This is a bakery that my colleagues & I will never miss whenever we go Holland Village for lunch. The very first bread I bought from the bakery was their wassant & even till now, it remained as one of my favourites. More breads have been added to my favourites list since then. Haha....
Ok, start off with the wassant. It comes in 2 flavours, chocolate & custard. The wassants are sold in a pack of 10, costing $5, and it's really up to your preference whether you want all 10 to be chocolate or custard ones or a mix of the 2 flavours. So what's so special about their wassants? I think it's the soft texture of the bread and the rich chocolate/ custard taste which make them taste so good. As it is made up of a layer of bread rolled up into a small bun, I enjoy eating by unrolling the layers. Hee hee...
Besides their wassants, I like their Brazillian cheese (which some said it tasted like spoilt bread. Oh no! It doesn't!!), milk pan (rich creamy filling!) & blueberry cheese. But the cost of their bread is definitely on the higher side. Yet I've never walked out of the shop without spending like 10-20 bucks on just bread & not even my lunch yet. Haha...
Their service is also excellent. Very friendly staff who greet you very warmly.
Was invited for a dinner at Sketches last night. Never really wanted to try this place out, so I didn't know what to expect from this place. The first impression I got when I stepped in was the smell from the kitchen. It's open concept kitchen is right smack in the center of the restaurant. And the smell will get stuck to your clothes and hair after you're done dining. Hence not recommended if you're not heading home after meal at Sketches. Alternatively, try to sit outside away from the Kitchen. It might help reduce the lingering "Food court" after smell on you.
As we were late, the menu was cleared from the table as others had already ordered. We attempted couple of time to get someone to give us a menu, and only after thrice before we caught a waitress. (All of them seemed to be busy clustering somewhere behind the restaurant...)
We were presented 2 different menu. One with listing of all ala carte orders and the other one which looks like a giant notepad where you have boxes to tick and create your own "Designer" pasta. My bf choice to go for the pasta and I ordered the wild mushroom pizza.
First the pasta came, and after "digging" through the plate, we discovered that they got our order wrong. We choice 2 different pasta but they only used one. We told the waitress and she cleared the plate and got the kitchen to remake for us. (Yes we saw her dumping the entire plate of pasta into the bin when she walked back to the kitchen. Advantage of an open concept kitchen for customers.)
The right combination of pasta arrived shortly. The taste was pretty good. And the serving for the small size is already quite filling. Unless you're super hungry or sharing with friends, I'll not recommend you to tick the bigger servings.
They took quite a long time to serve my mushroom pizza. When it finally arrived, I was disappointed. The pizza was alittle too tough on the dough and the shrooms on it were tasteless. The cheese wasn't well spread and I was only able to taste the cheese on few slices of the entire pizza. The rest were just covered with few pieces of sliced shrooms. I had to whack quite abit of shredded cheese and tabasco sauce on the pizza to make it taste slightly better.
Overall the place was quite nice, pricing was reasonable. I'll probably go back for their pasta since I can choose what I want in it and I'll totally avoid the pizzas.
This is a newly opened outlet of The Mind Cafe, in fact, it was only opened on last Friday. This probably explains why I didn't see the typical weekend crowd typical of the other 2 outlets when I went on last Sunday.
Since there's 6 of us, we took up the sixers' package which includes 6 drinks, 3 snackers & 2 munchies and 2 hrs of boardgames. Heez...
So what games did we play? As most of my friends were 1st-timer in boardgame, the staff recommended some beginners' games such as Jurassic Jumble to us. It was fun! But if you are a more`experienced boardgamer, you can always try out intermediate or advanced games which requite more thinking & strategies. Some of my faourite games played include Coda, Abalone & Taboo.There's in fact too many games for you to choose!
On the overall, I like the place for its service & helpful staff as well as the entire experience in the boardgame cafe. It's definitely a great place for group gatherings!
I have already been to a couple of Sushi Tei outlets but I still like this outlet the most. The reason being that it consists of 2 storeys, with the upper storey more cosy & comfortable for casual dining as you will need to remove your shoes before sitting at the table. Furthermore, there's also more pfrivacy for bigger groups on the upper level as there's partitions separating the tables.
