Sarnies, Telok Ayer Street

 This place has been stuck in my mind for months and we've never quite found the time to come by. Believe it or not, a good sandwich in Singapore is really hard to come by, so when I heard of this amazing sandwich place in town ... I had to give it a go.

 First things first, this place is in dire need of a proper sign. Ten points if you can spot the word "Sarnies" in the photo above! You'll probably have no problems finding it by day as I hear it's jam-packed catering to locals and westerners alike. But by night, the place is dimly lit with no sign, and the confusing numbering system along Telok Ayer Street left us no choice but to phone them. Just FYI, it's two buildings down from the right of the temple (facing the temple).

 It kinda looked like a shady bar in a shady area when coming at night - I'd be so curious to see how it looked like in the day! And (extremely sadly!!!!) their titular Sarnies was only available for lunch! Come night, it turns into a bar serving ciders and bruschettas.

{ Apple Cider ($10) and Pear Cider ($12) }

 Sometimes they have leftover Sarnies from lunch, and all they had that night was a boring-sounding turkey ham sandwich which I had anyway. We ordered another bruschetta to share, and well, since we're here, some ciders. The apple cider wasn't chilled so I had it served with ice, and the flavour didn't come through very well once you add ice to it (though Somersby still holds a special place in my heart). The pear cider was a lot sweeter, though the bottle looked like it had been sitting on the shelf for months.

{ Chargrilled aubergine, feta and hummus bruschetta ($13.90) }

 We were pleasantly surprised when this came : six thick slices of crusty bread, fat piece of aubergine on each with generous splatterings of hummus, feta, grilled tomatoes, olive oil and pepper served on a wooden paddle. Besides the moreish vegetarian combination, the homemade bread really stole the show - crusty, chewy and rich in flavour as it soaked up all the goodness.

{ Turkey Ham Sarnie ($13.90) }

 And well, this poor-photo-quality, boring-looking, run-of-the-mill turkey ham sandwich ... might easily be the best god damn turkey ham sandwich I've had in my life. The turkey ham was COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from all those fake hams I've had over christmas dinners and in subway sandwiches. Might be psychological, but the ham accented with this godly mystery-mayo gave it this deep, rich, meaty sweetness. And the dense, chewy bread held it together all too well. This is how bread should be, not that cotton-soft, poor excuse of a bread known as white bread - fit only for toothless humans. This is the bread ... that we deserve.

If you work nearby, do yourself a favour and get yourself a god damn Sarnie for lunch today. After having their turkey ham sandwich, I can only imagine how their special steak Sarnie will taste like. It's open on weekends as well for brunch - so no regular workday Sarnies - but self-cured-bacon sandwiches is fine by me too!

Sarnies

136 Telok Ayer Street


View Larger Map

HGW Link (94% recommended at time of posting) : http://www.hungrygowhere.com/singapore/Sarnies/
Main website : http://www.sarnies.com.sg/
Rating (out of 4):

Nassim Hill Bakery Bistro Bar, Tanglin Post Office

 Bear has been craving a good hunk of a sandwich for some time and when I spotted an article in the paper featuring Reuben sandwiches here at Nassim Hill Bakery, we had to check it out.

Now we actually entered through the back entrance and up the service lift lol, and our first visual was this big ole door with a sign that confirmed we were at the right place.

 It was a warm Saturday evening - not that we needed an excuse for beer :) I had the Grimbergen blonde (probably the only place in SG that serves this Belgian beer?) which was very, very good! Very smooth and light, a bit fruity/sweet. Must say it's one of the nicer ales I've had.

 The set up concept is quite 'open' and there weren't many other diners that evening, which added to the sense of space. Perfect for chilling out / unwinding.

{ Hot Reuben ($16) }

sliced corned beef with melted emmenthel, saurkreut, onions and Russian dressing on signature Grimbergen Ambree beer bread

 Oh my daymn ... first impression - this thing looks WICKED. While it's clearly not close enough to New York Style in terms of volume (willing to bet you will not find them in Singapore) it had all the right ingredients - oozing cheese, saurkreut, onions, russian dressing, and that sweet sweet corned beef on rye. Even better - the rye is homemade with Grimbergen beer!

 Looks indeed, like a sandwich with STRENGTH. One bite and I am ... mm ... hmm ... hmmemmhm ... goodness. It's fairly close - while I wish the corned beef had more oomph (or actually just more corned beef) the overall sensation was nostalgic. Bread was top notch - delicious, flavourful and chewy, and the flavours ... they blend so perfectly.

{ Braised Meatballs with artisan bread basket ($22) }

served with chasseur sauce prepared with Grimbergen Ambree beer, veal jus, onions and mushrooms

 I was initially a tad disappointed by the lack of choice on the dinner menu, but realised that's actually probably a good thing. Settled for the meatballs and bread, which was actually the other item featured on the Straits Times article we saw. By golly, these are some serious meatballs!

