Restaurant Week October 2013: Brasserie Les Saveurs

Semi-buffet dinner style! Appetiser + dessert buffet! Here are photos of the spread! Sorry for the poor quality + yellowish colour! It was the lighting there!

Really love the ambience!!

Heard a comment that the bread was hard

Tomato mozarella salad | pate | cucumber gazpacho | beef salad

Sushi/makis

Salads (mix it yourself)

Cold cuts

Salad (mix it yourself) (left)

Seaweed soup (right)

Chocolate fondue

Front: Chocolate tarts | champagne chantilly

Back: chocolate mousse | mango cake

Cheesecake | chocolate tart | champagne chantilly | lemon meringue | financier | brownie

macarons are for display only :(

Cheesecake | chocolate tart

Fruits

Kuehs 

Bread & butter pudding

Warm chocolate cake

Berry cobbler

Cheese trolley

Beautiful fountain view at dinner! It lasted throughout dinner :)

Beef salad: okayish

Cucumber gazpacho: not smooth, not soupy

Sushi/makis: suggest guys/v hungry people take more of these for some carbo!

Beetroot salad: it's really nice super sweet beetroot!!!! 

Grilled veggies: sweet and nice!

Tomato gazpacho: served to your table

Some notes: they dont tell you what it is, so I saw many tables just leaving it aside and not drinking it

Its actually quiet sour and minty! Quite a good appetiser!

Coq Au Vin

The boy said this was really tasteless

Salmon

I really liked the salmon although the seasoning could be a tad heavier. The salmon was really tender and so soft, I was really happy with the texture!! The sauce accompanying it was creamy but a tad sour. The cabbage (purple thing at the side) is sour and tastes really good with the creamy fatty salmon!

Look at the texture!

Rock melon - really sweet!!!

Papaya - okay

Watermelon - really juicy

Chocolate truffle - super dark bitter and good!

Cheese - I like the spread!

ALL the tarts - tart shells are soggy and soft

Cheesecake (middle) - super light cheesecake 

Warm chocolate cake (blackish thing at the back) - SUPERSUPERSUPER good!!! I ate so many portions of this. It was warm with a crispy crust and the chocolate was so rich and decadent. 

The round chocolate ball truffles ran out so they replaced it with different chocolate truffles (Square ones) which had a wider variety - white & milk & dark chocolate. One has coffebean on top and kahlua inside - not bad. The other one is dark chocolate and is good! 

Its $55++ per person for the dinner and I felt that the buffet variety wasn't really very wide and the quality was quite average. I would rather pay $55++ for a real buffet or other restaurants though the chocolate cake was really memorable! Generally I felt that their chocolate desserts were really good.

Ambience: I loved the whole ambience! Its one of the best experiences I've had so far. There was a live singer with a heavenly voice throughout dinner, though I'm not sure if she's there every night or selected nights.

Service: splotchy. When they're attending to you, they're polite and smiley. But attentiveness was quite bad! Had to keep asking them to refill our water and it was q hard to get someone's attention.

I might be lured back for a meal just for the ambience :)

Brasserie Les Saveurs

St Regis Level 1

Restaurant Week #3: Alkaff Mansion Ristorante

Alkaff Mansion has been on my "to-try" list ever since they reopened and I'm really glad I went down finally to give them a try! I can forsee myself frequenting them.

Huge-ass rocking chair!

Pretty courtyard

Interior - I like that tables are well spaced so privacy is assured, windows were large and allowed light to flow in, aircon was good on a hot balmy day, and there's upstairs too! Beautiful tiling on the floor and just awesome ambience. Please bring your date here, she'll be v happy (:

The RW lunch menu's exactly the same as their normal set lunch menu so well, it was a little disappointing 'cos I thought I might be able to try diff dishes from the usual but ohwell! NO REGRETS 

Complimentary bread

A pity it wasnt hot or even remotely warm! It was cold. But the bread was a little fluffy but went well with the very fragrant olive oil (idk why, theirs had this twang in the aftertaste that made it taste diff frm normal olive oil and it was so enjoyable!)! Though it was cold, the boy and I finished this and asked for another bread basket hehe. Bread fans are us.