Coming to their food. For their rice & noodles, I find them quite normal, nothing very special. It is in fact their sushi & other side dishes which attract me so much.
Their sushi are very fresh and among all, my favourites include Golden roll and the umagi. The Golden roll is basically sushi rice wrapped around a big fried prawn and then topped up with mango slices. Sweet & a little sour taste from the mango plus the crispy,succulent prawn. Gd combination! As for the umagi, or I simply call it the eel omelette, I like the combination of the sweetness from the sweet omelette & that of the eel. I find it quite special.
They will also come up with various season promotion. Like for now, they have this Hokkaido promotion where they serve hairy crab. So if you are interested, you can look out for their various promotions at different times of the year.
On the overall, what makes my colleagues & I go back for so many times is not just the food but the service as well. We do not have to wait very long to be served & the waitresses are prompt in refilling our green tea. It's a great experience dining there!
Dropped by Epicurious, one of the lesser known outfits dotting Roberton Quay, for a late dinner. Interestingly, the word epicurious stems from the words epicure, which is used to describe someone with refined taste, especially in food and wine and curious.
Occupying just a small unit along the bustling Roberston Walk, Epicurious does mostly al fresco seating with the exception of 3 small tables in its tiny interior which seem to suffer from cooling problems (read. Where's the airconditioning?) The al fresco area has big blower fans to cool the area though, which is probably why people usually choose to sit outside instead of inside (from my observations).
Epicurious Burger - Read many good things about the burger so thought I would give it a shot with the works ($4 for an addition of egg, cheese and bacon) First looks, it didn't come across as impressive as the one from Wild Rocket, especially in the size department. Taste wise was pretty decent though. The beef patty could have been a little less cooked but still managed to retain its juiciness and taste. Add the egg, cheese and bacon in and you get one hearty burger. I didn't like the bread though, which was a little too toasted, rendering it hard. The accompanying fries were just overfried and too salty.
Herb Roasted Half Chicken - The chicken was nice without being too strong on the herbs, a bane that most such dishes suffer from. However, the portions could have been bigger and I personally would have liked it to be a little more sour so as to bring out the contrast.
Hazelnut Cheesecake - Interestingly, the hazelnut cheesecake came topped with strawberries. That aside, it was actually quite good, with the cheese relatively light and airy without being too overwhelming. The base was a concoction of dark chocolate and orange peel, which was certainly something different.
$55 for 2 mains and 1 dessert might seem to be pushing the boundaries for reasonable pricing. But food is pretty decent and the place is rather cosy with good service. Worth a visit if you are in the vicinity and dont want to bust your budget dining at the fancier outfits.
Just for the mango pudding, my friend wanted to have our dinner here. Haha...funny, right? I'll kept the review of the mango pudding to the last part.
I shall start off with the steamboat. Just the 2 of us & so we picked the sichuan spicy soup and the herbal chicken soup. Interesting, the steamboat was served in individual small pots instead of the big steamboat pot one usually sees. The have both cooked and raw food. The cooked food includes local delights such as popiah and rojak as well as others like teppanyaki, roasted chicken, pork rib, sausages. As for the raw food, the spread was surprisingly little. Not alot of variety, it's mainly meat like fish (dory & seabass), pork slice, chicken & beef slice. Seafood wise there's only prawns & crabs. Vegetables not alot too. Others are the typical meatballs you'll find at other steamboat places.
Although the food variety was disappointing, I have to say that the soups were good, especially the herbal chicken soup. Very often, I could smell the soup as I walk pass Suntec Convention Centre. Haha...
The mango pudding was highly recommended by my friend and it turned out to be really good. Its texture, sweetness. Just perfect! They have small fruit tarts, fruits & even DIY ice kacang in the dessert section. I think I'm more into their dessert huh? Haha...
For the price of $25.80/pax, I think it would be more reasonable for them to serve better drinks than just ice water. But i suppose their location & good service (they were really quite at clearing our used plates!) are the reason why they are charging so much.
We were looking for a chinese restaurant in Plaza Singapura. Without many choices, we landed in this restaurant to settle our dinner.
After sitting down, we were served some flower tea and pickles. Later did we realised that the compulsory tea costed $3 while the small dish of pickles costed $2!
