Sunday, July 27, 2008

A Week of Bourgeois Dinner

Rabbified

It was a dinner to catch up with a bunch of good friends and check out one of the newest kids on the Dempsey block - The White Rabbit.

Amongst us, 2 food critics who have very obviously well-trained palates, which made the evening even more pleasurable (read: critical).


The place is without a doubt beautiful. The high-ceilinged chapel of stained glass windows, the mellow hue of warm orange lights. It was like stepping into Wonderland.


Sadly, the food wasn't part of the magic. Even r@e and I, non-professional at food reviews, were not impressed. Except for the salad of duck confit which was not bad, all the other dishes were disappointing.

The signature Mac & Cheese was mushy, the truffles off-tasting. Cafe Cartel could have done better with the Poached Salmon. The portion of Rack of Lamb was shockingly puny.

I hate to be critical here, but the Mars Bar Souffle totally gave a wrong interpretation of what a souffle should be - the texture was just wrong! Even the signature deconstructed Black Forest Cake looked quite, ahem, phalic - amazing how things can look so different from another perspective...


Although reluctant at first, we eventually shared our opinion, as tactfully as we could, with the manager. He was really sweet and open about it, hopefully we were not judged as a bunch of overly-critical bitches.

We did ask ourselves if we had come with too high expectations but it wasn't just one or two dishes that were bad, and I'm usually quite forgiving. We did commend on the attentive service though, and he still took some nice pictures for us, haha.


It has been opened for about a month so far, so I think I'll definitely go back, to give it another shot again some months later. :)

Le Pont de Vie

Yet another catch-up session, this time with one of my closest gfs, SY.

Le Pont de Vie, a little restaurant offering European classics. One of the owners was ex-sommelier at Raffles, so the one thing I have to say first is that the choice of wines he recommended that evening was excellent!

With SY, it's always very easy to order from the menu - we've always shared the same taste for most things in general. Whatever one of us is thinking of ordering, the other would say, "Yah, that's exactly what I was thinking of too!"

For starters, we had the Black Truffles and Cheese Souffle - the earthy taste of the truffles was perfectly blended with that of the cheese, it was heavenly.


For the mains, I had the Duck Leg Confit while SY had the Grilled Kurobuta Pork Cheeks - totally no regrets, both were done perfectly.


As we polished off the Baileys Irish Cream Cheese Cake, I made a mental note to come back again soon. But that evening was their last night of operation from the Waterloo location, they will be moving over to Kandahar Street from August.

And here's us - gleeful and satisfied by the excellent food and wine.


Ok, better hit the gym right away tomorrow.

6 comments:

Corsage@A Dollop Of Me said...

Oh my, I think the White Rabbit used to be this ruined old church that we took photos at!

Anonymous said...

the black truffles and cheese souffle..looks really yummish!

Little Miss Snooze said...

I realised you always order duck confit?

Always nice to have like-minded gfs! :)

Jemej said...

corsage > well, it's still a beautiful place! :)

nuttyjas > oh yes, very unique and absolutely delightful!

lilsnooze > haha, you noticed! Yeah, it's like my "litmus test". I used to have cod every time for a period of time.

=eLaiNe= said...

haahha, me too realized that you always order duck confit! hahahh!! wondering what is next..! nice outing! =p

Roscoe said...

Have you tried Le Pont de Vie at their new location at 26 Kandahar street in Kampong Glam? The decor of this refurbished shop house is great.