Kimme more: Modern bistro boasts riveting menu
An exciting restaurant has opened in the already crowded Amoy Street.
This is a good problem because even the most finicky diner can find something to suit his taste buds.
Kimme calls itself an "innovative modern bistro". It has 48 seats spread across three storeys with a shared long table on the first level, great for eavesdropping and distracting yourself in case your meal companions bore you.
The food here should prove delicious enough, though.
Chef Sun Kim - the man behind the one-starred Michelin restaurant Meta - and Kimme's head chef Louis Han have come up with a menu of dishes inspired by Korean flavours, with European style and a modern approach.
Essentially, it is Meta-lite in pricing and Meta-like in flavour profiles and dining experience.
The menu is divided into three segments - Small, Big and Sweet.
Come in a group and go through as many of the Big items as possible because they are all good.
My dish of the night was an interactive one from the Big menu. The bossam ($35) is a wrap with tender slow-cooked pork belly as the centrepiece.
KIMCHI
You wrap the pork in endive, add a bit of the homemade white kimchi, and eat.
It can be messy but it is worth it. It is the perfect one-bite dish, with salty and bitter undertones.
The best thing is the kimchi.
It is not spicy but full of punch and just tart enough to whet the appetite. The moment Kimme bottles this kimchi for sale, I will be waiting at the door.
I really like the spanner crab linguine ($26) too, a dish inspired by traditional Korean japchae.
The noodles and the broth have an earthy comforting taste, and the crab seems almost redundant.
Prawns and XO sauce are a match made in heaven, so it is not surprising that the one here ($30), which comes with Jerusalem artichoke, works.
My favourite element is the artichoke puree, a balanced mix of woody and tart flavours and so pleasurable to consume.
The Korean-style wagyu tartare ($23) is raw beef with soya sauce, sesame, mustard, lime juice and mirin mixed in.
The dish made me recall a hilarious story where a lifestyle blogger was overheard saying the problem with her tartare was that it was raw.
She wouldnot have liked this, but I found the spicy and salty flavours were mesmerising.
I am not usually a fan of lamb but the gaminess of the lamb tacos ($13) was subtle enough for me. That might mean it may be too bland for fans of that distinct flavour.
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