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

Bistro Du Vin (Zion Road)

So it was one of those days I had to work late, with 3 hours of waiting time in between to spare. So XP, FQ and I decided to check out Bistro Du Vin, which we passed by when we went for Pepperoni Pizza. A quick googling revealed that it was under the Les Amis Group, together with Pepperoni Pizza. So off we went, for that treat to ourselves for working late.

Like all proper French restaurants, we were served crusty bread with butter while we were still browsing the menu. Though it wasn't warm, the baguette was delicious, and very welcomed. Especially when I was super hungry.

Bread and butter

And what's French food without my two favourites? Escargots and foie gras. Their escargots are the cutest I have ever seen. Served without shells in individual mini ramekins. It wasn't mind blowing, but the garlic/butter/herbs combination worked together very well. And the meat weren't overcooked too. Very pleasant start to the meal. Pan-seared foie gras came next. Crisp on the outside, melt-in-the-mouth interior. I was in bliss.

Escargots

Foie gras

For mains, I opted for slow cooked lamb shank. It was served in a Le Creuset casserole. When the lid came off, I was swarmed in a delicious steam of rich broth. I wanted bread to soak up all that goodness. However, lamb shank being lamb shank, it had a lot of fatty bits. So although I started off a happy girl, I was a little sick by the middle of my meal and struggled a little to finish. It was served with crushed potatoes on the side. It was a little bland and a little neglected, not because it wasn't good, just because it had a competition. Truffle fries. I cannot not order truffle fries when I see that on any menu. And Bistro Du Vin's doesn't disappoint. The moment it was set down on our table, the whiff of truffle came to me immediately. I also liked it was thick-cut fries, which have a fluffier interior that I prefer over shoe-string fries.

Lamb shank

Truffle fries

XP had the suckling pig belly confit. Brave boy. Of course he was pretty sick by the end of it. Nothing to do with poorly prepared food. Pork belly is simply to rich for one person to finish one shot. It was delicious on the first few mouths. Very crisp, very fragrant. FQ had the Australian pork chop, also deliciously prepared, and generously topped with caramelised onions. I think among the three of us, he had the least difficulty finishing his main. But still with a little bit of struggle. We concluded their level of richness probably will require us to share 2 mains among 3 persons in future.

Suckling pig confit, choucroute & bacon (belly)

Pan-roasted Australian pork chop, caramelized shallot, garlic & mashed potato

For dessert, because we were so gelat, we wanted something to cleanse our oil-laden palate. So we chose the Colonel, which had the description "lemon sorbet with Vodka", thinking that the lemon sorbet will help us curb the oiliness. We were expecting Vodka infused lemon sorbet or something. Little did we expect what we got. Literally lemon sorbet floating in neat Vodka. It was still nice, but I didn't plan to end the meal with that much alcohol, and I find the alcohol too strong for a dessert. Shared among the three of us, it was ok. Nobody got drunk. Haha...

Colonel

Writing this, I realise the part I miss most is the truffle fries. Theirs really caught my attention. I wanna go back just for that. Bistro Du Vin is a quiet little restaurant that served up delicious French food. I think its a nice and cosy place for a dinner. Maybe I'll bring Lynn back. At least for the fries.

Bistro Du Vin

56 Zion Road

Singapore 247781

Tel: 6836 6313

Lele Pot

We are always up for trying new things at lunch. Once, on the way to another place for lunch, we walked pass Lele Pot. Upon checking out their set lunch menus, we decided, why not? The set lunch were going at less than $10. Seemed like a decent deal for hot pot. You choose a set you wan, then choose your soup base and your carbo.

Set lunch menu

I got the beef set (of course!) with herbal soup and tang hoon (glass noodles). Granted, the set comes cheap for a reason. It's a big plate of mostly veggies, with three beef meatballs, a few thin slices of beef, and imitation crabsticks. The mini pot of soup took forever to boil, from that little canister of (candle?) fire. That said, the soup was a nice, rich, herbal soup, which I really liked. The thinly sliced beef cooked very fast, so they remain nice and tender. For a $10 lunch? Not bad at all.

