Nicolas Restaurant

Chose this place to celebrate the best friend's birthday and I must say, I'm really impressed by their service. This is the place that really wow-ed my in terms of service.

Decor of the private room we had.

Complimentary crisp bread with duck rillette

The rillette wasnt too salty and went really well with the super crispy bread! Very crackly. They also provide butter, olive oil to go with a soft roll that they serve you after this. Mmm love it when I have bread choices!

Steamed organic hen egg

Preserved winter black truffle

Crunchy blue prawn pastilla

This was with compliments from the chef as it was my friend's birthday. All of us had this complimentary amuse bouche. There was a faint hint of truffle taste, nothing spectacular though. Prawn was wrapped in a thin fried skin that was average at best as well. 3.2/5 

Confit Hokkaido Scallop

Ravioli of chuka wakame

Asari clams emulsion

Scallop chips

The chuka wakame thingy is the green thing you see in the picture! Its v crunchy, guess its seaweed? Scallop chips were quite nice, not too salty. The scallops itself were v fresh, we all thought they're raw cos they looked raw to us haha but it was so soft and nice! Scallops were good, as what our friendly waiter & chef recommended us repeatedly! (: I liked the emulsion that came with it because I thought it was full of seafood flavour, but some of my friends thought it was a tad too sweet so they didnt finish it! Oh there was saffron taste in the emulsion as well. 4/5

Atlantic sea cod fish

Crusted with masago

Caponata, taggiasche olive beurre blanc

The cod fish was done really well, flakey and soft. But after awhile, I got kind of tired of eating it? For such a small piece of cod, this says something. The mushrooms were an entirely different matter. They were so well soaked in the red-wine sauce, so plump and juicy that till today I can still remember how they taste. One of the best mushrooms I've eaten! I was so in love that when I came back, I quickly googled red wine mushroom in bid to find a similar recipe haha. 3.5/5

Three sweet tasting

Three surprise desserts

Left to right: almond panna cotta, dark chocolate sth w sesame tulle, fromage blanc gelato

Almond panna cotta is like the Chinese almond pudding called xing ren hu just that the almond taste isnt that strong? For someone like me who hates the Chinese almond pudding, this didnt have the strong almond taste that I dislike in the chi version so I managed to finish this. 3.6/5

The dark chocolate thing was like rich dark chocolate whammed in your face but in a good sinful way (: Not as thick as a ganache but not watery also. Sesame tulle was normal. 3.7/5

Fromage blanc gelato tasted like froyo! Haha. We liked it and it went really well with the nuts that came w it, and if memory serves me correctly, they were almonds! 3.8/5

I brought a cake that I made myself to the restaurant and the waiter gestured to me asking if its time to serve the cake and I nodded, then he came in and asked me quietly how many candles and I told him then he went to prepare the cake. The cake took REALLY long to come and we were all wondering what happened + birthday girl was getting suspicious! Finally when the cake came, I was so surprised, so shocked and so touched. 

credit: thefarmchicks.typepad.com

I made a cake that looked like the one on top, just pure white frosting outside. This was the cake sitting in the box. Outside was the cake bunting that I made that looks similar to the one above. Then there were candles and lighter. I didnt give any instructions abt the cake bunting thingy that its supposed to be placed on the cake or anything. But in came the cake, with the cake bunting placed on it, with candles arranged v nicely in an artful manner, and they wrote Happy Birthday using chocolate on the cake. They made the cake look really nice and grand. I was so happy with what they did to the cake! (: Really touched as well. Usually when you bring a cake to the restaurant, they'd just give you the plastic bag w the cake when you ask for the cake, but no, that does not happen at Nicolas! At least not for us!

It wasnt to say that the restaurant was empty, on the contrary they were full/almost full! But still they made the effort and this scores high points in my book for service. But pity the food wasn't up to my expectations of their food.

Nicolas

Keong Saik Road