Piu M is a small hole in the wall type of restaurant on the 4th floor of Orchard Plaza. The owner/chef Jun Matsubara is a friendly and chatty one man show. He serves home style Japanese-Italian food (i.e. his food can be replicated at home) and a variety of alcohol to accompany it. The whole atmosphere of the restaurant is a very cozy and relaxing one; one could almost say it's almost like you're eating at someone's home especially since the food served looks simple and has that "home feel" to it. Anyway, let's have a look at the pictures of my two meals here shall we:
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Umeshu - a very light alcoholic drink for non-drinkers
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The Iconic Piu M Omakase platter (This portion was for 2 people)
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Roast beef with "Japanese" style sauce
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Roast duck with leeks
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Fried horse mackerel with homemade tartar sauce
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Homemade cream croquette
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Sea Urchin pasta with karasumi (1)
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Sea Urchin pasta with karasumi (2)
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Smoked salmon tomato based spaghetti
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Siam crab meat tomato based tagliatelle
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| Pacific Saury with spinach oil based spaghetti |
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A5 Wagyu Sirloin
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Nice marbling but something felt amiss...
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As you can see, the food served in Piu M is "relatively simple". You can see there are no fancy items, nothing pretentious and it looks like how food is served at home. And that's the whole point of Piu M - to make you feel as if you're eating at a home. It's that feeling that brought me back here twice (so far) because I just feel so comfortable sitting at the counter, watching Matsubara-san cook while chatting with him and of course at the same time stuffing my face with his food. I particularly enjoy his pasta dishes. His sea urchin with karasumi pasta is a crowd pleaser but my favourite so far is his crab meat pasta. But then again it's also because I generally prefer tomato based pastas. I really like his fried horse mackerel, cream croquette and duck with leeks. The roast beef is pretty decent too and I'm sure he has more to offer when the season changes.
However, just like any establishment, there will always be dishes which we like and dishes that we don't like be it taste-wise or price-wise. For one, the omakase platter is a great choice for variety and in general all 9 items did taste good but I found it a tad bit on the pricey side and would rather forgo this and order 2 other dishes instead. The A5 Wagyu sirloin was quite a let down for me unfortunately. It is pretty expensive and I would've preferred if it was more well seared. I found that even though it's a well marbled A5 slab of sirloin, the searing wasn't done right and so it didn't have that melt in your mouth effect that you'd get from a well charred piece of meat. Also, I ordered 100g but I think there was some miscommunication and I was served around 143g instead because the price of the beef on my bill was a lot higher than I expected; perhaps he mistook my 100g as one piece of beef that has already been pre-sliced.
Anyway, no big deal in the grand scheme of things, such experiences do happen from time to time and as I said earlier, it's perfectly normal for any establishment to have dishes that we like and dishes that we don't like for XYZ reasons. The important thing is always have a lot more good dishes than not so good dishes and thankfully Piu M is one such place. It's still pretty easy to make a reservation (even though it is starting to gain popularity) so I hope to come back one of these days and eat his pastas again!
Website: https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Bar/Piu-M-piuem-109644333906166/
Address: Orchard Plaza level 4
Budget: S$60 - 100
My rating: 3.5 - 4 / 5
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