Pappasan

We spotted this deal from Deals.com, for Pappasan at Dorsett. Since Dorsett is within walking distance from our workplace, we decided its a nice idea to have a good lunch. So after asking around for the total number of interested parties, I bought the deals.

The deal was straightforward: A 4-course set lunch at a discounted price ($19.90) from their usual price ($35++). When we were seated we were served by an annoyingly clueless waitress. Her face was blank when we asked anything at all, and the responses she gave suggests she either wasn't listening, or couldn't understand what I was saying. It took me a while to realise that language seemed to be a barrier and I switched to ordering in Mandarin. It got a little less annoying after that. But, it's after all a hotel, so I expect that staff should be well-versed in English for the international guests, so I daresay I'm pretty disappointed in this aspect.

Menu

The soup of the day was pumpkin soup. It was warm and creamy and actually pretty nice. Pity it was only half a bowl. This was followed by a Caesar salad. With it's slices of parmesan and crusty croutons, it was a pretty standard Caesar salad. Blame my laziness to blog nowadays, I can't remember much about the shrimp in the salad.

Pumpkin soup

Shrimp Caesar salad

We were given 4 options of main course. I opted for the grilled salmon because I was too lazy to deal with a half-chicken, and didn't trust their steak. Crispy skin, flakey meat. Actually very nice salmon. The fried angel hair pasta served with the fish is reminiscent of our local fried bee hoon. That single leave of bok chay didn't help. Somehow the very asian 'fried bee hoon' and bok chay didn't match with the very western grilled fish and tomato sauce. Still, I finished them anyway, although separately so that the clash wasn't quite so obvious.

Grilled Salmon

Many of the others went for the ribeye steak or roast half-chicken. I tried a little of each. The chicken was ok. Not dry, well-seasoned. Not bad at all. The steak was pretty average. It wasn't amazing, yet it wasn't horrible. I was in a way glad I didn't opt for it because I think it would have triggered a craving for very good steak. Both the chicken and steak came with little 'fryer meshes' of fries. So for my table of six (we were split into two tables of six), we had four meshes, and 4 not-so-fries people. So despite my salmon didn't come with fries, I think I polished off almost 2 meshes alone. Thank goodness N was there with us and she LOVE fries, so she help polish off the other two. Few places can make BAD fries so it's usually safe to say they are decent.

Roast half chicken

Ribeye steak

The meal comes with two options for desserts. Fruits, or brownie with ice cream. Ever since I start baking regularly, I tend to eschew desserts that are potentially 'instant-mix'. Set lunch brownies falls under that category so I opted for fruit. Turns out it was a good choice, because the brownie was too sweet for my palate. My own fault probably, since I tend to cut ALOT of sugar in my baking, I was getting used to my low levels of sweetness. But sugar level aside, the brownie was a pretty nice textured, not-quite-instant-mix brownie.

Fruits

Brownie with ice cream

The set came with free-flow coffee and tea, so we were all pretty alert after the meal, with little or no food coma. Haaa. But we probably won't be back, because the original price isn't quite so worth it. And the waitress was really annoyingly stupid. I never felt so much urge to knock a server on the head before. And extremely unhelpful. When I asked her for a spoon, she told me to go to the coffee counter to get it myself. Whatever happened to a 4-star hotel service??