For their menu, they have set menus as well as ala carte menu. They even serve hi-tea buffet on weekends & PHs.
Anyway, we ordered 5 dishes which include 'Braised Ox Tendon with Bamboo Shoot and Chilli in Small Wok', 'quick-fried seasonal greens', 'Braised Seasonal Greens
with Fresh Mushrooms', 'drunken chicken' and 'Braised Chicken Balls with Chilli and Parsley'. Most of the dishes tasted pretty normal, not much of a 'wow'. The meal was not satisfying for most of us.
However, their service was good. Their waiters would constantly refill your tea for you & clear off the used plates & replace with new ones.
The bill came up to around $100 for 5 persons, where only 4 dishes were calculated into the bill. All thanks to the credit card promotion. Although the service is good, I think I'll go to other places for better chinese food.
Eating while dangling on the air - such novelty. haha. Pleasant experience at the start. We were looking forward to dining on the cable car and watching the sunset at Harbour front so we made a reservation for 6:30pm.
Booking was made online and we pre ordered one grilled beef and one pan fried salmom when we made the booking.
Arriving at Mt Faber, we left the valet do the job (at $5) and off we went to the entrace of the cable car tower. There were quite a few people queuing up for sky dining and we were like the 6th couple in line...all bookings must be made before hand. No walk-ins allowed, at least that is what we were told.
We noticed that the sky dining cable cars had a table placed in between the 2 seats. So when it came our turn, we hopped onto one of them as it moved slowly. Then the waiter came by and served us the soup and appetizer for the 1st round. He had to do it quickly as the cable car was moving. So do not expect him to be gentle. Then again he will not "throw" the soup at you. haha.
The first round was an experience indeed. Eating 100m up in the air and watching the sun set what more could we ask for. We had the cream of mushroom soup and it was thick and well blended. It's kinda hard to eat and concentrate on the scenery and at the same time try to balance ourselves as the cable car can be quite shaky at times. There is also this nagging feeling that the glass filled with ice water will topple any time or the bowl of soup would slide off the table. Also since I have a thing with heights, drinking the soup and the salad was quite a challenge. But all said, we finished our soup and waited expectantly for the second course. The cable car went all the way to sentosa, made a u-turn and headed back to Mt Faber.
At Mt faber, the waiter quickly cleared our bowl of soup and served us the second course. ha....I forgot, he served us ice water and house wine and he had to make it fast, otherwise the cable car will move off without it or he might spill it all over the table. It is amazing to see how they manage to juggle all that within 1min I think and off we went with our second (main) course. There were at least 3 persone (I think) serving each cable car. One to clear the dishes, one to pour wine and the other to serve the main course. It happened so fast that we just did not know what happened. So service wise they were efficient and attentive. Before it moved off, the waiter asked if he could get us anything else. We spared him the trouble as we were wondering how he can manage to get us anything else if the cable car was moving off. So we said no thank you.
All I remember about the Beef tenderloin was that it done just right because halfway through the second round on the u-turn back to Mt Faber we started to feel the effects of motion sickness. haha. Never expected that. We joked that we had one more round to go...round 3...kinda like in the boxing ring waiting for the knockout punch. Actually also forgot much of the grilled salmon, execpt that there was some fishly after taste....so much for the meal. :(
The last dish was highly anticipated as it was the dessert. But when it arrived, we did not have the appetite to consume it as the cradling effects of the cable car got into us. Nevertheless we manage (yes...manage...seems like quite hard eh) to finish it.
Yes and not to mention, they served house wine also. Which we could not finish. Again we joked that if we finished the whole glass (coupled with the cradling effect of the cable car), we might just puke out of the cable car into the road or onto the people walking on the ground...funny sight indeed viewed from afar. But nothing like this happened....fortunately.
Overall the experience was good..minus the to and frow movement of the cable car. Food was average. Service was beyond expectation and ambience was good initially. But after going 3 rounds, that means 6 times seeing the same scenery, you kinda get tired of it after a while and just wished the cable car stopped and you can take your meal on more stable ground.
The experience cost us $90 per person. Recommended for a new experience...but not a culinary one.
I was brought to Halia for a celebration. First to start with, it was a long walk from the entrance of botanical garden to the restaurant. But it's always gd to do some exercise before filling up your stomach withy food. Haha...