Beef set

On rainy days they can get pretty crowded since everyone want hotpot on rainy days. And be warned, you come out smelling like hotpot. This joint is opened by a Mediacorp actor, so while you eat you can look at the photographs of himself with all the (more famous) actors. Even several overseas celebrities.


Lele Pot
58 Seng Poh Road

#01-23 

Singapore 160058 

Tel: 6222 9442

Artisan Boulangerie Co. (Great World City)

I needed to go to the bank, and since banks operates office hours, it had to be done at lunch time. So I dragged my slacker buddies J and FQ to Great World City with me during lunch. They browsed for lunch place, while I settled my banking stuff.

I, have a weakness, for soups. Despite a bad experience with tomato soup Lynn and I had once, I still do order tomato soups occasionally (whereas Lynn have sworn off tomato soup ever since). ABC's tomato soup was thick and tangy, and I liked it. Warms the belly. The crusty bread that came with it was so so though.

Tomato soup

J ordered the portabello sandwich. It looked good!! She liked it, and gave me a mouth to try. The mushroom was thick and juicy. Perfect for mushroom lovers, or vegetarians who wants a 'burger'. I went for my usual Eggs Benedict, with smoked salmon instead of canadian bacon. The poached eggs were nice and runny, the hollandaise sauce tangy and creamy. I don't think I'll ever criticise eggs benedicts anywhere, unless some joint try to be funny and give me overcooked eggs.

Portabello sandwich

Smoked salmon Eggs Benedict

FQ, our breakfast lover, went for the ABC breakfast. Scrambled eggs, bacon, sauteed mushrooms and side salad. As if it wasn't big enough, it had three chunks of crusty bread served at the side. He was happy, and really enjoyed his breakfast for lunch. The eggs were creamy and perfect. Bacon, if I didn't recall wrongly, was a little on the too salty side. Other than that, it was a plate of happiness.

ABC breakfast

Bread for ABC breakfast

Overall we liked it. I guess if you're a bread lover or a breakfast lover, this is a nice place to chill and chat. The water, salt, pepper etc are all self-serviced, which is sometimes a good thing since you don't have to spend your time trying to get the servers' attention. They have ALOT of baked goods options, breads, tarts, cakes etc, which we didn't try. Only downside was we got a sofa seat. Although nice to chill, it was a little difficult to eat a proper meal from a low coffee table. 

Artisan Boulangerie Co.

#01-23, Great World City
Singapore 237994
Ph: +65 6887 4062
Open Daily from 10 am to 10 pm

Lenu (Vivocity)

It was a Friday night after our weekly swimming session, and we arrived at Vivocity pretty late (for a Friday) at 8 plus pm. Took a while to find a parking lot, and found that almost every eatery had long queues. We initially wanted to go for steamboat at Jpot but was informed of a roughly 45 minutes wait. Post-swimming, not good. We were ravenous.

So we roamed, and spotted the pretty empty Lenu. JP said it is pretty good, so we decided, why not? I was so hungry I really could eat anything at the moment. So we got a table immediately, browsed through the menu briefly, and off the few of them went to off to place order at the counter while I did the lazy girl thing and just waited at the table.

The rest returned with our drinks and starters, that they grabbed off the fridge at the counter. We munched on the cold starters while waiting for our noodles. Cold marinated cucumbers (凉拌黄瓜) was cold and crunchy, perfectly seasoned. The pickled cherry tomatoes I liked less, but that's because I personally don't like pickled stuff. The rest of them liked it anyhow.

凉拌黄瓜

For noodles I opted for the one with everything. Mixed beef brisket, shank, tendon with thin noodles. Nice rich beef broth, with tender beef pieces. The noodles were springy, just the way I like. Only problem? Serving may be a little too small for a post-swim dinner. But the hot soupy noodles really hits the spot, after a cold swim. Plus it was a rainy night too, hence the whole package was ideal.

