Rainy Crossover

Severe weather the night before didn’t stop us from coming to Ando for a special lunch tasting featuring guest chef LG Han from Singapore’s Labyrinth. It’s not hard to see the striking similarities between the two restaurants and the two chefs behind, both on a mission to re-invent the cuisines of their respective home countries with a new take. 

Latin American Crossover

I am thankful that Chef Agustin and the team opened the door for a few of us on a Sunday afternoon for a special lunch with guest chef Manu Buffara. There’s no lack of high-caliber chefs passing through town for crossover gig but this one caught my eye as Chef Manu has just been voted the Latin America’s Best Female Chef by the World’s 50 Best team, and I wasn’t sure if I will ever make it to her restaurant in Curitiba Brazil, some 18000 km away from home. 

Ando x Krug

“Just pop by for a dinner with some friends and some champs,” those words were all that’s needed for me to take up the offer for another night at Ando. Not just another night actually, or not just “some champs”, but with Chef Agustin preparing a special menu to pair with a few fine bottles of Krug. 

Weekday Lunch

When we saw a lunch spot open up at Ando in the middle of last month (probably due to some last minute cancellations), we didn’t hesitate to fetch it and call this a mini accomplishment of sorts. While dine-in for evenings is still out of the question, Ando is by all means still very popular during the day – the dining room was filled to the capacity when we arrived slightly after noon for our lunch reservation. Quite a contrast to the quiet streets even in the middle of Central business district in the middle of a weekday. 

Ando x Fukuoka

A lucky few us were given a sneak peak of Chef Agustin's special collaboration menu with Fukuoka Prefecture government. The area on the northern shore of Kyushu Japan has no lack of fine food ingredients and many of those made it to our table with this limited-time tasting menu. 

The Full Experience

When we came to Ando for lunch with a few friends who were first time visitors to the restaurant, I asked Julien and Agustin, manager and chef, to "show them the full Ando experience". Well, they did exactly that, and putting us in the comfortable private room with a view of the kitchen certainly made this a good start too. 

Onion Crossover

The other day I took the afternoon off from work to join a few friends on a champagne “run”… to be exact, a Krug run when we went from places to places drinking and eating. It’s part of their annual (and now global) campaign by the champagne house working with a few chefs in town (as Krug Ambassadors) to each create an unique dish with a common ingredient theme, to go with their champagne, that goes without saying. This year that ingredient is Onion, and I am glad to go along with a group of friends to visit some of those chefs and checking out some of those dishes (and more).

Spoiled by Chef

We felt we are always spoiled by Chef Agustin and his team at Ando whenever we dined there, with the only problem being getting a table at this busy restaurant is becoming increasingly challenging. Well, we managed to get a lunch booking a few weeks ago - just the two of us on a Saturday for no particular occasion. We opted for the shorter of the two set menus available for lunch service (bearing in mind we had an early dinner planned) but at the end, we had a few additional dishes on top of that and we were properly stuffed.

Dinner For the First Time

With all our previous visits came during day time, we thought it would be great to check out Ando’s dinner menu in early April. With this being our third meal at this restaurant this year and with higher expectation after each meal, I did secretly wonder whether Chef Agustin and his team could once again wow us in the same way they did previously.

Calling This A Series

We made the table booking at Ando in late February just as we finished our lunch on the Boxing Day 2 months ago. With another meal in between, that made it three in as many months that we had Chef Agustin’s food at his restaurant. And first time since they got their first Michelin star. 

Ando Encore

“Show us something different from the last one” was my only request to Chef Agustin when we visited his restaurant Ando for a second time within a month. We were here during the Christmas week last time with their festive menu, so we were glad to come back so soon for more new dishes by the talented team. 

Long Lunch on Boxing Day

At our last outing to Ando a few months ago I did tell myself we needed to go back soon when dinner service was resumed (we went on the first week the government banned all dine-in after 6pm) Turned out 5 months on we were back to square one in terms of dinner lockdown, but at least we did make it back to Chef Agustin’s restaurant for another meal on the Boxing Day. Call this part of our holiday celebrations with friends. 

Fine Dining Takeaway Part 2: At Home By Ando

Continuing our series on fine-dining takeaway meal, we took up Chef Agustin’s generous offer to check out the new “at home” menu from Ando. I suppose this is extra challenging for him and his team given they were still settling at this new restaurant and kitchen, and then everything just changed at last minute with the dine-in ban and everything, but they pulled this off marvelously.

Change Of Plan

After the minor issue of having to switch our dinner reservation to lunch next day at last minute, we were just glad to have visited Ando, the new restaurant by Chef Agustin Balbi, two weeks into its opening. Normally we would rather wait for the new restaurant to kick into high gear and settle with the team before going, but we know Chef Agustin well and had great experience with his cooking at his previous restaurant Haku, there’s no doubt in our mind he’s going to deliver at the usual high standard even when the restaurant literally just got its stove warmed up.