The restaurant is hidden in the Ginger Garden of Botanical Garden. There's both outdoor and indoor tables available. For a cool & rainy evening, it is ideal to take the outdoor seats (no worries! It's sheltered!) where you can enjoy the cool breeze and the greeneries.
Next come the food. We ordered the recommended crisp black pepper soft shell crab. It came with wasabi aioli but the wasabi taste was not too strong & went well with the crispy oft shell crab. Nice! We also ordered the soup of the day which was cream of aparagus & prawn. The cream was not too thick, just nice to warm up your stomach for the main course. For the main course, I ordered the Hokkaido scallop & prawn linguini (which turned out to be sphagetti) while my partner ordered roasted soy-glazed french duck breast & duck confit. The sphagetti came with a generous serving of fresh, huge scallops & prawns. But the sauce was a little too salty for me. The duck was ok (probably because I'm not a big fan of duck meat), quite tender though. You can even decide how well you want it to be cooked.
Next comes the dessert! We picked a truly sinful but nice one called 'warm bittersweet chocolate torte' which comes with melted hot chocolate in the middle, a scoop of vanilla ice cream & strawberries. It was heavenly! The combination of the bittersweet taste of the chocolate, milky vanilla ice cream & a little sour taste from the strawberries. Oh my god!
It's definitely a nice place to dine in, away from all the high-rise buildings in Singapore.
My friend had a sudden crave for the food here, so we decided to settle our dinner here.
She ordered the eel porridge while I just ordered a plate of xiao bai cai in oyster sauce since I wasn't feeling too hungry then. I had a mouthful of the eel porridge & it tasted quite nice. Sweet porridge. But my plate of vegetables wasn't nice. the xiao bai cai was not xiao (small) at all. Big stalks of the vegetables which were not cut. It made eating quite difficult and the oyster sauce was quite diluted too.
To compensate for the disappointment, we ordered the mango ice to share. It was good! Generous servings of mango on the top. It's definitely worth a try.
This is a bakery that my colleagues & I will never miss whenever we go Holland Village for lunch. The very first bread I bought from the bakery was their wassant & even till now, it remained as one of my favourites. More breads have been added to my favourites list since then. Haha....
Ok, start off with the wassant. It comes in 2 flavours, chocolate & custard. The wassants are sold in a pack of 10, costing $5, and it's really up to your preference whether you want all 10 to be chocolate or custard ones or a mix of the 2 flavours. So what's so special about their wassants? I think it's the soft texture of the bread and the rich chocolate/ custard taste which make them taste so good. As it is made up of a layer of bread rolled up into a small bun, I enjoy eating by unrolling the layers. Hee hee...
Besides their wassants, I like their Brazillian cheese (which some said it tasted like spoilt bread. Oh no! It doesn't!!), milk pan (rich creamy filling!) & blueberry cheese. But the cost of their bread is definitely on the higher side. Yet I've never walked out of the shop without spending like 10-20 bucks on just bread & not even my lunch yet. Haha...
Their service is also excellent. Very friendly staff who greet you very warmly.
Rating given:
Was invited for a dinner at Sketches last night. Never really wanted to try this place out, so I didn't know what to expect from this place. The first impression I got when I stepped in was the smell from the kitchen. It's open concept kitchen is right smack in the center of the restaurant. And the smell will get stuck to your clothes and hair after you're done dining. Hence not recommended if you're not heading home after meal at Sketches. Alternatively, try to sit outside away from the Kitchen. It might help reduce the lingering "Food court" after smell on you.
As we were late, the menu was cleared from the table as others had already ordered. We attempted couple of time to get someone to give us a menu, and only after thrice before we caught a waitress. (All of them seemed to be busy clustering somewhere behind the restaurant...)
We were presented 2 different menu. One with listing of all ala carte orders and the other one which looks like a giant notepad where you have boxes to tick and create your own "Designer" pasta. My bf choice to go for the pasta and I ordered the wild mushroom pizza.
First the pasta came, and after "digging" through the plate, we discovered that they got our order wrong. We choice 2 different pasta but they only used one. We told the waitress and she cleared the plate and got the kitchen to remake for us. (Yes we saw her dumping the entire plate of pasta into the bin when she walked back to the kitchen. Advantage of an open concept kitchen for customers.)
