Thai Accent

It was mom's birthday and since my parents were spending the day at the casino in Resort World Sentosa, I had to rack my brain for a dinner venue nearby. I browsed through all the options at RWS, and then decided that it may be more practical to have dinner at VivoCity instead. Since parents don't eat beef, and brother don't eat pork, and hubby don't eat meat altogether, shabu shabu wouldn't work. And I had to find a relatively child-friendly place because of my 8 months old nephew. Then brother suggested Thai Accent. He hadn't tried it but thought it smelled quite good when he walked pass previously. I had colleagues who said it was nice before, so I thought, why not? I did call ahead to enquire about vegetarian options, and was told that several items on the menu can be made vegetarian. However, tom yam soup was out because they use a premixed seasoning containing fish paste. I appreciated their honesty.

I was a little late and they had pretty much decided what to order by the time I arrived. I simply had to make decisions for the vegetarian options because hubby was later than me. I found out that both the Phad Thai and the Pineapple rice can be made vegetarian, so I ordered a Pineapple rice for him. The Broccoli was also requested to be vegetarian. The hotplate tofu, unfortunately, has a non-vegetarian sauce, so I didn't bother to omit the prawns in the that dish.

The food were generally quite good, and suits my family's taste. Their tom yam soup looked deceptively clear, making me wonder whether I made the correct decision by choosing the 'clear' version. Turned out it was fiery and sour, the way tom yam soup should be, though initially we thought it wasn't quite sour enough. Any spicier, my dad wouldn't have been able to handle it. Towards the bottom of the pot, the sourness was getting more and more apparent. I think the lemon juice must have settled to the bottom. It was also getting too spicy for my stomach by the end, so my brother had to finish it.

The glass noodle salad was spicy and sour, great at whetting the appetite before the start of the meal. The fish was fried to a good crunch, and drenched in the thai chilli sauce. However, this was a month back. For some reason I vaguely remember I didn't like something about it. Maybe it was a little on the fishy side, or the freshwater fish 'soily' flavor was too strong. The other dishes were all flavorful, with enough spices without being overpowering. I grumbled a little about the pineapple rice, but mainly because I personally dislike raisins, and there were plenty of them. Nothing to the restaurant's fault. I did like the Phad Thai, and had a lot of it. I was even considering getting hubby to order a vegetarian one after he finished his rice, so that I could pinch some. But he said he was full, so no extra Phad Thai for me... =(

Broccoli with tofu and mushroom

Clear Seafood Tom Yam

Glass noodle salad

Chicken in oyster sauce

Pineapple rice

Hot plate Tofu?

Thai Style fish

Phad Thai

The food here are priced pretty steep though, something along $11 for a pretty small plate of broccoli and tofu. They only have their stuff in one size, and the serving isn't big. It's nice on one hand because you get to sample a variety of food. But looking at the price, you don't really expect that kind of serving. The stuff's attention was a little hard to get because we were at a corner, but service was generally pretty good. One waiter was sharp enough to notice my cake when I walked in, and offered to keep it in the fridge for me. When we requested for the cake, they did clear our table well enough so that the cake was enjoyed without clutter.

Fullhouse theme cafe

When I only contributed 2 out of 54 posts in the blog, Gracie decided that it's maybe time for me to contribute a little more.. Recent visit to Fullhouse theme cafe @ Rendevous Hotel, to be exact will be 2nd visit because they were fullhouse on my 1st visit (happened to be their grand opening).

So, finally 4 of us made a reservation and got a table in their "Living room", as usual, we arrived starved and decided to order some appetizers while waiting for SY to arrive. Food selection was quite limited so we thought that chicken sausages and french fries would be nice to start the dinner with.

Chicken sausage

Chicken sausages were served with some BBQ sauce and mashed potato, a great great disappointment, for $11.90, I won't be expecting 3 pathetic chicken franks (like those frozen ones u get from NTUC) lying on my plate. Even when they made some effort in making some cuts on it and covering it with some bbq sauce, it does not justify for the $11.90 we are paying for. Nevermind about the hotdog, mashed potatoes are decent, abit on the dry side and nothing to rave about. French fries were nice, crispy outside and soft fluffy inside, the kind of fries I'll like, I was so hungry that I forgot to make a picture of it... As usual.

