(NB I started writing this on Thursday but have only just got around to finishing it now. I'm afraid I'm not going to re-write it all as though it's not Thursday, so please imagine that it is.)
It's National Day a day of marching and celebration for Singaporeans and a day off for everyone. I'm sitting on the balcony with my feet up enjoying the breeze feeling oh so comfortable and oh so relaxed. I've got that holiday feeling of heat and swimming and afternoon drinking.
Drinking in the afternoon? You shocking lush I hear you cry. Well, yes. But today there's quite a good reason.
Last Friday was the DFP's birthday. I wanted to take him to Pollen http://www.pollen.com.sg/#!/welcome a new Jason Atherton restaurant in the newly opened Gardens by the Bay. These are the same gardens I watched being constructed from the Marina Bay Sands which overlooks them last summer when we'd just moved here and everything was strange and unfamiliar.
So it seems very apt that a year on we spent our National Day holiday having lunch at Pollen in the now completed gardens.
The gardens are very Singapore. Concrete constructed walkways and weird 'Day of the Triffids' style artificial trees with plants sort of stuck onto them. And of course lots and lots of places to get something to eat. This is Singapore.
Pollen is the swankiest of them. We went for the $55 set lunch because I am a cheapskate/love a bargain and it really is a bargain. This is far and away the best meal I've had since coming to Singapore. I've eaten some very good food here but this is truly classy Michelin star stuff.
To start we had some delicious sourdough bread and butter. Good bread is almost impossible to find in Singapore even though there are lots of claiming to be artisan bakeries. Ditto the butter - just so much tastier than usual. To go with it were big, juicy green olives and a salted cod, cream and mashed potato sauce.
Then I had Slow-cooked egg, chorizo, patatas bravas and the DFP had Petuna ocean trout, beer pickled onions, oyster mayonnaise, smoked aubergine without the mayonnaise. Both were sublime.
Then, feebly, we both had Roasted pork belly, broad beans, slow-cooked squid, chorizo and for desert him crispy and burnt lemon meringue with cucumber sorbet and and me beetroot sorbet, hibiscus compressed apple, salted milk chocolate. Oh yeah. This is what eating is all about.
Then just before coffee two little magnum style ice creams and petit four with the espresso. All little bites of heaven.
Everything was witty, delicious and so well balanced.
The reason my edges are so rounded is that we had a glass of wine with each course recommended by the sommelier. All were excellent suggestions. He came and chatted with us at the end and when he heard that we'd tried and failed to get a reservation before gave the DFP his card and told him to email him directly if he ever had a problem getting a table again. Sh-wing!
For his birthday I took the DFP to another great restaurant called Kilo. The food is not as good as at Pollen but the location is excellent. It's in an old HDB warehouse overlooking the river at Kallang. The night we were there it was stormy. All thunder and lightening over the darkened river. To get there you have to walk down a deserted road with industrial buildings on either side and wasteland. Food bloggers tend to use words like raw, concept and off-the-beaten-path when describing it.
It describes it's food as Japanese-Italian fusion. The best dish we had was salmon sushi with crispy chicken skin inside. You bite down on the soft sushi and then get a surprising crunch of chicken skin inside. Very good. Other dishes were good but not outstanding: pork belly with sweet potato mash -good but a little over sweet: duck breast- slightly too dry: calamari - slightly too greasy: but what was outstanding was the atmosphere. I am being a bit mean. This was extremely good food as food goes. And the chocolate lava cake for desert with basil ice cream was as classy as the funky decor. Very, very good.
Food glorious food. Well, this is Singapore.
It's National Day a day of marching and celebration for Singaporeans and a day off for everyone. I'm sitting on the balcony with my feet up enjoying the breeze feeling oh so comfortable and oh so relaxed. I've got that holiday feeling of heat and swimming and afternoon drinking.
Drinking in the afternoon? You shocking lush I hear you cry. Well, yes. But today there's quite a good reason.
Last Friday was the DFP's birthday. I wanted to take him to Pollen http://www.pollen.com.sg/#!/welcome a new Jason Atherton restaurant in the newly opened Gardens by the Bay. These are the same gardens I watched being constructed from the Marina Bay Sands which overlooks them last summer when we'd just moved here and everything was strange and unfamiliar.
So it seems very apt that a year on we spent our National Day holiday having lunch at Pollen in the now completed gardens.
The gardens are very Singapore. Concrete constructed walkways and weird 'Day of the Triffids' style artificial trees with plants sort of stuck onto them. And of course lots and lots of places to get something to eat. This is Singapore.
Pollen is the swankiest of them. We went for the $55 set lunch because I am a cheapskate/love a bargain and it really is a bargain. This is far and away the best meal I've had since coming to Singapore. I've eaten some very good food here but this is truly classy Michelin star stuff.
To start we had some delicious sourdough bread and butter. Good bread is almost impossible to find in Singapore even though there are lots of claiming to be artisan bakeries. Ditto the butter - just so much tastier than usual. To go with it were big, juicy green olives and a salted cod, cream and mashed potato sauce.
Then I had Slow-cooked egg, chorizo, patatas bravas and the DFP had Petuna ocean trout, beer pickled onions, oyster mayonnaise, smoked aubergine without the mayonnaise. Both were sublime.
Then, feebly, we both had Roasted pork belly, broad beans, slow-cooked squid, chorizo and for desert him crispy and burnt lemon meringue with cucumber sorbet and and me beetroot sorbet, hibiscus compressed apple, salted milk chocolate. Oh yeah. This is what eating is all about.
Then just before coffee two little magnum style ice creams and petit four with the espresso. All little bites of heaven.
Everything was witty, delicious and so well balanced.
The reason my edges are so rounded is that we had a glass of wine with each course recommended by the sommelier. All were excellent suggestions. He came and chatted with us at the end and when he heard that we'd tried and failed to get a reservation before gave the DFP his card and told him to email him directly if he ever had a problem getting a table again. Sh-wing!
For his birthday I took the DFP to another great restaurant called Kilo. The food is not as good as at Pollen but the location is excellent. It's in an old HDB warehouse overlooking the river at Kallang. The night we were there it was stormy. All thunder and lightening over the darkened river. To get there you have to walk down a deserted road with industrial buildings on either side and wasteland. Food bloggers tend to use words like raw, concept and off-the-beaten-path when describing it.
It describes it's food as Japanese-Italian fusion. The best dish we had was salmon sushi with crispy chicken skin inside. You bite down on the soft sushi and then get a surprising crunch of chicken skin inside. Very good. Other dishes were good but not outstanding: pork belly with sweet potato mash -good but a little over sweet: duck breast- slightly too dry: calamari - slightly too greasy: but what was outstanding was the atmosphere. I am being a bit mean. This was extremely good food as food goes. And the chocolate lava cake for desert with basil ice cream was as classy as the funky decor. Very, very good.
Food glorious food. Well, this is Singapore.
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| Kilo |
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| Gardens by the bay |
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| I will never make a proper food blogger because I always forget to photograph the food before I start eating it. This was desert. |
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| Forgot again and started eating... |
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