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. :)

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.

Had lunch with minnie at Marche for lunch n it was such a tragic affair. I’m so bitter that I paid $16.50 for a Caesar salad!!!

I can’t believe it… A plate of vegetables n some smoked salmon. Omg.

N apparently the prices on the board are before GST. Ok I dunno why somehow I assumed they were nett price so it was a rude shock although I guess I can’t really blame them for this.

Hai…

Dropped by Sunset Way over the weekend cos we’re cool like that. Was hungry and my criterion were 1) Air-con (non-compromisable) and 2) Cheap (compromisable).

Thankfully we ended up somewhere that fit both criterion! And thankful-ler, they were actually still serving breakfast at 12pm! Tee hee. :)

We ordered:

• Breakfast Set B: German sausage with omelette, toast and salad, with a cup of tea. ($9.50)
• Slice of chicken pie ($4.50)

Honestly, the omelette wasn’t all that tasty and the slice of garlic bread was hard & chewy, and a bit unnecessary. Unfortunately, the tea also belongs to this paragraph, being diluted and bland, and obviously Lipton. Not that I have anything against Lipton because it can taste decent if brewed properly.

However, I loved the salad! Loved loved loved! The balsamic vinaigrette dressing, which is made by the owner herself (actually I’m not sure if she’s the owner or not), was awesome. It complemented the vegetables so well. Wish they just sold the salad by itself!

The chicken pie was also a good treat! First, it was a fantastic surprise that the $4.50 portion was actually a quarter of a chicken pie! I expected a normal 1/6 or 1/8 portion but we got a gigantic slice. :D

It was hugely satisfying (pun intended) and I would imagine it goes well with some blankets and a TV in front of me.

Had a post-lunch break at The House of Robert Timms near my office!

We shared a caramel lava cake + ice cream thingy (it had a fancy name which I forgot). It was not bad but I’m not really into caramel… it’s too sweet and sticky for my liking. If you like Mars bars you would like this cake. I didn’t.

I also had a caramel latte. I know I just claimed not to like caramel haha, but that’s only when it’s in solid form and all sticky n being annoying sticking to my teeth mmkays?

The caramel latte was good. Fragrant, with just enough caramel. Reminded me of the lattes I had on my Australia trip last Oct! /reminisce

Of course the cute leaf design adds points for the whole experience too. :)

Saw some folks having full meals there… the portions looked gigantic and yummy so imma try it one day!