Chicken chop with pepper and raisin sauce and mashed potato

Dory fillet with vegetables

Smoked salmon focaccia sandwich

Upon SY's arrival, we order our mains, which are chicken chop, smoked salmon sandwich, dory fish fillet. Chicken chop was nicely cooked, juicy with a crisp charred skin, I like the sauce with raisin which went quite well with the slightly dry mashed potato. Yes, it's the same mashed potato as the cheapo hotdog appetizer.

Dory fish fillet was nicely cooked, however the whole thing tasted like something you would expect from a chinese wedding dish. Fillets were placed on top of some Xiao bai cai, garnished with some dou miao, sauce was some lemon cream sauce but the taste of everything just felt chinese. LOL..

Smoked salmon sandwich tasted just like how it looks, bread abit dry, although I quite like the herb taste ( I think it's rosemary). Other than that, nothing much worth mentioning.

Next, some pictures on the interior....

Finally finished our meal and on our way out, one of the staffs asked about how we find the food, me being the frank me, commented on the chicken franks. I was nice and politely mentioned that for $11.90 they should have used better sausages rather than just chicken franks. The reply was stunning, the staff just told me jokingly that I should have looked at the picture on the menu first, I said there's no picture for appetizers, he then told me I should just order something else on the menu the next time I am there. He was not rude, I guessed he is just not trained to handle such situations, actually a simple "I would let the chef know, thank you for your feedback" would suffice.

Overall, it's a nice place to take pictures and have a group outing, they do have a wide selection of drinks on their menu and suitable for friends to chill and relax, service was good, staffs there are warm and friendly. In the "Bedroom", shopholics can also browse through their selection of clothings and accessories. Food and drinks, in my opinion is quite pricey and if i were to go back, it definitely will not be for their food.

Outback Steakhouse

You must be wondering why I'm blogging about such an established steakhouse so far along my blog development. Well, that's because I've never tried it til now. Surprising right? Considering I've been on a hunt for great steaks, and having left my footprints at even some less known steak places, I've never tried Outback?? And who's fault is it? Lynn. She told me some when in the beginning of our steak love (back when we still thought that Hogs Breath had the yummiest steak on earth) that Outback isn't nice when she tried it. Since we have similar tastes (for most part), I struck it off my to-go list.

Then recently, we had some errands to run at City Hall area, and thought we could give MEDZS a try for their foie gras. The queue at MEDZS turned out to be way longer than we cared to wait for, and Outback did smell very good when we walked pass. And that silly girl suddenly decided she want to eat their bread. We asked, and were told it would be a 15 minutes wait for our table. That sounded okay, and so we left our number, and went to sit at a bench outside until we get the call to go back for our table.

When you put two very hungry girls in front of a menu each, you usually end up with way too much food. We hopelessly ordered a combination appetizer platter of Kookaburra Wings, Aussie Cheese Fries and Crispy Calamari served with their respective dips of blue cheese (no prizes for guessing why we ended up with this order), spicy ranch and zesty marinara dressings. And we added a Outback Nachos because it sounded soooo tempting with the cheese and beef and all that. For main, we ordered a Chargrilled Ribeye with its so-called expresso seasoning which I was quite apprehensive about. I think there was an ongoing promotion for smoothies and I got a watermelon, and she a mango.

The legendary bread she was dying for arrived quite quickly. Warm whole bread served with butter - what's there to not love? The fact that it was unsliced helped to keep the warmth in. It's not as impressive as she made it out to be, and we actually didn't order a second helping this time round. But then, that was partly because we were a little worried that we wouldn't be able to finish our food so we decided to behave ourselves (good thing we did...). The soup of the day was okay I guess, I've forgotten what it was though. But great to have because due to our hunger, we were happy with any food at all that arrives fast enough in front of us.

