Madame Sixty Ate

After discovering that Linguini Fini doesn't take reservations, we decided to go to Madame Sixty Ate for dinner on a Tuesday night. I dined with 3 girlfriends, and a colleague of one from Bangkok who was in town for a few days. This lady looked amazing, has two children (the oldest 13!), runs marathons, and she doesn't look a day over 32. I'll eat whatever she's eating, thank you very much!

The restaurant is nicely laid out with good space between tables so you don't feel like other people are intruding on your conversations - great for a catch up dinner or an intimate date. The kitchen is open and you walk past the chefs busying away on the way to your table. I'd heard about this restaurant many times, and each time was a raving review - however, I couldn't for the life of me remember what the tag phrase was that everyone mentioned. So when asked our very attentive waiter where the chef was from, he explained that he used to be culinary director at the W Hotel (Ah! That's what it was!"). "You mean the guy with the crutches in the kitchen?", one of us asks. Turns out that he was in a serious bike accident where his bike collided with a minibus (bleeping minibuses!!), and he'll be in recovery for 6 months. Anxious to get back to it, he left the hospital after 5 days and went straight back to the restaurant, where he sits on a bar stool conducting the kitchen likes it's an symphony orchestra. Now that's what I call a dedication to food!
 
The same observant friend who noticed the crutches (she must have spidey senses - or perhaps a heightened sense of alertness due to pregnancy) also pointed out that the majority of diners were female. Goodness knows why, and I can't think of a smart answer for it, but Madame Sixy Ate definitely seems to be a favorite for a girls dinner! Perhaps it's the softly coloured interiors of varying shades of blue, white and grey, the whimsical bird-printed wallpaper, or the delicate combination of tastes and flavours that keep the ladies coming back, but one thing's for sure: I'll definitely be returning

We ordered just a couple of appetizers to share:

Baby vegetables with fennel and manchego cream: a veritable jardinière of mixed vegetables with an accompanying cream that was way too mild - I feel like the taste should have been stronger to balance the very delicate vegetables. Still, a beautifully presented dish!

Toulouse sausage with traditional choucroute: EXCELLENT! The sausage was chunky and tasted superb and intensely savory, an excellent combination with the slightly sweet and sour choucroute.

For the main courses, we all had different fish dishes apart from one. The menu is well balanced in terms of meat and fish, and judging from other reviews that I've read, the dinner menu has already been updated as least once. There's a good mix of light and heavy meat dishes (pork loin and pigeon breast vs. lamb loin and wagyu steak) - which suits me just fine.

I would say one of the tastiest of our mains was the semi-cured pork chop on herb pasta:

The "pork chop" resembled roast gammon ham in terms of taste and texture, but it went well with the homemade pasta, and the pork rinds were yum. MSA does a good job of making sure that there are many distinct textures incorporated in the dish.

My dish- Halibut, cauliflower, squid ink: not my cup of tea. I usually love halibut, but discovered that night that I don't like it cooked in this method. It had the texture of raw fish, and was rather tasteless. The way they decorated the dish with squid ink was very impressive though - edible art!

Seared John Dory, pork rinds, cockles, potato: perfectly cooked, very tasty!

Bonito fish "stew": seared bonito, mussels, chorizo - looked excellent, didn't get around to trying it. Must go back to do so!

We ordered a couple of the side dishes to share with our mains, the heritage tomatoes mozzarella mousse and basil oil was again very well presented. It was another dish I didn't actually get around to to trying, because I was too obsessed with the puree of potatoes below. When the waiter served it he said "These are reaaaaaaally, reaaaaaaaally goooood potatoes". Potatoes with parmesan and truffle oil...need I say more?!

The side dish of young carrots was finely shredded to resemble noodles -

al dente and a nice crunchy addition.

After the mains, we moved outside to the terrace over looking Johnston Road for our coffees and dessert, and a change of scenery. The weather is finally getting cooler and it's nice to be able to sit outside without melting.

Thank goodness for my friend who has a tooth equally as sweet as mine! We shared the apple mille feuille, just for a little sweetness at the end of the meal. It's a mille feuille like you've never seen it before: rice pudding topped with a honeycomb/milk sorbet and crispy slices of dehydrated apple. Sweet, savory, crunchy, warm and cold all got together for a party in the mouth! I'll be going back again for the Honey Parfait, it looks like it would be similarly awesome.

It was so nice to go to a restaurant that ticked all the boxes. The food was innovative, fresh, well put together, out-of-the-box, and the presentation definitely won the gold medal from me. My only negative is that, like a lot of restaurants, this one keeps opening bottles of water without asking you if you'd like another. But at the end of the evening after 3 bottles of water and a bottle of wine, the bill came to about $650 a person - for the quality of food and the enjoyment derived from this meal, it was a steal, and well worth it. If I haven't said it enough - I'll definitely be going back. Paella for Pedro is calling to me, and I want to make the acquaintance of Joseph the Duck.

Madam Sixty Ate

1st Floor - The Podium

J Senses

60 Johnston Road (entrance on Ship Street)

Reservations: 2527 2558