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Food review: FYR

Taste the burn

Taste the burn

Singapore — We all love a good barbeque, but in this crazy-warm weather, who really wants to fire up the grill and spend a humid evening basting meat over hot coals? The good news is these days, there are plenty of restaurants that will do the work for you, and they’ll do it far better than you ever could in far more comfortable surrounds.

One such establishment is FYR (pronounced “fire”) Cycene Ond Drinc — that’s “Fire Kitchen and Drink” for anyone who doesn’t read Olde English (don’t feel bad; it wasn’t compulsory learning for us in school either).

The spelling of its name aside, this wood-clad restaurant actually serves some pretty impressive grub, all of which is cooked over a Josper charcoal grill. The Josper is, in every sense of the word, the hottest indoor barbeque available. Like an oven, it has a door that, when closed, helps seal in the food’s natural flavours and moisture so that it all emerges smoky and succulent.

Such was the case with FYR’s red snapper (S$25) that is deboned and topped with sambal belacan. Beneath blistered, caramelised skin lay velvety, expertly seasoned flesh matched by a coat of sweet-spicy sambal inflected with ginger, turmeric, garlic and kaffir lime leaf. Those flavours took us right back to the seafood shacks of Bali’s Jimbaran Bay.

Although we also inhaled other proteins like a tasty 365-day grain-fed Holstein rib eye (S$32) — whose natural, mineral-rich flavours were imbued with a lovely smokiness from the grill — and a whole Maine lobster (S$35) blanketed in a shallot lemongrass bechamel, it was the snapper that really made the most delicious impression.

FYR’s kitchen is helmed by Chef Micail Chepi, formerly from the likes of The Prive Group, The Royal Mail Restaurant and Bar and The Ritz-Carlton Jakarta. His experience in these swanky establishments shows in deceptively elegant dishes like the baked bone marrow (S$15), which he serves interspersed with nuggets of veal sweetbread, cilantro gribiche (a mayonnaise-like sauce made of hard-boiled egg yolks and mustard) and other Asian spices.

Swelling with vibrant flavours and textures — thanks in large part to a generous sprinkling of Japanese panko breadcrumbs — this was one bone marrow dish that veers successfully away from the now prosaic parsley-and-capers rendition.

Though a restaurant that prides itself on its grill is hardly the place you’d go to order pasta, it bears noting that the seafood linguine (S$18) here is particularly good. The pasta was cooked al dente, the lobster stock-based tomato sauce spiked with spigol (a saffron-like spice blend from North Africa), and the fresh seafood (think clams, prawns and squid) carefully cooked over the grill before making its way atop the dish.

These varying layers of flavours mingled together to form a simple, comforting dish of delicious complexity. It’s a perfect one-dish meal — if you can resist giving in to the mouth-watering smoky perfume that tempts from the kitchen. ANNETTE TAN

FYR Cycene Ond Drinc

Where:

19 Boon Tat Street

Telephone:

6221 3703

Opening hours:

Monday to Friday 11am to 11pm

Saturday 9am to 11pm

Sunday 9am to 4pm

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