I was on leave (again!) today to go and collect my international passport at the Department of Immigration.
I love cheese, just like i love strawberries. I always sprinkle thick layer of grated cheese on my pizza and pasta; i love cheese flavoured biscuits and potato chips; i always pick up cheese bread at the bakery...
But unlike strawberry which is good for health, cheese is high in cholesterol and extremely fattening. Every indulgence comes with the consequence of increased waistline and big fat thigh. But then, things that worth indulged in are often sinful and yet so gratifying. I simply can't resist it.
So, for a cheese monster like me, i've always wanted to have a taste of cheese Fondue, a Swiss dish that have cheese melted in an earthenware pot (known as caquelon) served with bread and some other side dishes. Hey, we are not talking about cheese being one of the ingredients in the cooking. This is dipping everything into a pot of melted cheese -- EVERYTHING... MELTED CHEESE...
Cheese Fondue is just like the king of all cheese cuisines you know.
Too bad that JB, being a pseudo city, doesn't have any restaurants that serve Swiss cuisine. It was also a pity that the last time when we went to Switzerland, we were too broke to try the authentic Swiss cuisine there and had fast food for all our meals.
Well, my yearning for cheese Fondue was finally fulfilled yesterday.
贝 gotta go back to his office to restart the servers because of building maintenance that shut down the electricity in the morning. We went across the border in late afternoon. After 贝 had finished his work, we went to Kinokuniya book store in Ngee Ann City at Orchard Road to look for some books. Then we had dinner at Swiss Culture Restaurant in Suntec City.
贝 had checked the Web the day before and found out that this is one of the restaurants in Singapore that serves Fondue. So our dinner was of course none other than cheese Fondue.
The standard set of cheese Fondue comes with a pot of melted cheese and bread cubes.
There are side dishes that can go with the cheese (at additional charges of course) and we ordered sausages.
The melted cheese was heated in the caquelon over a portable stove. Wine and seasoning were added to the melted cheese that gave it a special aroma and taste.
We waited for the cheese to boil, which only took a minute or so.
Then we used the Fondue fork to prong the bread cubes and sliced sausages to dip in the melted cheese.
I'm not sure if the bread and sausages would taste as good if eaten on its own, but everything just tasted so delicious after swirled in the creamy melted cheese.
Unlike other cheese cuisines that often make one feels sick and disgusted from the surfeit of it, the wine and additional seasoning seem to have lessened the cheesy flavour and lend it a vermouth-like taste. So even though we almost finished the whole caquelon of melted cheese, we simply felt satisfied without satiety.
The meal cost us SGD64.68 (two mushroom soup + cheese Fondue + sausages), which was quite reasonable for two persons.
The only thing was that when i saw the oil on top on the remaining melted cheese in the caquelon, i felt so guilty and wondered how many extra pounds i've added to my tummy.
