hburn10's Reviews
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Needed to look for a nice lunch place around Katong / Joo Chiat area which served vegetarian food and found it on *** :D
I was impressed with the design of the place to be honest, for the place it was situated in. Awashed in green and white with full length glass panels facing the street, it was standing out quite enough for people to spot it easily in the stretch of shophouses and for passserbys to stop in their tracks to flip through the menu.
Inside, it didn't feel like a cafe at all as it was all very clean sleek lines with 2 long communal tables with long wooden blocks as seats, with the word Naive carved onto the sides. Very interesting. A handful of 2 and 4 seaters were spread out evenly in the small eatery.
They have a strange ritual called the "Blessing of the Sesame Seeds" where they give each table a pounder with black and white sesame seeds in it and ask you to pound it. It apparently represents the blessings in your life or something. You can even choose to sprinkle the crushed seeds into your food after that. I don't know about you but I couldn't even pound them properly, so I gave up.
A 3-course set lunch at $9.80 was attractive enough an offer for me so I chose that. There are no options for soups, starters etc, you have to take that 1 exact set (prices indicated are what you would have to pay for if you order them ala carte, altho I'm sure the ala carte portions will be bigger):
1. Wolfberry Soup ($3.80) - "flavorful with eyesight-enhancing properties" --- very clear very light soup dotted with wolfberries and slices of dan gui. Although a very nice warm starter, I felt as if the ingredients weren't simmered long enough for the flavour to come out.
2. XO Shanghai Tang ($13.80) - "braised mushrooms with rich savoury XO sauce - amazing taste for lovers of chinese mushrooms" --- came with served with lightly fried kailan. For me, the taste wasn't 'amazing' enough...fragrant yes but I felt there was a slight overdose of the XO sauce resulting in it being too saltish for my liking.
3. Oliver Twist ($3.80) - "fragrant thai rice infused with oriental spices - The Olive Rice of olive rice" --- I still feel when you say things like "The olive rice of olive rice" in the description, it better taste like it is. Disappointingly, this is not. The taste of the olive was too little and they could have been more generous with the spices. I have tasted much better olive rice before.
They had another 3-course set lunch priced at $12.80, with tom yum soup, olive rice too, and this:
Spice of Life ($12.80) - monkeyhead mushrooms "sauteed with spicy kungpo sauce and peppers" --- very flavourful sauce paired with tender mushrooms; with the texture very similar to mock meat. Incidentally, monkeyhead mushrooms are their specialty and they do it in many other different ways, although I didn't manage to try them.
This was a side dish we ordered to share:
Penang Rendang ($9.80) - "spicy pan-fried mushrooms with steamed buns" --- the rendang sauce was a good match with the steamed buns and the mushrooms very tasty indeed.
The entire lunch was very light on the palette; I think that's how its meant to be, no? Service was nothing to complain about too.
I would want to come back to try the ala carte but only if I'm in the vicinity :D
Pics will be uploaded after I figure out what's wrong with my mobile bluetooth....
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04 Mar 2009 at 10:18 pm
Interesting Vege menu. Thanks for recommendation!
04 Mar 2009 at 10:26 pm
Heard about, read about it, rode past it, and finally, I was there last Saturday :D
A relatively new tenant nestled in one of the outside nooks of Raffles City facing Raffles Hotel, Double Bay can look like a chill out place rather than a proper dinner place I feel, with its full glass panels and lazy soothing music. A very early dinner at 5pm, us 2 girls chose the indoor seats, which I soon found out can turn very chilly when seated for too long.
We ordered light because of dessert plans after that:
Seafood Ciopinno ($10.90) - "rich seafood broth with fresh Tasmanian mussels, clams, squid, and fish". A very rich and very sweet seafood clear broth served with a side of bread. The freshness of the seafood made this an outstanding starter, I like this alot!! Couldn't make out what they had on the bread, but it tasted good nonetheless. They also ran out of anything squid that day, so that might have explained the generous portion of clams.
Pan seared blue swimmer crabcake ($17.90) - "with sweet peppers, lemon mayo, and mesclun". A larger than expected serving of fresh crab meat which did not need too much dressing nor seasoning. Was much much better than what I had so far from all the other atas places. Could have been grilled better though.
