Spanish steak and French snails at Wild Blaze

NEW RESTAURANT

Wild Blaze 66 Tras Street Singapore 079005 Tel: 9371-3900 Open daily for lunch and dinner: 11.30 am to 2.30 pm; 6 pm to 10 pm

WE WONDER if Wild Blaze should have taken a personality test before calling itself that. As in, the kind that takes all the traits that people find annoying about you, and spins them into fancy acronyms for successful job-hunting. Would it be an ESTP? A closet ISFP? By all accounts, Wild Blaze should be a fiery, adventurous extravert. Not a shy, withdrawn restaurant, so attention-averse it even picks non-committal shades so as not to offend other colours.

Wild Blaze is a steakhouse that somehow doesn’t want to look like one. There are no wild hunks of beef joyfully displayed and fired over a roaring blaze before your eyes. Both fire and meat are curiously tucked away in the kitchen, kind of like manpower without proper documentation. There’s a dry-ageing fridge on proud display but, well, where’s the beef? 

Maybe it’s not so much a steakhouse but a house with steak. When you take in its pale cream and beige decor, and a menu that is more French brasserie than Lawry’s the Prime Rib, it all starts to make sense. 

Wild Blaze takes over the spot left by Brasserie Gavroche when it relocated to River Valley, leaving its former head chef Nic Wong in his new role as chef-owner. With 13 years of experience behind him and no obligation to uphold any Gallic code of authenticity, he gets to do the very Singaporean thing where anything goes. 

It works – until it doesn’t. The good thing is that Wong brings a Singaporean palate to the food so it’s lighter, less heavily seasoned, and generally easy to eat. Prices swing from an S$18 French onion soup to a S$488, 1.8 kg, 24k gold Wagyu tomahawk, so whether you see this as everyday coffeehouse fare or Wolfgang Puck’s second cousin is open to interpretation.

There are some nice touches. Oysters priced from S$4 to S$8 are French and fresh, with mixed condiments from mignonette to pickled onions. The best are La Lune, with a long finish and almost cockle-like aftertaste.

We haven’t seen escargot (S$18) on a menu and it’s a nostalgic throwback that makes us want to jump on a Seine river cruise and watch Crazy Horse. Okay, not really, but the piping hot nuggets in their delightfully greasy pools of melted butter, garlic and parsley are a treat with discs of light and flaky puff pastry.

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Even pate en croute (S$30) – which plays into our aversion to cold meat pies – is perfectly acceptable. Touted as a signature dish, the lightly seasoned “meatloaf” is a pleasant mix of textures with a bit of foie gras here, pistachios there, rillettes and pate packed in as well. Bordered by cold baked pastry with sliced pickles on the side, it’s gone before we realise it.

If Wong shows restraint with the pate en croute, he loses it with the grilled suckling pig belly (S$38). It’s meaty and tender with no dry stringy bits, but the skin is overly salty, along with the heavy mustard-infused gravy.

The real reason we’re here is for the Spanish Rubia Gallega, which the restaurant proudly touts as one of the first eateries to showcase this hunk of meat from mature cows in Galicia. We’re prepared to shell out the S$268 (it’s since gone up to S$308 on its website menu) except that they had already used up all they had for a media tasting earlier.

If that happens to you, don’t fuss. Check around online and you’ll find you can buy Rubia Gallega from a local speciality butcher and then can cook it at home yourself.

Meanwhile, the manager offers us a “matriarch” vintage striploin supposedly from Spain (we later find out it’s Australian). Like most consolation prizes, it’s not quite what we want – well-executed and perfectly medium-rare, it’s lean and clean, with little beefy depth. And pricey at S$128. The shoestring French fries the steak comes with, however, are excellent. 

For a bit more French nostalgia, order the baked Alaska (S$16), just for the thrill of watching the snowy soft meringue get set aflame at the table. Filled with a layer of ice cream and vanilla cake, in a pool of tart raspberry sauce, this throwback to the past is nothing short of comforting.

By attempting to be all things to all diners, Wild Blaze comes off as undecided about its identity, or where it’s headed. The food is comforting but lacks finesse, although the staff are friendly and accommodating. It’s a great everyday place for a casual meal, so it’s one more place you can add to your list of reliable eateries. It may not light your fire, but it’s good for a spark or two.

Rating: 6.5