Warm bread with butter

Soup of the day

Our drinks

The nachos came next - a cheesy and sour creamy mountain of corn chips with hidden treasures of sauteed beef, tomato bits, jalepenos and olives. I'm not an olive fan so Lynn had to take care of those. Other than that, the nachos really hit the spot, and I love the tanginess from the tomatoes balancing everything out. Then arrived our platter. It was quite a surprise because we didn't expect the size of it. The wings were so-so, the fries a little soggy after being drenched in cheese. the calamari a little bland. But we did love the blue cheese dip, especially the occasional pieces of crumbled blue cheese that you scoop up. Woot! And I learnt that celery with dips is actually very yummy, and it helped to undo a little of the greasy damage the fried appetizers did to our palate.

Outback Nachos

Combination Appetizers

Finally came our ribeye. It wasn't as charred as we had expected, but the meat was succulent and juicy, with a great chew to it. I didn't taste any coffee, thankfully. The baked potato was hot, and the butter was melting quickly, and it made us two excited girls. I think I remembered some aromatic fats in the steak that gave me the 'mmmm' moment. I couldn't figure out what made her write off Outback so long ago. She couldn't either. She could only conclude that she probably didn't eat their steak when she first visited.

Chargrilled Ribeye

We were, however, unable to finish quite a fair portion of the food. We finished our meat (of course!), gave up of the potato (which turned out to be a little dry), struggled through the veggies, gave up on the cheese fries (too greasy and soggy), gave up on the last bit of nachos, and didn't order dessert (unbelievable!!). At the end of our meal, I noticed the two ladies at the next table ordered the nachos and the platter to share too. But that was it, they didn't order any mains. So us two greedy girls really OD-ed on our ordering that day.

Mad For Garlic (Suntec City)

I have been recommended this place by K a long time ago, and actually shortlisted it for a lab lunch once but got veto-ed by boss. A few other colleagues also said it was nice, so I have been wanting to give it a try. Happened that I needed to go to Suntec to run an errand, so asked Lynn to come along with me and we can give Mad For Garlic a try.

We were seated at a nice little corner where I had space for my big box of new purchase. Then we browsed through the words-only menu. Lynn was the one who found out that our table placemat paper (is that what you call those things?) had photos of some of the items. It was a good while later that I found out that her copy and my copy are completely different items and between the two pieces of paper, almost the whole menu is represented.

It had been a weekful of beef for me so I wasn't quite thinking of ordering it, especially in a non-steak restaurant. But Lynn was adamant, so we opted for a Garlic Hug Steak - tenderloin stuffed with garlic and cream sauce. We also ordered a Caprese salad (tomatoes and fresh mozzarella). For some reason I was uber tempted by the mussels, so we ordered a White Sauteed Fresh Mussels - a cream based concoction. Finally, we decided to try out a pasta to round up the mains, so ordered an Arrabiata. There was some kind of promotional set of a dessert and two drinks, so we added that and ordered a tiramisu and I absolutely cannot remember the drinks we got.

The drinks arrived first, while Lynn was on the phone. I was happily trying to show her how nice they were with my non-verbal facial expressions, and I think she tried to ignore me. Both were soda mixes I think, with red wine in one (suits her) and yuzu (pomelo zest) in the other (I like). The salad arrived shortly after and we really liked it. The mozzarella was light and fresh, complimented nicely by the tangy tomato. This is nothing surprising or special since all Caprese salads have these two component. What's a nice touch is the basil dressing, that sea of green surrounding the tomato and cheese. It was a blend of olive oil and basil and I don't know what other herbs, probably garlic was one of them. It was fragrant, light and adds a very nice touch to the tomato and cheese combo. We loved it so much that Lynn almost didn't let the server take the plate away after all the tomato and cheese were gone and only the dressing is left.

Some blend of red wine and soda on the left, yuzu and soda on the right

Caprese salad

The mussels came next, a bowl of them swimming in a rich, creamy, garlic broth with peppers, and the accompanying bucket (background) for shells. We were so sold. This was the best dish we had the entire night. The mussels were fresh, and any fishiness were covered by the fantastic broth. We were literally drinking the broth. I could imagine myself chomping down a nice, crusty bread soaked in that broth. We loved it so so so so much. It was probably the best mussels I had in a while (ok, minus my ma's, but then it's different category since my ma's is purely Chinese style, and these were obviously Western).

