GRUB

So it was my birthday. My in-laws wanted to celebrate with me and I suggested GRUB. A friend mentioned it before but because its in Bishan park, none of my other friends are willing to entertain the distance. Since the in-laws all stay in the north, it's very convenient for us. Moreover they had some vegetarian options for my hubby.

If you order their GRUB breakfast set, it comes with a coffee or tea. So here's the latte that was served before the food arrives.

Latte

For sharing, we ordered a Chilli con carne to share. The hubby ate the chips plain. We also ordered fries and that one he could enjoy. He got the rocket salad as his main dish, with tomato slices and feta cheese. I can't seem to find that on their online menu now, so I guess this item has been removed.

Chilli con carne

Fries

Rocket salad

CM got their roasted portobello. Big portobello mushroom caps roasted to juiciness, complemented by a salsa and rocket leaves. My hubby totally can eat this actually, but he doesn't like portobello mushrooms in general.

Roasted portobello

W got the French toast. Beautifully browned French toast, served with garlic thyme pork sausage, strawberries, sour cream and maple syrup, and finally dusted with some iceing sugar. Sweet and savory on one plate. She liked it.

French toast

I had the egg cocotte, because frankly, I cannot resist truffled anything. The parma ham is small and forgettable. The eggs a little too soft for my liking. The foccacia were good vehicles for dipping into the egg. Truffle wise, it wasn't very strong. I very much preferred Forty Hand's version.

Truffled egg cocotte

G's breakfast set comes as a pretty small portion, despite the variety. I expected a much fuller plate for a breakfast set. I mean, I always get food coma from breakfast sets elsewhere so this was a little disappointing.

GRUB breakfast set

The cafe had a nice alfresco area, which is pretty pleasant on a not-too-hot day. Location wise it's pretty inaccessible by public transport. That said, the food quality and portion size actually don't make any intentional trip here especially worth it. But to be fair, the prices aren't exorbitant either. I doubt I'll be back though. It wasn't impressive enough to stick in my mind (and my stomach), so much so that I forgot about blogging it altogether. Note that they don't entertain reservations, and it gets pretty busy on weekend mornings.


GRUB
510, Ang Mo Kio Ave 1 (Bishan Park 1)
Singapore 569983
Tel: +65 64595743

Privé Cafe

Since I'm in a series of long overdue posts, let's not start every post with the same words. Just note that from hence forth, if many posts have outdated information, it's because the blogger hadn't been working very hard despite eating very hard. Haaa

Privé Cafe. I love this place. We first saw it when we visited Privé Grill a few years back. Then one fine day, after a dinner at Yakiniku Tei, we wanted a place for dessert and to chill and to chit chat. We thought of TCC at Keppel Bay, because it has a nice view. And because we can now access it as I finally start driving. However, TCC was full. So we roamed around and settled for Privé Cafe. And have never looked back since.

Since we were so full from dinner, we settled for a simple dessert to share. Banana chocolate filled filo pastry, which was deep fried and served with ice cream. The pastry was light, and the filling rich. The portion was perfect for the two of us. However it is now no longer on the menu. For drinks, Lynn got her favorite Earl Grey tea, while I opted for hot honey lemon. I loved it, and she regretted it. My honey lemon is served in a little pot, which can give you approximately two and a half cups. The pot helps to keep the residual drink warm while you enjoy from the cup. The honey and lemon portion were very nicely balanced, and this quickly became our favorite drink for subsequent visits. I also introduce it to every single person I bring and they all loved it as much as I did. No pictures, but it is a must-order item.

Banana chocolate Filo pastry with ice cream

Although the first time we went we only ate the dessert, which is currently taken off the menu, both Lynn and I have been back several times since either together or individually with others. Photos featured here are from a visit with my neighbors on a Sunday for their all day breakfast.

Another must-order item is their mussels. I love the one with white wine. The broth is sweet from the mussels and fragrant from the garlic and herbs. The mussels were perfectly cooked, and absorbed the flavors from the broth. I ate the mussels, and slurped all the broth. The mussels were served with crunchy fries. A hit with adults and kid alike.

Mussels in white wine

I've been eyeing their all day breakfast for a while, because I love breakfast, but the breakfast menu is only available until 5pm. Which means I can most likely only go on a weekend. So when the opportunity arose for the celebration of I's birthday, I suggested a tai-tai mid-afternoon brunch at Privé. I had the Eggs Royale, SY had the Eggs Benedict, and the birthday girl took the Ultimate Brekkie. I liked their poached eggs. Done perfectly, smothered in Hollandaise sauce, and served with wild rocket. Since I prefer smoked salmon to canadian bacon, my Royale was perfect for me.

Eggs Royale

The Ultimate Brekkie is everything breakfast in one plate. 2 eggs (any style), chicken sausage, bacon, roasted tomato, sautéed button mushrooms, potato rosti and homemade wholemeal toast. She opted for poached eggs. Although we expected the portion to be huge, it was actually comfortable for one pax.

Privé's Ultimate Brekkie

Privé Cafe offers both indoor and outdoor seating. The nice thing is the outdoor seating has a non-smoking section too. So on nice weather days, you can opt to sit outside and enjoy the breeze and the view of the marina. Downside is, for some unknown reasons, there are a lot of flies both indoor and outdoor. Was disturbed continuously by a housefly trapped indoor, and on another occasion, by fruitflies at the outdoor table. This was highly irritating.

