Antoinette (Palais Renaissance)

It was CA's birthday. She wanted an all-day breakfast high-tea on a Sunday. After calling around several places, I finally found one that entertained reservations on a Sunday afternoon. So Antoinette it was, the Palais Renaissance branch. Even then, latest reservation was 1.30pm, then it was for dinner. So early high-tea or late lunch? Whatever you want to call it.

I arrived first with a homemade cake. When I request that they keep our cake for us, I was informed that because they are a patisserie, we are only allowed to blow candles at the restaurant, but not allowed to cut and eat the cake. I understand to a certain degree, but might as well not allow us to blow candle at all, since it was a little silly to blow and keep and then hunt for another place to eat the cake. But ah well, that's what we ended up doing but that's beside the point. It was a homemade cake. I content myself to that maybe I did such a good job that it looked store bought and they didn't want it served there. Haha!

A few of us earlier ones were famished. So we ordered teas and a mushroom soup to share before the rest arrive. Their tea sets are elegant, but very unfortunately, to no fault of theirs, the hot tea pot tends to melt the table's lacquer and my tea pot is stuck quite firmly to the table. So each time I want to pour myself more tea, I have to wrestle the tea pot off the table, pour my tea and set it back down. The cycle repeats. It was tiring for me, and the poor table have many many O-shaped scars of lacquers melted off by previous tea pots. On a repeat visit, they learnt to place a coaster under the tea pot. Save me a whole lot of arm wrestling energy, for sure.

Petit rose tea

So she wanted all-day breakfast, and all-day breakfast it was. We ordered a dish each, and a Salad Lyonnaise and a Gnocchi carbonara to share. Because we didn't like gnocchi, we swapped it for spaghetti. Note: Antoinette's servings are pretty huge. A dish each plus two to share was beyond what we can comfortably finish. Their poached eggs were beautifully done. Gorgeous soft egg whites that cut open to reveal the perfectly runny egg yolks. I never liked poached eggs before because those I ever tried were dry and tissue paper-like (really. I actually mistook one for tissue paper and nearly cleaned my finger on it). Antoinette managed to make me fall in love with poached eggs, and I've been loving poached eggs ever since this visit.

Scrambled eggs with Scottish smoked salmon

Poached eggs with Scottish smoked salmon

They also serve up a variety of savoury pancakes. My order was the Crepe Brittany. Oh my gosh. That so-called 'scallops, prawns, squids and mussels sauteed with white wine and cream' was more like a creamy seafood soup. I had imagined it to be a somewhat dry sauté. It turned out to be a rich, creamy, soupy stew, sweet from the seafood, aromatic from the spices. My crepe was the perfect vehicle to soak up all that creamy goodness. Ok, I admit, I was drinking the soup plain too. The Crepe Florentine was almost pizza-like, but softer.

Savoury Blinis with creamy mushroom, grill bacon, grilled tomato and salad

Crepe Brittany

Crepe Florentine

The carbonara wasn't overly cloying, and the sauce was perfect with thick ribbons of parmesan in it. And of course, served with their signature poached egg - which I stole, because my crepe didn't come with an egg, unlike the breakfast dishes the others had. The salad Lyonnaise was a mistake, since we didn't know every dish actually pretty much came with a side salad. So we had a bit of a greens overdose. Or rather, I did, because I can't stand food being wasted and finished almost the whole plate.

Carbonara gnocchi swapped for spaghetti

Salad Lyonnaise

Other than the weird no cake eating rule, we generally did enjoy ourselves. CA ordered a dessert in the end too, from their patisserie, but I forgot to get a picture of it. This branch isn't too crowded, something we like. However, it seems they only had two staff going around, and because of the circular layout of the restaurants, it's sometimes hard to get their attention. Other than that, this is definitely a nice place to chill out and eat and chat.

Antionette
390 Orchard Road, Palais Renaissance
B1-08/09/10C,
Singapore 238871
(65) 67356392