White Sauteed Fresh Mussels, in a spicy pepper and garlic cream sauce

Next up, the Arrabiata. Tomato-based spaghetti with spicy peppers added. Their version had bacon in it. A little on the oily side, but the sauce was aromatic and the spicy kick just nice. Bacon were a little too chewy, and left me guessing what they were for a moment. The nicest thing about this? It was when we asked for parmesan cheese to top the pasta. For some reasons they don't have grated cheese in those little shakers, so they brought us shaved parmesan from the kitchen in a small dish. Woo lala. I would take these over the shaker anytime boy. We stirred all of it into the pasta and they melted in immediately to give us a nice, gooey pasta. How's that for flavor? =)

Arrabiata spaghetti

Shaved parmesan

The Garlic Hug Steak came last. A cute little island of meat in the middle of a creamy sea of cheese sauce. But this one was a miss. You know what they say about not making cuts in your meat before you cook them, or the juices will escape. So you can imagine a garlic stuffed steak (no way you can stuff things in without making cuts), the meat wasn't fantastic juicy. It was a little dry, and the garlic in it was a little over the top. The minced garlic was sweet, and if in small quantities, I think would have been ok. But the huge lump of it in the centre of the steak was just too much. I didn't care much for it. The cheese cream sauce wasn't even as good as the the one in the mussels. I think we were doing the take-the-meat-from-one-plate-and-sauce-from-the-other thing...

Garlic Hug Steak - garlic stuffed tenderloin smothered in cheese cream sauce

 The final course is of course the dessert. Tiramisu arriving next to a cocoa powder garlic. I think it's their way of garlic-fying a non-garlic containing dish (I would think a garlic tiramisu tastes completely wrong). We found it weird to be eating a tiramisu without that signature layer of cocoa powder on top. It was a so so tiramisu.

Tiramisu

Overall we found that the meal started pretty good, but declined in satisfaction as it proceeded. We liked the salad and mussels the most, the spaghetti was also pretty good, and the steak and dessert disappointing. In fact, the dessert was so unsatisfying we ended up at Haagen Daz for round two. Lol...

Old Tiong Bahru Bak Kut Teh

I sincerely apologize for the fact that our blog mainly feature restaurants. It's not that I despise hawker centres or coffeeshops, I do eat at those places very often and in fact, grew up a hawker kid. It's just that usually I reach these places horribly hungry, and proceed to wolf down my food without thinking about blogging about them. And because many of these places are frequent haunts, somehow it become such a normal thing to be there that it really doesn't occur to me that I should take photos to show. Just like how I always forget photos at Chinese restaurants because my natural instinct is to fight with my cousins for the food the moment it is set down on the table (although that is changing these days because of the more polite significant-others that will give way to us uncivilized people). So I decided that this should change. Slowly. I can't promise that I will remember to take photos before I tuck in, but I will try. There are so many hawker food that I love, and do think that they are worth sharing. So here goes the first hawker post.

We were thinking of somewhere to have lunch other than the two usual canteen and coffeeshop - these were ok, but get boring. So J thought of going for a Bak Kut Teh (direct translation: pork rib tea) lunch. Instead of heading out to Song Fa where we usually go when the craving hits and the time permits, he thought that we can hunt out a nearer one. He knew that there's one that's quite renowned in the Tiong Bahru market area, but wasn't sure of the exact location. Nothing Google can't solve, and the location was pinpointed in no time. It didn't have a rave review on HungryGoWhere.com, but neither did Song Fa, which we liked. So no harm giving it a shot.

It was a relatively nice day (how nice can Singapore get anyway), so we decided to walk. Got there in about 15 minutes. The staff were like super speeded Mario, zipping around efficiently. The moment we sat down, our table was set with chilli, chopsticks and spoons, wet towels, and dishes of you tiao (fried fritters - which we didn't ask for actually). We placed orders for a bak kut teh with rice each, and a plate of stir-fried tapioca leaves and preserved vegetables to share. Plus Chinese tea.

