THERE are some days when all I want is a good piece of meat. Nothing fancy, just good quality meat cooked simply but perfectly.
It's not that I don't appreciate the efforts of chefs who create complex feats of culinary art, but the simplest dishes are often the most memorable.
That was how I felt last week when I took my first bite of the Yorkshire pork rack ($28.95, right) at Perle Noire in East Coast Road.
The meat was covered with a sherry prune sauce which, while moistening the pork, did not add much to the taste.
The meat from the Australian 100 per cent grain-fed female hog actually needed little embellishment. It was grilled with perhaps just a light sprinkle of salt, but what juiciness, what flavour. What a heavenly hog.
That was a sublime moment I had not expected to experience in Perle Noire.
After all, the contemporary Western restaurant had been open for six months but I had not heard of it until a friend text-messaged me two weeks ago to try the food there.
That could be because, squeezed inside a row of restaurants near Siglap Centre, it was a bit overshadowed by its neighbours which had bigger signboards and brighter lights.
Perle Noire, which is French for Black Pearl, is dimly lit in comparison, so one could easily miss it.
Inside, it is simply adorned with framed pictures of oysters on the walls, with seashells decorating the ledges.
The brightest lights come from a row of fish tanks at the back, filled with swimming fish and lobsters like in a Chinese seafood restaurant.
The place looks smart without being intimidating, a feeling supported by the prices on the menu.
Most meats are under $30 while a grilled live lobster costs $39.95. And there is no service charge, a laudable practice which allows you to tip according to the service you get.
When I was there, the food took a while to come - two waitresses were on medical leave, apparently - but the friendly staff still deserved at least a 10 per cent tip, if not more.
At any rate, the good cooking was worth the wait.
Chef-owner Jonathan Tan, 38, who learnt the trade in Australia, may be a newcomer in the restaurant business but he obviously knows what works.
The menu is heavy on seafood, including a good selection of oysters from Canada, Australia and France as well as mussels from Australia and New Zealand.
You can have your oysters raw or cooked in classic styles such as oven-baked with bacon or spinach.
But if you are more adventurous, you should try the Perle Noire seafood oyster pizza ($23.95).
I could not resist the challenge of a new flavour and had to order it. The seafood included very lightly cooked pieces of fish, prawn and squid, but I could not quite make out the oyster.
It was the pizza's crust that made this dish special. It was thick but crispy, more like deep-fried bread than the doughy crust you usually get.
I would also recommend the Tasmanian black blue mussels cooked in a spicy wine sauce ($22.95). The shellfish was plump and soft, and the juices good enough to drink.
A pumpkin tofu soup ($8.95) turned out less fanciful than it sounded. It was plain pumpkin soup with diced pieces of tofu thrown in, but the combination worked.
The soup was neither too thick nor watery, and the tofu blended well with its smooth texture.
The dessert, however, was disappointing. It wasn't that the apple crumble ($10.95) was awful, but it was ordinary. And after the other wonderful dishes, I had expected something extraordinary.
PERLE NOIRE
687 East Coast Road
Tel: 6448-1732 Open: 11.30am to 3pm, 6pm to midnight (Mondays to Fridays); 11.30am to midnight(Saturdays and Sundays) Food: *** 1/2 Service: *** 1/2 Ambience: *** Price:Budget about $70 per person. There is no service charge.
