Bistro Petit Salut, Chip Bee Gardens

 It's not often we get to try set lunches on weekdays, and even though Bistro Petit Salut does offer their set lunches on weekends, we wanted a relatively quiet chillout place with good food before I fly off to Korea for a short trip!

Chip Bee Gardens is home to quite a few nice restaurants like Da Paolo's, Michelango's, Original Sin, and of course Shermay's Cooking School as well. Nice place to lunch / brunch on a day off and so accessible now with the new Holland Village MRT station.

 Had good memories of their set lunches, so decided to revisit this place on our Friday off  :)

 Duly impressed by the options available for their set lunch, I opted for the safe choice of escargot in garlic butter - can never go wrong there! The tomatoes gave the otherwise oily and jelat starter a nice balance, and I was surprised I've never tasted this combination before. While not the best escargots I've had, these were still great.

 Snails were good, and I did enjoy the sauce. We actually ended up polishing off the sauce with complimentary bread, leaving the bowl clean. Mmm.

 

{ Burgundy Escargot }

Half dozed baked Burgundy snails with tomatoes and garlic butter

 I chose the sausage and rillette. While the sausage was a bit bleh for me, I really liked the pate-like rillette. It's sort of flaky and mushy with just enough richness of pork. 

 First taste of a proper rillette and it was good! Texture akin to slightly moist tuna flakes, salty and strong in porky flavour, it was great even on it's own. My only gripe is that the baguette was quite crap - cold hard and chewy, I read somewhere that they get all their bread pre-made from Delifrance now which is quite a pity :( What I would give for some of this rilette with the awesome homemade bread at Absinthe.

Pork sausage kinda tasted like spam / meatloaf to me.

 { Sausage and rillete duo }

Duo of homemade pork garlic sausage and rilette with mesclun salad, walnut dressing

 I've been craving good steak for at least two months now so without a doubt I ordered the minute onglet beef. Well it wasn't steak steak, but it was still great beef! Presumably grilled then oven roasted after marinating in mustard jus, the beef was tender and yet firm to the bite. And the SAUCE - holy crap. So extremely deep in flavour you just have to lick the plate clean.

The onglet or hanger steak wasn't really that minute - I guess it was around 100-150g which is enough in a three course lunch to be honest. And for the price it was really worth it!

 { "Minute" onglet beef }

With French mustard jus and mashed potato

 It had been a while since I ordered some form of seafood as a main course, so decided I should lean on the healthier side of the menu (ha). This was okaay. I mean it's probably 'boring' compared to the other options, and I did wish it was more bold in flavour. I liked the accompanying beetroots though, never had it with fish before.

We did not inquire into the specific species of fish until after I had consumed every bit of it. "Red coral trout," declared the waiter. It suspiciously sounds like a endangered/exotic animal. This is definitely a first for me! 

 { Catch of the day }

Red coral trout with marinated beetroots, Nicoise vinaigrette

 Having tried the not-so-nice profiteroles at Absinthe and being a little sick of creme brulee, I wanted some for comparison and boy did I make the right decision. First bite on the pastry and you'll notice, moist and soft, unlike the hard and powdery ones I've had before. Chocolate sauce was warm and slightly bitter and really generous, as are the 3 huge scoops of vanilla ice cream and sugar dusted almonds. Read some meh reviews of their profiteroles but this is epic win in my book - just eat quickly cos it melts too damn fast!

 { Profiteroles }

Choux buns with vanilla ice cream, warm chocolate sauce and sliced almonds

 While my dining companion battled with his rapidly melting dessert (which was excellent!!) with much determination, I slowly picked at my cheesecake. I'm usually not a gigantic fan of cheesecake, but again, haven't had cheesecake for yonks. This wasn't disappointing - very rich and cheesy, fills you up in the right way. You can tell it's got the good stuff in there. Just wonderful with black coffee to end a meal!

{ Gateau Au Fromage Blanc }

Homemade cheesecake with Madasgar vanilla beans

 Bistro Petit Salut to be a great quiet set lunch place to chill out on a day off. Weekends would be understandably crowded, so definitely make a reservation if you can. The choices available for their set lunches is one of the widest and most varied I've seen, with 5-6 choices available for starters, mains, or desserts!

HGW Link (63% recommended at time of writing) : http://www.hungrygowhere.com/singapore/bistro_petit_salut_chip_bee_gardens/

Main website : http://www.aupetitsalut.com/main/mainbps.php

Rating (out of 4) : 

Tomato's, UOB Center

 A new pizza place popped up recently at UOB Center at Raffles Place - looks promising from the outside, and at $9.50 for a quarter of a giant pizza, it wasn't that expensive too!

 Situated alongside Barcook Bakery and Fun Toast, the shiny white interior and display of huge-ass pizzas will stop you in your lunch-tracks if you're strolling slowly along (it is often inevitable you are walking slowly - the weekday lunch crowd jams that space, lol).

 Yes a quarter of that giant pizza can be yours for just $9.50 - pretty good deal! They offer quite a few of the usual varieties but of course only those on display are available.

 It's the equivalent of 2 regular-sized slices of pizza, so it's not that expensive (I'm kinda comparing with price of Sarpinos by the slice, which is about $4.50-$5.00 per).

 As we were there for a late dinner, there were not many options left - we had the buffalo cheese and rocket, and the meat lover's pizza which had different types of ham and salami. Slices were big, and while the crust was soft and the pizza foldable, the crust wasn't that thin which was quite unfortunate. Taste wise they were both just ok, besides the cheese there wasn't enough toppings for a pronounced flavour. 