The tea set was brought up very quickly, but we found it very dirty. Got the attention of one of the uncles zipping around and tried to tell him that we wanted a cleaner set. In his 'efficiency', he somehow misunderstood us and proceeded to make our tea for us in a jiffy. Ah well, dirty eat dirty grow up (la sap jia la sap tua - a freqently used dialect phrase). The tea was very strong, literally tea-expresso... I think it kept me awake for a good part of the afternoon. Everything else arrived equally quickly. I felt that I was having an accelerated lunch.

The soup here is less aromatic than Song Fa's, less herbal and less peppery I think. J say he remembered their ribs being much more tender before. I guess standards dropped with commercialization. The vegetables were so so. At least so normal that I actually don't remember them. I didn't like how the chilli were so soaked in the soya sauce that they had turned black. Looked super unappetizing and I didn't use them at all. Only ate the chilli padi we requested for and were given without soya sauce. They topped up our soups at our request (for free). It was, however, quite uncomfortable to drink hot soup on a hot day at a somewhat outdoor table under a extension shelter. Didn't know why I signed up for that when I knew I perspire easily...

Zoom in to the lead actor

When the bill came, I was a little surprised. We ended up paying slightly pass $10 each. Considering it was a non-air-conditioned place, the price was a little steep. I tried to calculate how it got to that price, and it seems that the small plate fried tapioca leaves was going at $10 or more... Eek. It wasn't as good as Song Fa, which is priced similarly (maybe a little lower, I think we usually pay about $9, inclusive of cold drinks) but air conditioned. Next time the craving hits, we probably will take the effort to go a little further for more dependable Bak Kut Teh. Lynn told me there's an even better one (but more expensive) at Tanjong Pagar. Wonder if I can kidnap my colleagues there some day?

MEDZS (Orchard Central and Millennia Walk)

It was our company D&D, but since our whole lab managed to miss the deadline for registration, we didn't get to go. So, we planned for our own little D&D. After asking around for suggestions, we finally decided on MEDZS. It is essentially a Marche-style Mediterranean restaurant.

Since we're a pretty big group (about 10 of us agreed to go), I called up for reservations. They had an interesting policy: Friday reservations is only allowed up til 6pm. So I made the reservation for 6pm, and crossed my fingers that at least some of us will be able to get there on time to hold the table. We didn't. The 'advance party' only reached at 6.30pm. Thankfully it was still early enough for the restaurant to be pretty empty, and we still get our seat. The remainder of the party reached about 7.30pm.

When you enter the restaurant, you get a card each. That will be your 'credit card' for the whole meal. At each 'stall', you 'pay' for your order using the card. Total bill will be tabulated at the cashier at the exit. Nice system for big groups going dutch. You only pay for what you ordered.

Of course advance party people were famished. So we hunted for food first. We took awhile to go through all the stalls, look through all the options, before we place our orders. I got a mushroom soup (cos too hungry to wait for other food), a rosti with smoked salmon to share, and a seafood paella. J got a beef with mushroom and cheese kebab with pita bread. YJ got a lamb shank and some vegetable skewers to share, while XP a lamb leg. All beers were going at 1-for-1, so we ordered 2 sets to get 4. The nice thing about MEDZS is their beeper system. When you place your order, you get a beeper. You can then go back to your table and wait peacefully until the beeper rings. Then do you need to go back to collect your food. The reason I say it's a nice system is because at Marche's, I had, on several occasions, had to make a few trips back to the stall to check on my order status, only to see someone who placed order after me get their food first because the stall personnel got confused.

The mushroom soup was pretty good, the creamy kind with lots and lots of mushroom bits. The lamb shank and lamb leg were fork-tender, and did not have the overpowering 'muttony' smell. XP's lamb leg did turn out to have quite a lot of tendon that he had to struggle chewing through. In this aspect, the lamb shank was better, because the tendon had all been cooked to a soft, melty state. The beef kebab was very flavorful, and went well with the pita bread. Only drawback was its portion. Too big for one person, so we had to help Jamie with it. I guess it's better for sharing. On first bite my paella was quite good, with sweetness from the fresh seafood. But it got boring after I'm midway through, because it's the same taste throughout. The rosti here is softer and fluffier than Marche's. While I preferred this one, I understand that different people have different preferences for their rosti. E preferred Marche's one.