 Each was about the size of my fist and are really packed with mince goodness, firm to the bite. Mm. And oh, the sauce.. so much flavour and richness (I guess from the beer!). I enjoyed fishing out the itty bits of mushroom. The sauce is just great for dunking the bread in - which I must add is really good as well! We were very close to ordering another basket just to soak up all that sauce :)

 Second the ultra-packed meatballs and ultra-goodness-gracious rich flavour of the sauce. It's like the richness of the boeuf bourguignon sauce, but doubley thick and with beer. And the bread was fantastic as well.

{ Apple crumble cake ($8) }

served warm with vanilla ice cream and crunchy granola

 After all the delicious savoury nosh, we needed something sweet to balance our meal. I really liked our choice of apple crumble cake: generous chunks of apple within a not-quite-pie-nor-cake and crunchy pieces of granola (which we should have fought over for, but didn't lol).

Was a (somewhat unexpectedly) lovely dinner and I really liked the beer - and hey, there's no GST nor service charge so prices are nett!

Nassim Hill Bakery Bistro Bar

Tanglin Post Office #01-03

View Larger Map

Facebook Page : https://www.facebook.com/nassimhill
HGW Link (80% recommended at time of posting) : http://www.hungrygowhere.com/singapore/nassim_hill/
Rating (out of 4) : 

Makarios Cafe & Bar, National Library

 Squirreled away on the 3rd floor of the National Library building are two venues I never knew existed as part of the library - the Drama Centre and this cafe/bar called Makarios (somehow assumed it was just levels and sections of books and stuff).

 I bought the $20 for $40 voucher nearly 3 months ago - the cafe was new and no reviews were available, but hey good location (near Bugis, I thought) and the menu seemed pretty good! And it was a good value for money. Unfortunately we were a little miffed that when I first called, they said they pretty much don't open for dinner unless there were shows on  - and there were none for the whole of July and probably August. Thankfully they were open for weekend lunches, so we had to wait a fair bit before we found the time to finally come here (had to call in advance).

 First thing that struck us was how quiet the place was. Ok granted, this is in the middle of a library building.. the few other diners around when we got there seemed to be speaking in hushed whispers. We felt extremely self conscious of every sound we made - the clicking of the camera didn't seem to help the atmosphere!

 The floor-to-ceiling windows provide really nice natural light. It's really lovely for reading.

 Quite a few people were having coffee while working on their laptops or iPads. It's actually a really nice and quiet place to have a meal - by yourself even - with a book, which we saw some doing.

 We had our much needed caffeine fix to start. Each coffee comes with a speculoos cookie. My latte was good, although I could have used more bitterness/depth.

 Black coffee was just alright - just needed that sweet sweet caffeine.

{ Moussaka ($14.90) }

 Didn't really hesitate in ordering the moussaka, and was pretty glad with my choice! This came out hot and bubbling, and smelled amazing!

 Cheeeesy, and just the right amount too. The minced lamb was soft and un-gamey, and the eggplants so soft and spongey - soaking all the lovely herbed flavours. This was a hearty and filling dish even after offering   many spoonfuls. Was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this :)

 Surprised by how tasty this was! Although it was on the salty side, it was done right - from the soft well-cooked eggplant to the rich lamb flavour and generous cheese.

{ Mixed Grilled Sausages ($18) }

 Huge sausages - chicken, pork and cheesy - and goddamn they were JUICY. While a little on the salty side (again) the sausages were really really tasty and bursting with yummy sausage juice, though I wish the skin was a little less chewy. Almost couldn't finish it from how voluminous the sausages were >.< Came with sauerkraut, ask for some mustard and you're good to go!

{ Profiteroles ($8.90) }

 We were actually semi-pressed to get dessert to make full use of our voucher value because we haven't quite spent enough yet. So at the recommendation of our waitress we ordered the profiteroles ( they only had profiteroles that day anyway). This was ok but not that great. Quite apparent that this was pre-prepared and chilled in some fridge, because the chocolate sauce looks like it has been solidified for some time, and choux pastry was cold and a bit too tough. Still, it was nice to end our meal on a sweet note.

 A couple of negative points were definite :-

1) They insisted that we call and literally make a reservation. I did call a day earlier but just to check that it was open and I could use the coupon, but did not put my name down and literally make a reservation. But I had a chat with the kind lady and she was ok with it. While it was inflexible it's definitely the fault of the management and not of the waiters.

2) Cash value is only redeemable for ala carte food items, not drinks and cannot be used for set meals. Kinda miffed again, and was not indicated anywhere on the coupon that this was so. Again I felt this was a management issue.

But overlooking all that, I genuinely thought the two dishes we had were great. Service was slow but we just wanted to take it easy on a lazy Saturday afternoon anyways. And when we left around 230pm the cafe was pretty full.

Makarios Cafe & Bar

National Library 3rd Floor (Drama Centre)

View Larger Map

Main website : http://makarios.com.sg/welcome-to-makarios/
HGW Link : http://www.hungrygowhere.com/singapore/Makarios_Cafe___Bar/
Rating (out of 4) :