With its pencil-thin logo font and discreet shopfront along the ‘quieter side’ of Mohamed Sultan Road, it is easy to miss Pixy Restaurant & Bar if you are not paying attention to your surroundings.

Chef Tomine Nobuaki aka Nobu

Started in January 2017, Pixy is helmed by Japanese chefs who have mastered French cuisine with Japanese ingredients. Chef Tomine Nobuaki (Nobu) joined the restaurant early this year and he has come up with an autumn degustation menu that will end its run by 30 November 2019.

Find a man who is willing to put his face in the fire for you.

I had the five-course omakase ($100) based on this latest season of degustation. If you have a bigger appetite, there is a seven-course omakase ($120).

Foie Gras Flan

The amuse bouche is Foie Gras Flan, which is a decked-up version of a Japanese chawanmushi.

Instead of the usual egg custard, Chef Nobu steams the foie gras mousse and adds braised gobo (burdock) with his homemade consommé. Together with small dollops of uni (sea urchin), each spoonful is silken and creamy to taste.

The sweet earthy flavour of the gobo complements the umami taste of the foie gras custard and uni very well. It is a small but very satisfying bowl to start the meal.

Wara Smoked Bonito

Wara Smoked Bonito: To start things off, thick cuts of bonito are flash-smoked over a grill of burning wara (rice straws).

To form the bed of the dish, there are globules of yoghurt, miso sauce, sherry vinegar and chestnut oil. Paper-thin slices of cucumber and leaves of watercress are carefully placed on top of the bonito.

The smokiness of the fish lingers in the mouth long after a bite in a good way. Every bite is tantalising and delicious.

Dragonfruit Buri

The next dish is also a fish but this time, it is fried in a light batter, tempura-style.

The buri (yellowtail Amber Jack) is firm and moist beneath the thin crispy batter.

Using dragonfruit, cream cheese and lemon, the pink sauce is beaten into a smooth and thick consistency and smeared across the board.

The buri is then topped with tender stalks of stir-fried Emperor’s Vegetable and finely chopped onions seasoned with vinegar. This is a touch of our local food culture in this seasonal line-up.

Roasted Irish Duck Rouennaise

The aromatic Roasted Irish Duck Rouennaise has a lovely charred, crispy skin that reminds me of roasted pork belly.

What really binds the dish together is the incredibly flavourful rouennaise, a rich red wine sauce that is cooked with puréed duck liver.

I find the small scoop of bittersweet orange marmalade, which is used to undercut the duck, redundant. It does not seem to go well with the duck, although traditionally orange and duck go together. It may just be a personal preference.

Magical Banana

To round off, Chef Nobu presents the Magical Banana. The tried and tested pairing of bananas and chocolate never fails, in this case, it is caramelised banana with Chef’s Gateaux Au Chocolat (flourless chocolate brownies), with a quenelle of vanilla ice cream.

Nothing too magical until Chef Nobu starts to pour a ‘secret’ sauce, which he reveals it to be made of espresso, sugar and agar. The coffee sauce forms into a solid gel almost immediately. Sweet, bitter, warm and cold, this dessert ends with an energetic note.

To me, it is a wonderful marriage of choconana and banoffee.

Menu

Food: 8/10
Price/value: 7/10
Décor/ambience: 7/10

You may be interested in…
–The English House by Marco Pierre White, Mohamed Sultan: The Chef Who Scolded Gordon Ramsay and Made Him Cry
–House of MU, Mohamed Sultan: A New Gem Serving Fine-Dining Modern European Cuisine at Affordable Prices
–Restaurant Ibid, Boat Quay: Asia’s MasterChef Winner Woo Wai Leong Magics Singaporean Ingredients in Unexpected Ways
–Empress @ ACM: One of the Best Meals This Year, the Siew Yok and Fried Rice!

Written by Cheang Shwu Peng.