The rest arrived and went off to get their orders, and pretty much came back with somewhat similar things. The kebab and pita were definitely the most popular orders. Seeing it was E's birthday two days later, we went to the dessert stall on the pretext of getting desserts for ourselves. We then secretly arranged for a slice of cake to be delivered to our table. We waited and waited, and when we had waited til we stopped looking out for the cake's arrival, we were suddenly surprised shocked by the sudden outburst of a birthday song from a group of waiters walking in our direction. E's back was facing them, and he was mumbling that he hope that it wasn't his. Unfortunately or fortunately, it was. He had to stuff it down on top of his one and a half pita (he helped finished J's) and kebab.

Mushroom soup

Lamb leg

Lab shank

Vegetable and mushroom skewers

Seafood paella

Rosti with smoked salmon

Beef kebab with mushroom and cheese and pita

I actually spotted foie gras at one of the stalls, but it doesn't cut it as a main, yet I don't want my colleagues to feel obliged to satisfy my cravings with me. Will come back with Lynn one day to try that out. Overall I felt that MEDZS is a great place to visit for big groups, because the variety means that everyone can probably find something they like.


UPDATE

This update serves two purpose.

1) Lynn and me went back to try their foie gras so here's updating what we ate

2) I found a few search terms with MEDZS and 'vegetarian option' together arriving at our blog, and realized I actually didn't address that except adding it into the label. So here I'll try to elaborate a little.


So we decided to try their foie gras, and instead of the OC branch, we went to the Millennia Walk one. After taking turns for several trips walking around the restaurant, we settled for too much food as usual. We ordered a foie gras from the Italian appetizers list (I kept looking for mains but couldn't find it. I believe the OC branch had one at the French stall as a main), escargots in cream based sauce from the French stall, rosti with cured salmon, pork belly paella, beef shish kebab and beef hot plate with pita from the Turkish stall, cream of mushroom, and rounded up the meal with a chocolate souffle and a creme brulee.

Since it was a weekday night, the restaurant wasn't very crowded. The result was a very good service. Whenever our beepers go off, a waiter will come and get it from us, collect the food item from the stall, and bring it to us. We rarely have to get up ourselves to get the food. The escargots were served very prettily. The flesh had a perfect chew to it, resistant to the teeth without being overly tough and rubbery. The cream sauce was ok, but we prefer the usual garlic butter sauces served in many other places. The foie gras were two small pieces served on a bed of caramelized apple on a toasted bread. The texture of the foie gras was great - crisp exterior with a melt-in-your-mouth interior. The livery taste was strong and got us both really excited. This was nicely complemented by the sweet apple.

We had a lot of ordering errors that ended up working to our favor. My pork belly paella was heard wrongly as pork belly skewer. And my pita was omitted in the Turkish stall. Thank goodness for these mistakes, as we were too stuffed without all the carbo anyway!! The beef shish kebab was very tough, not sure if all beef shish kebabs are supposed to be like that. This is my second try, (first time being TheButcher's), and I seem to be forming the idea that maybe this is the norm. The souffle served with vanilla ice cream was quite nice. The creme brulee had a too thick and hard burnt sugar topping.

Escargots

Foie gras

Chocolate souffle

Vegetarian food wise, it really depends on how strict a vegetarian you are. There are the rosti, vegetable skewers, vegetarian pastas, pizzas and paellas. And of course most desserts are lacto-ovo-vegetarian friendly. Bear in mind that these are cooked on vessels that probably had contained meat at some point or other, so the reason for me saying its dependent on how strict you are. I'm sure many other restaurants are like, just that their kitchens aren't open to the public eye. If you're ok with that, this is a nice restaurant for vegetarian and non-vegetarians to have a gathering.

