The new bastard in town

The Birdiegolfs have been away on a long trip, and now that they have returned, wanted to meet up to belatedly celebrate Foursheets' birthday. When another restaurant that Foursheets thought we should try didn't have any openings until we hit November, Ahleeso suggested that we do it at Club Bâtard. They've obviously ponied up the membership fee as an early bird, so now we get to piggyback on them.

Now that the restaurant has moved to Central and expanded their operations, it's no surprise that we would run into friends while we were here, but I wasn't expecting to run into the Specialist and BFF.

With Foursheets' new dietary restrictions, we forced everyone to go à la carte instead of following a tasting menu. I think that worked out well for me...

Bâtard's burger - I had been seeing people post about this "duck burger" so I just had to try for myself. It's small and gone in just a couple of bites. The minced duck patty came with slices of duck foie gras, barbecue sauce, and julienned bell pepper. Very tasty for sure.

Comté cheese soufflé, sobacha tuile, mushroom foam - the cheese soufflé was soft and jiggly, and naturally worked very well with the mushrooms and mushroom foam. The tuile on top, though, was vile. It had obviously gone off and wasn't worth a second nibble.

Batard signature roasted chicken - our hosts wanted the chicken so we all shared it. To be fair, it is a pretty decent chicken.

The Three Yellow Chicken (三黃雞) came with plenty of fat underneath the skin, and that's not a bad thing in my book. I think I ate more of this chicken than anyone else at the table, along with that pandan, ginger, and garlic-flavored rice.

Cauliflower gratin - I love cauliflower but thought this was much too wet. I thought this was supposed to be gratinée??

Pecan tart, Texas pecan nuts, Valrhona chocolate, ivory ice cream - I barely tasted any pecan here as this was overpowered by what I thought was Tonka bean.

Since one of us is effectively out of commission and I wasn't exactly in the best condition, we took it easy on wines tonight.

Chavost Eurêka, dégorgée en Janvier 2024 - nose was yeasty and a little flinty. There was some toast on the nose which came out with some aeration, and eventually that floral fragrance emerged. The palate was a little bitter, and the finish is still pretty short.

1986 Cos d'Estournel - served right after decanting and showed notes of sweet grass and smoke, and this is classic claret with a mature elegance. Opened up beautifully less than 30 minutes later to show plenty of cedar and woodsy notes. Drinking very well.

Very grateful to Ahleeso for the invitation and the kind treat tonight. Need to return the favor soon.