Australian Barramundi ($22.90) - "soft, white, less fatty, less flaky" was the description of this fish we chose for our fish & chips (you can choose from at least 6 kinds of fish). While fresh, we couldn't taste any beer in our beer batter (there's choice of 3 kinds of batter). The thick cut fries served along with it was a little disappointing because it was mainly soggy, and came served with ketchup, tartar sauce, and something which tasted like vinegar (??).
Service needs to be brushed up alot. Seated in a corner, we really had difficulty getting attention despite several tries although the place was rather empty still at around 6:30pm. Service staff looked right through our waving hands for some strange reason.
Overall, I guess the starters fared much better than the main, and the dessert selection looked quite good too, although I didn't get to try it. I am tempted enough to make a revisit soon :D
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The first thing I know about Da Mario is that they have only 1 chef and limited seating, so I had higher than usual hopes because it usually means its authentic huh.
The setting is very home-style italian, with the place nicely packed on a Fri night (and later full at around 8:30pm). A handful of staff runs around and everyone does everything so can be hard to get their attention at times. And take note that its all afresco seats although they have fans to distract you from the heat.
These starters were what our side of the table ate:
Calamari - served with tartar sauce and looked really nice but got minus points from all round the table for being too heavy on the salt in the batter.
Portobello mushroom - one huge portobello filled ingredients which I forgot but tasted good nonetheless, served with very nicely "vinegratted" mesclun and cheese. Taste wise, its really not bad but perhaps they should relook the aesthetics of this dish to make it visually more appealing~~
Bruschetta with tomatoes - Very light on the palette and the tomatoes were very nicely done, but I think they may been over-enthu with the olive oil as the bread were a little soggy from the overdose, not sure if it was meant to be drizzled over it instead?
Angel hair pasta with crab meat and porcini mushrooms ($20) - Alas, of all the mains I could choose from, I chose this one....I felt I was cheated by the description on the menu. It came in one mixed heap, stir fried style. It tasted like cha bee hoon. Really. Very oily cha bee hoon.
Tiramisu ($7) - Deliberated over ordering this for quite a bit as we were quite stuffed by then, but er no dinner is complete without dessert~ Portion was huge for the price but average tasting at best. Wasn't chilled properly was one thing, no taste of coffee or alcohol was another. Sigh.
All the other mains looked better than mine; so I probably would have given a better rating if I'd taken some other stuff....
Oh, and they have free breadsticks in a pack for every guest laid out on the table :D
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Had a quiet lunch at The Terrace on Saturday afternoon with family, and it was surprisingly good and quelled my nagging suspicion that all hotel cafes are out to con us of our hard earned money with medicore food :D
The Sentosa Club ($22) - A giant stack of fresh buns, a fat beef patty, and fresh greens. Stacked together tower-style, it was quite a feat to finish even for my bro. Accordingly to him, it was delish with the beef done medium rare excellent. It came with a side of wedges which was hot crispy without being oily.
Mee Goreng ($21) - Rather big portion of the noodle which came partly served on a old-style leave (I can't remember the name). Not oily, full of wok-hei, and generous serving of very fresh big prawns. Very good!
White button mushroom soup ($12) - We were all amused at how this was served. The staff presented a huge oval bowl with 2 pieces of bread crisp inside, and we were all wondering "Where's the soup????". Then another staff beside him armed with a teapot cam over, poured, and voila, we had soup! I have never expected this kind of presentation from a hotel cafe, and apart from being unique and 'cute', I'm sure it kept the soup nice and hot for us.
The chap who served us was all smily and polite, despite having to work a day before CNY eve. Bonus points from me~ The place only had at most 6 filled tables that afternoon, so I guess that helped with the staff's ample attention.
Typical of a hotel cafe, nice and cosy, but without the hustle and bustle of a down-town hotel. Weather was nice and cool, and the alfresco part overlooked the greens and the pool, which had a very theraputic, serene effect I thought.
A little expensive for the quantity we tried but I suppose the quality was quite good. Not a place to frequent because of the sheer effort in getting there but will not mind if I'm a guest at the hotel. And I have to say the hotel is quite a distance from other food choices so sometimes you do pay for convenience :D
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