 It was good, but a bit lacklustre in taste by itself. Of course you can liberally douse it in tabasco sauce (which we did), but a great pizza shouldn't make you reach for that bottle. Overall it was okay, but I wished there was more distinction between the different pizzas flavours. And the crust could be a tad less doughy.

{ Buffalo Cheese and Meat Lover's Pizza (Quarter Slice @ $9.50) }

 I guess the main difference that every single "new york" style pizza place in Singapore falls short is in the amount of toppings they give. You will never find pizza in Singapore that gives you the same topping generosity in New York - so I guess don't expect too much!

 I appreciated a few things: 1) pizza of your choice is reheated when you order, so you're not getting cold soggy limp dough, 2) pizzas are not oily and therefore you don't end up with a ball of napkins after your meal and 3) waitstaff are friendly and chatty (and actually interactive, not just reciting scripts).

 If you stay till 730pm or 8pm, whatever's left goes on discount, so you can have a quarter pizza for as low as $6! So you're working late or just nearby, no harm stopping by for a cheap decent pizza to go.

HGW Link (Great World City branch, 100% recommended at time of writing) : http://www.hungrygowhere.com/singapore/Tomato_s/
Main website : http://www.tomatos.com.sg/
Rating (out of 4) : 

Grand Salads Bistro, Solaris (Fusionopolis)

 Felt a little silly traipsing back to Solaris after a failed attempt the day before. Apparently they were only open on weekends by reservation, so our bad! We arrived with our 3 course set meal coupons ($17) and were promptly seated in a near empty cafe at around 1pm.

Have to say though, there's something serene about this location with some semblance of a forest just out the tall glass walls, and the quiet, clean, foliagy interior is quite calming and relaxing on a Sunday afternoon!

 We were verbally delivered the day's 3 course set meal - a tomato soup to start, 3 mains to choose from (the one we didn't pick was a greek inspired omelette with feta) and a dessert. Was kinda disappointed because the coupon (or the online menu?) offered us a lot more choices. Oh well!

The tomato soup came shortly after - wow this is really tomatoey, no kidding. It's like concentrated tomato puree + tomato sauce + diced tomatos + intense essence of tomato. Really really strong (read : sour) and while it woke me up I couldn't quite take the sourness and had to douse it in liberal volumes of pepper.

 Yea this is a tad sour, although one may take comfort in knowing this is made of 'real' ingredients, not overly processed things in cans. Kinda wish there was a small crusty bun to go along.

{ Tomato soup }

 I had the Buenos Dias, which by the name of it was some kind of Spanish omelette. Well one glance and you know it's not, it was more like a Spanish-inspired omelette, and by Spanish inspired I mean cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, chickpeas, and cheese. Hmmm. Well don't know quite what to say ... omelette was plain, the ingredients were quite literally placed over the omelette (cheese was cold). Seems like something I could make at home, in 3 minutes, with minimal skill. Veal sausage was quite ok but didn't taste like veal.

 This would have been a 'proper' omelette for me if everything was mixed in and cooked through. The 'toppings' weren't even warm (the cheese didn't melt).

{ Buenos Dias }

Spanish (inspired?) omelette with veal sausage

 Imagine your typical brunch style Bagel with Smoked Salmon, Cream Cheese and Capers. Yummy! Now just replace bagel with toasted baguette, and replace cream cheese with unidentified sauce, lettuce and omelette and there you have it! In all honesty it wasn't bad, though I don't think smoked salmon and toasted baguette go well together (I would have at least NOT toasted the baguette) and again assuming store bought smoked salmon, I can whip this up in 3 minutes at home.

 I quite enjoyed this actually (better than the Buenos Dias anyway), smoked salmon and omelette on baguette was fine for me. I liked the chewy bread, but wished there was more cream cheese.

{ Day Special }

Baguette with greens, omelette, smoked salmon and capers

 Finally came dessert, which took the form of banana walnut muffin with marmalade and chocolate sauce. While I enjoy the combination of orange and chocolate, I felt that the rind chunks are a bit too big and hard, and there wasn't enough chocolate sauce. The muffin itself was tasty, but a bit too dry (usually banana muffins are quite moist, no?). That said, this was the best thing in the course for me though!

 Two complaints : not enough chocolate sauce, which doesn't help the dry muffin; and what the heck that marmalade thingy ... that's a full on orange rind. A little orange rind in chocolate does help accent the flavours, but putting big hunks of zest (albeit cooked somehow) is still ... queer. Rind was bitter, chocolate was bitter, muffin was dry and a little bland.

{ Banana Walnut Muffin with Chocolate Drizzle and Marmalade thingy }

 It was a pleasant meal albeit the quirks, the exceedingly normal food and the exceedingly bad coffee (). But if I was ever looking for a brunch place near the area it would definitely have to be Jimmy Monkey. But I have Grand Salads and its coupon to thank for letting me discover that place!

 Not sure about the food... but the Israeli owner (whose name we never got) is lovely, and it's a nice chillout place (love the high windows). Probably won't be back, however!

Main website : http://grandsalads.com.sg/?page_id=17 (weekends are STRICTLY on reservation)

HGW Link (50% recommended at time of posting) : http://www.hungrygowhere.com/singapore/Grand_Salads__Fusionopolis_/

Rating (out of 4) :