Free range chicken cream soup served with Black Truffle and Ricotta "Gnocchi"

This was good! Extremely homey, like something an old Italian grandmama would serve you in her home on a cold winter day. Just screams comfort! Doesnt taste like chicken soup that we'd normally associate it with, tastes more creamy and less so of chicken. 4/5

Tender Tuna Tartar served with Avocado and Passion Fruit Dressing

This was like eating sashimi!! And we all know Singaporeans love sashimi, so for a taste of Japan, choose this! The tuna was tender, no irritating tendon to chew through and it was well marinated with shoyu (jap soya sauce) as well as some spices/herbs! The dressing was more of "at the side" and couldnt really taste passionfruit/avocado in the tuna. But it was a good refreshing dish with the myriad of flavours. 4.3/5

Homemade Ravioli filled with Lobster and Fresh Chives served in its own Bisque

The bisque was one of the best I've had in Singapore! Comparable to The French Kitchen and Balzac Brasserie! It was rich, sweet and bursting with the saltiness of the sea and sweetness from the butter, cream, and of course the lobster itself. Yum. The boy wiped the plate clean with remaining pieces of bread. The ravioli was quite good, though I thought the ends were a little thick. But it goes well with the soup but cant really taste the lobster in the ravioli! 4.5/5

Roasted Cod fish in sesame crust served with Prosecco and Lemon Foam

I declare this the BEST fish dish I've eaten in a LONG time. This was so awesome. The cod was so perfectly roasted that you have to try it for yourself to know what I mean and to experience the joy and wonder that the chef can grasp the right timing and heat to cook this fish till its brimming with its natural sweetness and a little bit oily (good way so you can slurrrp it up) and oh so soft. It was great. I was smiling the whole time I was eating this fish and felt so happy! Sorry if I sound looney but food does this to me, especially wonderful awesome food! I loved it especially when I cut a thick chunk of it and savoured it slowly in my mouth. 

The sesame crust was a wonderful addition to the cod fish, and me being a fan of sesame loved it! Gave it a crispy texture and look at the beautiful brownish tinge at the bottom of the fish just peaking out there, gave it a crunch as well but the inside was so soft! The foam didnt really taste like anything haha and well, glad that the veggies given werent the "usual" kind of veg (: I gushed to the waiter about how good this dish was haha. MUST-TRY! I'd totally go back again and again for this fish!! Was even thinking about asking them whether I can have this as a main next time, like an ala carte order, just this dish alone with a larger slab of that awesome cod. 5/5

Chilled melon soup with chocolate ice cream and raspberry

At first I was rather skeptical about this dessert but turns out it was quite good!! The melon soup was totally like melon in liquid form, sweet and nicely chilled for Singapore's hot weather. The choc ice cream melted faster vs the raspberry sorbet! For those who love old school choc ice cream thats rich and chocolatey that totally reminds you of your childhood, this scoop is it! I recall distinctly that I've eaten such a chocolate ice cream numerous times when I was younger and certainly brought a smile to my face as my taste buds connected the taste to my younger days. The sorbet was refreshing but not as powerful as the choc ice cream for me! After awhile when the ice cream/sorbet melts, the soup no longer tastes like melon haha. 4.6/5

Blueberry cheesecake with fresh kiwi sauce

I thought the cheesecake was a little jia lat? The cream layer was a bit too much and I had to keep scraping the kiwi sauce to go along with it. Quite like the blueberry sauce on top though! The boy liked this! So each to his own I guess? (: 3.6/5

Pictures of Alkaff Mansion and its grounds:

Steps to the restaurant

Walking down to the tent area

That rock is a smartly disguised speaker! Music comes outta there haha

That area with the stairs and waterfall reminds me of Fort Canning!

What more can I say? Awesome food, service, ambience, experience. Please go there. Oh yes the chef came out to make sure everything was alright and they gave us 2 packets of cookies before leaving the restaurant. See you soon Alkaff (:

Alkaff Mansion Ristorante

10 Telok Blangah Green