The right combination of pasta arrived shortly. The taste was pretty good. And the serving for the small size is already quite filling. Unless you're super hungry or sharing with friends, I'll not recommend you to tick the bigger servings.
They took quite a long time to serve my mushroom pizza. When it finally arrived, I was disappointed. The pizza was alittle too tough on the dough and the shrooms on it were tasteless. The cheese wasn't well spread and I was only able to taste the cheese on few slices of the entire pizza. The rest were just covered with few pieces of sliced shrooms. I had to whack quite abit of shredded cheese and tabasco sauce on the pizza to make it taste slightly better.
Overall the place was quite nice, pricing was reasonable. I'll probably go back for their pasta since I can choose what I want in it and I'll totally avoid the pizzas.
Rating given:
This is a newly opened outlet of The Mind Cafe, in fact, it was only opened on last Friday. This probably explains why I didn't see the typical weekend crowd typical of the other 2 outlets when I went on last Sunday.
Since there's 6 of us, we took up the sixers' package which includes 6 drinks, 3 snackers & 2 munchies and 2 hrs of boardgames. Heez...
So what games did we play? As most of my friends were 1st-timer in boardgame, the staff recommended some beginners' games such as Jurassic Jumble to us. It was fun! But if you are a more`experienced boardgamer, you can always try out intermediate or advanced games which requite more thinking & strategies. Some of my faourite games played include Coda, Abalone & Taboo.There's in fact too many games for you to choose!
On the overall, I like the place for its service & helpful staff as well as the entire experience in the boardgame cafe. It's definitely a great place for group gatherings!
Rating given:
I have already been to a couple of Sushi Tei outlets but I still like this outlet the most. The reason being that it consists of 2 storeys, with the upper storey more cosy & comfortable for casual dining as you will need to remove your shoes before sitting at the table. Furthermore, there's also more pfrivacy for bigger groups on the upper level as there's partitions separating the tables.
Coming to their food. For their rice & noodles, I find them quite normal, nothing very special. It is in fact their sushi & other side dishes which attract me so much.
Their sushi are very fresh and among all, my favourites include Golden roll and the umagi. The Golden roll is basically sushi rice wrapped around a big fried prawn and then topped up with mango slices. Sweet & a little sour taste from the mango plus the crispy,succulent prawn. Gd combination! As for the umagi, or I simply call it the eel omelette, I like the combination of the sweetness from the sweet omelette & that of the eel. I find it quite special.
They will also come up with various season promotion. Like for now, they have this Hokkaido promotion where they serve hairy crab. So if you are interested, you can look out for their various promotions at different times of the year.
On the overall, what makes my colleagues & I go back for so many times is not just the food but the service as well. We do not have to wait very long to be served & the waitresses are prompt in refilling our green tea. It's a great experience dining there!
Rating given:
Dropped by Epicurious, one of the lesser known outfits dotting Roberton Quay, for a late dinner. Interestingly, the word epicurious stems from the words epicure, which is used to describe someone with refined taste, especially in food and wine and curious.
Occupying just a small unit along the bustling Roberston Walk, Epicurious does mostly al fresco seating with the exception of 3 small tables in its tiny interior which seem to suffer from cooling problems (read. Where's the airconditioning?) The al fresco area has big blower fans to cool the area though, which is probably why people usually choose to sit outside instead of inside (from my observations).
Epicurious Burger - Read many good things about the burger so thought I would give it a shot with the works ($4 for an addition of egg, cheese and bacon) First looks, it didn't come across as impressive as the one from Wild Rocket, especially in the size department. Taste wise was pretty decent though. The beef patty could have been a little less cooked but still managed to retain its juiciness and taste. Add the egg, cheese and bacon in and you get one hearty burger. I didn't like the bread though, which was a little too toasted, rendering it hard. The accompanying fries were just overfried and too salty.
Herb Roasted Half Chicken - The chicken was nice without being too strong on the herbs, a bane that most such dishes suffer from. However, the portions could have been bigger and I personally would have liked it to be a little more sour so as to bring out the contrast.