Mixed beef brisket, shank, tendon with thin noodles

I liked Lenu for the lack of crowd, but still decent food. It's not lavish like some of my meals can be, but still satisfying. Great for those wanna-treat-yourself-but-not-too-expensive meals.

Laman's Delight

So we just had an unsatisfying dinner at Kuro Kin. We needed a good dessert to bring up the happiness level of the day. Roamed through Pasarbella, and chanced upon this little cake shop. They sell Russian homemade cakes. All cake flavors had small cuts left out for sampling. After trying out all, we settled for Walnut and Naomi, with a cup of tea each. This little shop only had one table of its own, and we decided that was a nice place to sit and chat, since it was pretty late and the common areas of Pasarbella were sort of in the dark with some of the lights off.

What I really loved about Laman's Delight, is the wholesomeness of the cakes. In this day and age where cafes and cupcake shops are popping up everywhere, desserts tend to come all fancy and over-the-top. In contrast, Laman's Delight serve up good ol' old-fashioned homemade buttercream cakes, which really hits the spot. And they do not scrimp on the ingredients. Walnut was really chock full with chopped walnuts in every bite. And it was a lot of bite as it was a very huge slice of cake, despite looking innocently small in the picture. When we were served our cakes, we regretted ordering two instead of one, because of limited stomach space.

Walnut

Naomi was a slightly alcoholic chocolate cake. I cannot remember which alcohol it was, but it wasn't overwhelming, and lent a very good overall flavor to the cake. The chocolate was rich, with additional shaved chocolate on top. Yet it wasn't overly sweet. We really liked it.

Naomi

Pity I'm blogging this in retrospect. Else I would have requested this for my birthday cake! Haaa. Too late, but it's ok. It's good to remember good food. Unlike the unattractive dinner we had, this is what will really draw me back to the Grandstand.

Laman's Delight

PasarBella @ The Grandstand Bukit Timah

200 Turf Club Road

Singapore 287994
Tel: 9735 0071

Kuro Kin

This was one of those deals. We've actually reduced getting those now, since most of these deals tend to be mediocre. But this particular one screamed at us with it's promise of wagyu beef and Iberico pork. It was the the Grandstand (the old turf club), which required a bit of navigation to arrive at.

We started off the meal with our favourite swordfish sashimi. It was cut too thick, and wasn't very juicy. It had, however, a very nice milky taste to it. Wished it was cut thinner. Really, when it comes to sashimi, it isn't the thicker the better! There has to be the perfect thickness! Too thin, you don't enjoy the fish. Too thick, the texture gets thrown off balance.

Swordfish sashimi

The supposed star was the Kagoshima wagyu beef tenderloin, served very interestingly on a leaf over a mini grill with fire. The beef was kept warm, but not overly cooked. There's a small smear of miso somewhere on the leaf. The deal had an option for an additional 200g beef at a discounted price, and I believe we went for that. The beef was nice, but not super blissful. We ate it, didn't hate it, but wasn't all that impressed.

Kagoshima wagyu beef tenderloin

The Iberico pork tenderloin was served as a cutlet. It was a little on the dry side, and the crumbs not as light as some other cutlet joints'. The garlic rice was also pretty normal. It wasn't very garlicky, but was still a decent Japanese fried rice. The onigiri was an add-on order on our part, because we enjoyed the one at Yakinikutei-Aochan so much. But theirs was a little on the disappointing side.

Iberico pork tenderloin

Garlic rice

Onigiri

Overall, it was a disappointing meal since we went with such high expectations for the beef and the pork. And the inaccessible location doesn't help in encouraging a return visit.


Kuro Kin
200 Turf Club Road #01-27,

The Grandstand, 

Singapore 287994
Tel: 6462 1213