Another problem Privé Cafe has is the lack of attention from the waiters. They have A LOT of waiters. They don't look shorthanded. But the waiters tend to do their own things and I can stand at the door for a good 5 minutes totally ignored by about 7 waiters, who actually didn't look super busy. Same problem after being seated. It's quite a feat to get their attention for orders, drink top ups etc. Lynn joked that maybe we should start rating restaurant service by the time required for a waiter to serve us from the point we raise our hand.

Nicest thing about Privé Cafe is that after or before your meal, you can take a nice walk around the marina and a jetty across the road to enjoy a bit of sea breeze and maybe the sunset. And you may chance upon people fishing too. This turned out highly entertaining for SY's 30 month old daughter.


Privé Cafe
No. 2 Keppel Bay Vista

Singapore 098382
T: +65 6776 0777 

F: +65 6376 2830 

E: info@prive.com.sg

Bar & Bistro Bottletree

This Groupon for Bottletree Park appeared somewhen mid October this year. Seeing how close to home it is, I asked hubby's siblings if they were interested in going for a meal. Very nicely, the highest value option was $60 for $120 dining value, with minimum 5 to dine. So even if vegetarian options aren't available, I don't have to recruit one more person to fill in the space for a 6 to dine.

I had initially wanted to go for a so-call 'good meal' before I went for my spinal surgery in November. (I had a herniated disc surgery, which explains my long absence here. I wasn't quite in the condition to blog, and definitely wasn't actively out eating. I had mum's post-surgery diet to keep to.) However, we weren't able to secure a reservation pre-surgery. So we put off the dinner til after Christmas on Boxing day.

The park is actually quite a drive in to get to the carpark from the road behind. From how late C reached, I think it's quite a walk from the main road too. I was pretty surprised when we found the Bistro. It was actually so empty that we could choose our own table. Couldn't understand how it could have been full pre-surgery. Maybe everyone was trying to use their Groupon back then.

It's a photo-less post, partly because I was too lazy to take out my camera cos I wasn't feeling too well. And partly because it was so dark that most photos wouldn't have shown much. Lighting was weak, and the main light we had was probably from the oil jar on our table. Maybe it would have been nicer earlier part of the evening, when there's still light and we could enjoy the scenery. As it was, we met pretty late because it was a work day. And the darkness didn't help with the comfort level either. There was so many mosquitoes that, despite the mosquito coil burning under the table, I left the bistro with 15 mosquito bites! I guess it's rainy season, so mosquitoes are a little harder to control. I'm just glad that none were dengue carrying ones.

Food wise, the bistro serves up very simple western food. Affordable too. We managed to order a salad and two sides on top of our main dishes in order to hit the $120. We were told that the Groupon doesn't include drinks. That's ok by me. We weren't refused when we asked for ice water. What's funny was when we requested for a top up of our ice water, we were then told that required a 50 cents charge. Weird.

And it didn't help that the waiter seems new and blur. He had to run back to ask someone something about 7 - 8 times in total. When we settled down, he hung around (actually just stood there staring at us) while we browsed the menu. When I asked what the Groupon included, he ran off to ask and returned to tell me the answer. Since C and L had not arrived, we ordered some fried chicken mid wings and a crispy chicken salad to start off. The wings were small, but well-seasoned and fried to a crispy skin. It was quite yummy.

I was having a bad tummy so wanted something light. So we asked what flavor their maggi mee soup was. He ran off to ask and returned to tell us - curry. So we asked if we could change the flavor since curry really doesn't cut it for my bad tummy. He ran off to ask and returned with a no. So I ordered spaghetti bolognese and requested no cheese. G ordered sambal fried rice, and W ordered tom yam udon. We then asked for a top up of ice water and he ran off to ask again and returned with the 50 cents information. So we passed, and decided we would pay additional to get a jug of soft drinks instead.

When C and L arrived, they placed orders for another bolognese, a chicken cutlet and another plate of chicken wings. The poor waiter returned to our table twice to ask if C's order is a bolognese. Finally another guy came to ask how many bologneses we ordered. I had to politely say - two. The waiter must really be new.

Anyway the wait after this was really long. It took a long while before G's fried rice arrived. Very normal fried rice, and the sambal wasn't too fragrant. The wings came soon after. And by the time G finished his fried rice, non of our mains had arrived. Finally our bologneses came. The cheese and no cheese plate looked the same to us, although they announced them differently. The two rings I took to be onion rings in the photo in the menu turned out to be calamari so I was pleasantly surprised. The pasta was again normal. I was almost done when W's udon finally arrived. Her tom yam soup tasted instant. W also almost finished hers before L's cutlet finally arrived. He didn't have any comments so I guessed it was normal too.

Overall I find the food mediocre. The ambience could have been nicer with more light. I do think that it can be a nice place to chill a early evening with friends over beer. Just don't expect too much from the food, and do be ready to have time to spare for waiting. The price are generally ok. And please bring mosquito repellent patches.


Bar & Bistro Bottletree

Bottle Tree Park81 Lorong Chencharu (Yishun)
Singapore 769198
Tel: 93277181