Hazelnut Cheesecake - Interestingly, the hazelnut cheesecake came topped with strawberries. That aside, it was actually quite good, with the cheese relatively light and airy without being too overwhelming. The base was a concoction of dark chocolate and orange peel, which was certainly something different.
$55 for 2 mains and 1 dessert might seem to be pushing the boundaries for reasonable pricing. But food is pretty decent and the place is rather cosy with good service. Worth a visit if you are in the vicinity and dont want to bust your budget dining at the fancier outfits.
See all my pictures here
Rating given:
Just for the mango pudding, my friend wanted to have our dinner here. Haha...funny, right? I'll kept the review of the mango pudding to the last part.
I shall start off with the steamboat. Just the 2 of us & so we picked the sichuan spicy soup and the herbal chicken soup. Interesting, the steamboat was served in individual small pots instead of the big steamboat pot one usually sees. The have both cooked and raw food. The cooked food includes local delights such as popiah and rojak as well as others like teppanyaki, roasted chicken, pork rib, sausages. As for the raw food, the spread was surprisingly little. Not alot of variety, it's mainly meat like fish (dory & seabass), pork slice, chicken & beef slice. Seafood wise there's only prawns & crabs. Vegetables not alot too. Others are the typical meatballs you'll find at other steamboat places.
Although the food variety was disappointing, I have to say that the soups were good, especially the herbal chicken soup. Very often, I could smell the soup as I walk pass Suntec Convention Centre. Haha...
The mango pudding was highly recommended by my friend and it turned out to be really good. Its texture, sweetness. Just perfect! They have small fruit tarts, fruits & even DIY ice kacang in the dessert section. I think I'm more into their dessert huh? Haha...
For the price of $25.80/pax, I think it would be more reasonable for them to serve better drinks than just ice water. But i suppose their location & good service (they were really quite at clearing our used plates!) are the reason why they are charging so much.
Rating given:
We were looking for a chinese restaurant in Plaza Singapura. Without many choices, we landed in this restaurant to settle our dinner.
After sitting down, we were served some flower tea and pickles. Later did we realised that the compulsory tea costed $3 while the small dish of pickles costed $2!
For their menu, they have set menus as well as ala carte menu. They even serve hi-tea buffet on weekends & PHs.
Anyway, we ordered 5 dishes which include 'Braised Ox Tendon with Bamboo Shoot and Chilli in Small Wok', 'quick-fried seasonal greens', 'Braised Seasonal Greens
with Fresh Mushrooms', 'drunken chicken' and 'Braised Chicken Balls with Chilli and Parsley'. Most of the dishes tasted pretty normal, not much of a 'wow'. The meal was not satisfying for most of us.
However, their service was good. Their waiters would constantly refill your tea for you & clear off the used plates & replace with new ones.
The bill came up to around $100 for 5 persons, where only 4 dishes were calculated into the bill. All thanks to the credit card promotion. Although the service is good, I think I'll go to other places for better chinese food.
So 2.5 stars for the place.
Rating given:
Eating while dangling on the air - such novelty. haha. Pleasant experience at the start. We were looking forward to dining on the cable car and watching the sunset at Harbour front so we made a reservation for 6:30pm.
Booking was made online and we pre ordered one grilled beef and one pan fried salmom when we made the booking.
Arriving at Mt Faber, we left the valet do the job (at $5) and off we went to the entrace of the cable car tower. There were quite a few people queuing up for sky dining and we were like the 6th couple in line...all bookings must be made before hand. No walk-ins allowed, at least that is what we were told.
We noticed that the sky dining cable cars had a table placed in between the 2 seats. So when it came our turn, we hopped onto one of them as it moved slowly. Then the waiter came by and served us the soup and appetizer for the 1st round. He had to do it quickly as the cable car was moving. So do not expect him to be gentle. Then again he will not "throw" the soup at you. haha.
The first round was an experience indeed. Eating 100m up in the air and watching the sun set what more could we ask for. We had the cream of mushroom soup and it was thick and well blended. It's kinda hard to eat and concentrate on the scenery and at the same time try to balance ourselves as the cable car can be quite shaky at times. There is also this nagging feeling that the glass filled with ice water will topple any time or the bowl of soup would slide off the table. Also since I have a thing with heights, drinking the soup and the salad was quite a challenge. But all said, we finished our soup and waited expectantly for the second course. The cable car went all the way to sentosa, made a u-turn and headed back to Mt Faber.