Le Bistrot Du Sommelier

This was the last, untried steak place found on Cnngo's best steak in Singapore list. Coincidentally, my boss mentioned that this is the one place in Singapore with 'real tomatoes', as opposed to the 'round red things that are called tomatoes but taste like cardboard' (quoting him). This place's star dish was supposed to be the 1kg bone-in steak. Since 1kg sounds like a lot, Lynn and me decided we need more stomachs. So recruited I and D to join us for this carnivorous dinner. Since most reviews recommended reservations in advance, I placed reservation about 2 weeks early.

Initially we were given a menu to browse. I couldn't find the 1kg steak anywhere and I started wondering whether it was supposed to be an advanced order item. Later, the server came by with a blackboard stand with the meat menu scribbled on it. Was delighted to find the Cote de Boeuf on it. =) On top of a medium rare steak, we ordered chicken liver pate (described on a blog I visited as 'divine'. We gave the foie gras here a miss because we were quite sure it wasn't pan-fried, and Lynn and me really love the ooziness of the pan-fried ones. We also ordered 2 dishes of escargots (6 escargots for 4 person is really inadeaquate), and another main dish of oven roasted chicken with 40 garlic cloves. Since the chicken comes with a herbed potato (I can't remember the name), we chose potato gratin and some kind of salad as sides for the steak. Couldn't find my boss's 'real tomatoes' anywhere on the menu.

The 'divine' chicken liver pate was served with some toasty bread, and some green plant that uneducated me don't recognize. Somehow, I couldn't taste the divine-ness of the pate when I spread it on the bread. Subsequently tried some by itself, and yeah, I think I could understand what that blogger trying to say. Weakly rich, slightly salty, with the livery taste at the back of your throat and a slight spicy kick at the end of it. The bread does cover off the livery taste, which will explain why I failed to detect the divine-ness initially.

Chicken liver pate

The escargots were a little different from the usual butter and garlic ones. Theirs were shell-less ones, completely smothered in a dishful of herby olive oil sauce, with bits of tomatoes. The texture of the snails were just right - good resistance to the teeth without being overly chewy. Nicely complemented by the herbs and tomatoes. We liked it.

Escargots

When the roasted chicken first appeared out of the kitchen, Lynn wondered aloud who in the world will order claypot rice in a French restaurant. When it was delivered to our table, we realized it was us. Haha... But when it was set down, it was sooooooo fragrant that I think all four of us literally drooled. Buttery, with the rich fragrance of garlic. The chicken was tender, and soaked up all the flavors of the butter sauce. I couldn't help thinking it would have been fantastic to go with rice. Maybe bread to soak up the gravy would have been great too. But too much may not be a good thing. Four of us sharing one pot made it memorable. Had it been a main course for one, I think I'll be sick midway through because of the richness.

Oven roasted chicken with 40 garlic cloves

The star arrived finally - our 1 kg bone-in meat. It was sliced out for us and arranged nicely in a circle on the plate. We ordered it medium rare, only to find D prefer medium well. So we started pointing out the not so bloody pieces and reserve those for her, while more bloody the meat that was near the bone were quickly reserved for Lynn. The meat was tender, and because of the bone-in during the cooking process, very well flavored. The sauteed onions piled on it were tender and sweet, and really went well with the meat. Pity is that because of the large size, and the fact that it was sliced up, by the time I got to the third piece, it was cold. It was still a very good piece of meat, a surprise considering this wasn't a steakhouse. The gratin was recommended by the server and was pretty good. I forgot about the other two so I guess were so-so.

Cote du Boeuf

Side dishes of potato gratin, salad and herbed potato

Finally it was dessert time. We ordered creme brulee and a waffle with ice cream. The creme brulee was OH-SO-NICE!! You can see the vanilla beans in them. So light and yet creamy at the same time, and the vanilla taste was subtly rich. The burnt caramel top was crispy and complemented the creaminess totally. It was soo good that we ordered one more.

Creme Brulee

Waffle

The bistrot was quite noisy on the day we went because of a very big group of caucasians a few table away. I think as the night progressed, they had more drinks, and got rowdier. And of course the price here for a 'bistrot' was quite challenging for the pocket. Not a place I will visit regularly for fear of an empty bank account. It was a very nice catch-up session with the two girls though. Next time, I think Lynn and me can do the escargots, the steak, and the creme brulee if we can't find kakis.