topped with Fresh Tomato

Pan-seared pork and pistachio meatballs in an almond sauce

Sliced ballotine of foie gras on homemade brioche

Sizzling prawns in olive oil, garlic and dried hot chilli peppers

Spinach salad with pine nuts and raisins drizzled with madeira vinaigrette

Delicate caramelized spanish torrijas with homemade brandy ice cream

Everything was very good (well - Pinchos does share the same one Michelin star chef as Cassis), but the clear runaway hero of the meal was the gratinated french snails. Perfectly succulent, savoury, and with a lovely crisp coating of breadcrumbs, this had me gulping up six with ease and slurping up the juices in the shell (very unglamourous, I know, but one has to sacrifice some things for good food). I love foie gras and duck rillettes too so I was most happy when my friend passed on those to me (and it's cold foie gras which is the best way to really appreciate this delicacy).

Love the ambience there too - there were only two other tables that were occupied while we were there - and we had the super-comfy couch to lounge on, having arrived early. Warm, maroon theme and outdoor rattan armchairs are the order of the day. Pity I had to skip the wine though, since it was far too early to start drinking.

Still hestitating? Why wait? Go to Pinchos - it is a hidden gem. From there, it's a mere hop, skip and jump over to the bakery Twelve+One which is another wonderful discovery (but more on that in my next post).

N.B. I am sorry about the quality of the pictures. It does not do justice to the restaurant or the food, but I forgot to bring the camera along yesterday, so the handphone camera was all I had.