At Mt faber, the waiter quickly cleared our bowl of soup and served us the second course. ha....I forgot, he served us ice water and house wine and he had to make it fast, otherwise the cable car will move off without it or he might spill it all over the table. It is amazing to see how they manage to juggle all that within 1min I think and off we went with our second (main) course. There were at least 3 persone (I think) serving each cable car. One to clear the dishes, one to pour wine and the other to serve the main course. It happened so fast that we just did not know what happened. So service wise they were efficient and attentive. Before it moved off, the waiter asked if he could get us anything else. We spared him the trouble as we were wondering how he can manage to get us anything else if the cable car was moving off. So we said no thank you.
All I remember about the Beef tenderloin was that it done just right because halfway through the second round on the u-turn back to Mt Faber we started to feel the effects of motion sickness. haha. Never expected that. We joked that we had one more round to go...round 3...kinda like in the boxing ring waiting for the knockout punch. Actually also forgot much of the grilled salmon, execpt that there was some fishly after taste....so much for the meal. :(
The last dish was highly anticipated as it was the dessert. But when it arrived, we did not have the appetite to consume it as the cradling effects of the cable car got into us. Nevertheless we manage (yes...manage...seems like quite hard eh) to finish it.
Yes and not to mention, they served house wine also. Which we could not finish. Again we joked that if we finished the whole glass (coupled with the cradling effect of the cable car), we might just puke out of the cable car into the road or onto the people walking on the ground...funny sight indeed viewed from afar. But nothing like this happened....fortunately.
Overall the experience was good..minus the to and frow movement of the cable car. Food was average. Service was beyond expectation and ambience was good initially. But after going 3 rounds, that means 6 times seeing the same scenery, you kinda get tired of it after a while and just wished the cable car stopped and you can take your meal on more stable ground.
The experience cost us $90 per person. Recommended for a new experience...but not a culinary one.
Rating given:
I was brought to Halia for a celebration. First to start with, it was a long walk from the entrance of botanical garden to the restaurant. But it's always gd to do some exercise before filling up your stomach withy food. Haha...
The restaurant is hidden in the Ginger Garden of Botanical Garden. There's both outdoor and indoor tables available. For a cool & rainy evening, it is ideal to take the outdoor seats (no worries! It's sheltered!) where you can enjoy the cool breeze and the greeneries.
Next come the food. We ordered the recommended crisp black pepper soft shell crab. It came with wasabi aioli but the wasabi taste was not too strong & went well with the crispy oft shell crab. Nice! We also ordered the soup of the day which was cream of aparagus & prawn. The cream was not too thick, just nice to warm up your stomach for the main course. For the main course, I ordered the Hokkaido scallop & prawn linguini (which turned out to be sphagetti) while my partner ordered roasted soy-glazed french duck breast & duck confit. The sphagetti came with a generous serving of fresh, huge scallops & prawns. But the sauce was a little too salty for me. The duck was ok (probably because I'm not a big fan of duck meat), quite tender though. You can even decide how well you want it to be cooked.
Next comes the dessert! We picked a truly sinful but nice one called 'warm bittersweet chocolate torte' which comes with melted hot chocolate in the middle, a scoop of vanilla ice cream & strawberries. It was heavenly! The combination of the bittersweet taste of the chocolate, milky vanilla ice cream & a little sour taste from the strawberries. Oh my god!
It's definitely a nice place to dine in, away from all the high-rise buildings in Singapore.
Rating given:
My friend had a sudden crave for the food here, so we decided to settle our dinner here.
She ordered the eel porridge while I just ordered a plate of xiao bai cai in oyster sauce since I wasn't feeling too hungry then. I had a mouthful of the eel porridge & it tasted quite nice. Sweet porridge. But my plate of vegetables wasn't nice. the xiao bai cai was not xiao (small) at all. Big stalks of the vegetables which were not cut. It made eating quite difficult and the oyster sauce was quite diluted too.
To compensate for the disappointment, we ordered the mango ice to share. It was good! Generous servings of mango on the top. It's definitely worth a try.
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