wendy's whims
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"Eating Out"
Photo taken from their website because my iPhone captured photos will not do this justice.
I don’t know how to begin except that I love Spruce!
I love the location. Love that it’s tucked away in a corner (quite literally) of Pheonix Park. Sucha hidden find! It’s settled within lush, lush greenery, which makes a perfect backdrop for lazy weekend brunches. At night, the mood is fantastic for dates!
I loved the menu, especially their clam chowder. If I’m suaku so be it, but it was the best clam chowder I’ve had in my life. Period. It’s creamy but not sickeningly rich. The taste is divine, if I may, and it just made me believe in food all over again. The paprika (?) powder added a nice kick to the flavour too!
Their signature pasta, which was in a creamy green sauce, was an enigma. I like how none of the items there were conventional. Their clam chowder was clam chowder but not really. Every dish had some unique spin to it. It wasn’t a trying spin like some fusion food dishes, where they just pair ingredients for the sake of being different when the flavours don’t go together. Here, just tastes like it was the way the dish was meant to be made all along.
(Interjection: Sorry if I sound overly dramatic. I can’t help gushing.)
Y’know how pasta places tend to serve the conventional carbonara/arrabiatta/aglio olio/vongole/pesto dishes? Yep we all know how they taste so there’s zero element of surprise when we take the first mouthful. The only difference is how good the dish is.
It feels nice to be surprised!
The only negative point about this place to me is the price. It easily comes up to $35 per pax. A bit too expensive for me, for a regular meal, but good to spoil myself with once in a while. :)
Location: 320 Tanglin Rd (Pheonix Park)
Spent: $35/pax
Discovered a nice ramen place really near my workplace! So happy that this exists.
The solution for depressing Mondays hehe. This place is located at Takashimaya basement, not at the main food hall but behind? Aiya my explanation sucks but nvm part of the allure of a hidden find is in the “hidden” part eh. /end justification
They serve about 6 types of ramen and I chose the Butter & Corn variety, with shio soup. The awesome thing I like about this place is that they offer half-servings!
I can never finish my food so this option was really nice. I was quite touched that they thought of people like me. /tear
Anyway the half version is not as tiny as one would imagine la. Look at the photo above. It’s actually quite a decently sized bowl.
The taste was rich albeit laden with MSG and I loved the aji tamago (additional $1.50)! Soft and chewy just the way I like eggs. The slice of chashu was so huge!
Happy diner is me! Receipt FYR. /职业病
Location: Takashimaya Basement
Spent: $15/pax
Was here after work one day and feeling super hungry! They are currently having a 1-for-1 promotion, 1 main for 1 pasta free!
A pretty awesome deal if you ask me. Here’s what we had:
This is the roast chicken something. We chose it cos it was a “recommended” dish. It was okay, the brown sauce tasted quite generic. Not bad per se, but also not mouthwateringly good.
And then this is the “free” pasta, another “recommended” dish but again it was quite a lackluster experience. While the taste was quite rich and honestly not bad, as you can probably tell from the photo, the sauce was too thick and by the time it travelled from the kitchen on to our table, most of the water content was already gone.
We were left with very sticky and hard to eat pasta. Plus the 2 huge slices of ham (???) were impossible to bite into and were tasteless.
Despite all these, I wolfed down both dishes in record time because I was starving super badly, so at the very least, the food was filling and edible.
Location: Orchard Shopping Centre
Spent: $15/pax (with 1-for-1 promotion)
Had a semi-fancy lunch at Ochre with my colleagues a few weeks back!
I’m always a fan of nice restaurants (and who isn’t?) so this was a good break from my usual fish soup/chicken rice meals at work. :)
We all had the set lunch, which was surprisingly affordable for the quantity served. I chose the 4-course set which cost $45 (over the 2 & 3 courses) in a spate of gian peng-ness, and kinda regretted afterwards cos it was too much for my dainty stomach. /shameless but not really
Started off with the usual bread plus olive oil & balsamic vinegar thingy:
Always nice for me because I love balsamic vinegar but the bread was a bit stale.
The appetizer was a fancy sampler dish consisting of 6 unidentifiable bite sized things:
I managed to find out that the bottom right piece was ootoro, and the top left piece was a mushroom. Ha.
Anyway it tasted quite average too. The salad was fresh and crunchy and the rest was all acceptable but I didn’t think it was fantastic.
The appetizer was followed with a half serving of pesto linguine:
The pasta was a bit too soft and not al dente at all (trying to sound cheem yo), but I liked the soft greens and also the prosciutto ham. The saltiness was quite a good complement to the slightly creamy linguine.
Next up we have the main:
Pesto… again. While I question having 2 pesto dishes within the same set menu, I guess it makes economical sense for them. /shrug
Below the salmon, if you can spot in the photo, are mashed potato with assorted grilled (?) vegetables. I loved that! No so much the actual main of salmon though. Then again I’m not a fan of well-done salmon so I’m not the best judge. Why did I choose salmon then, may you ask? Because the alternative was beef… which I do not eat anymore FYI. (Unless it’s already ordered I will take a few bites but then I’m determined not to contribute to the demand.)
Ok. Last up the dessert, green tea tiramisu, was served:
Very soft, very creamy, very green tea, and very tiramisu. Of course it helps that tiramisu is my favourite dessert. The green tea powder on the top was slightly bitter which was perfect!
I will definitely come again. :)
Location: Orchard Central L11
Spent: $50/pax
Went to Ajinomori. It’s newly opened at Holland V so as part-resident I needed to lend my support!
The setting is really cute and cozy, with cushions for seats and wood everywhere. :)
I had the set dinner ($23) and managed to change the hot udon to cold soba. They served me hot soba at first in error, but it was quickly replaced so all was well.
I think they fished out the soba from the hot one and served it to me though, because it was way mushy and overcooked when it arrived. If that is true, boo. But I shall give them benefit of the doubt.
The sashimi nigiri sushi was quite nice and fresh but it was not outstanding. The rest of the items were pretty forgettable too.
I know it sounds very lackluster but all I’m saying that Ajinomori is a very normal Japanese restaurant, albeit slightly below average if the dishes I had were representative. Still, I would go back for future gatherings, because the environment is just so nice to stay and chat in.
The service staff are quite friendly too so that’s another plus point for them!
Receipt scan done with awesome app JotNot, here because I say so:
Location: 17D Lorong Liput, Holland Village (opposite Subway)
Price: $21/pax
rinaz
Hotienyai
Wendy
Jia qi
Jasmine
