Privé Bakery Cafe

Third time at Privé, i finally embarked on savouries.

Cappuccino

With a luxurious bayview and breezy backdrop, Privé Cafe is now the rising hotspot for Brunch. Just desserts alone can get me head over heels... or crazy enough to drag Dad right off his flight (and jetlag) here for a splendid sunday meal.

Privé Ultimate Breakfast

For the day, instincts told me i should prey on something complete, something like a Big Breakfast or The Works. Fortunately Privé offers a timely variation of Privé Ultimate Breakfast ($17): seafood edition. Instead of sausage & bacon it had a healthier attendance of smoked salmon & a quirky mussel vol-au-vent, 2 eggs done your style, arugula and roasted mushrooms. You may argue what's The Works without The Meats but for a seafood fan like me, The Works is everything better with The Marines.

BLT & E

B.L.T = Dad's three magical alphabets. Though not outrightly expressed, i know Bacon is Best for Brunch inhibits in his mind. Hence even when the BLT & E (e for egg, $16) appeared more chi-chi than imagined, he nibbled the streaks right down to the very last chip. Now that's a Bacon.Loving.Tale in reality.

Carrot Cake

Once savouries ended, i toe-lightedly hopped over to the cake shelve like a kid on caramel candy. Privé's got one of the inarguably BEST carrot cake on our island and a handful of delish others to boot. The tall Carrot Cake ($6.80) is sturdy like sponge and densely clouded with many orange carrot sticks & blackish walnuts i love. Compact, moist yet not thunderously heavy. Just soooo scrumptious that Cedele takes a backseat for now. All hail CC the almighty!

Blueberry Cheesecake

Also noteworthy was their Blueberry Cheesecake ($6.80), seductively stained with dashes of natural purple. Not too heavy over a soft wet base. A real blueberry cheesecake should involve the blue gems this way (in & over) else it logically degrades to a 'american cheesecake with blueberry jam topping'. If not for the carrot cake stealing the limelight, i would have showered this one with closer attention.

I don't care what they say, im in love with you...
*carrot cake smitten.

I'll be hopping back for more without a doubt.

Prive Bakery Cafe

2 Keppel Bay Vista

Marina @ Keppel Bay (Ground Floor)

6776 0777

Marmalade Pantry

i experienced the pantry magic too.

Spending a liabilities-free afternoon on chic nosh is utmost delight. I can only recall everything nice of my virgin visit to posh Palais Renaissance.

Posh Nosh.

Then came along the invariable notions of a tai-tai.

Tai-tai. a privileged lady of means. married and jobless. bounds of leisure time and money. decked in brands. obsessive beauty upkeep. mingles only in reputable social circles. feeds on posh nosh and gossip-exchange.

You see them at Marmalade.

Pan-Roasted Red Snapper ($24)

For the hearty and balanced.

Pan-roasted red snapper with almonds herb crust and chickpea salad depicts protein neat and polished. Crested by 80% breadcrumb-20% almond goldens, troughed by a measly scatter of oil-tossed chickpeas.. and oomph-filled vine tomatoes. that splurts.

The Ultimate Beef Burger ($22)

For the hearty & hungry.

They call it the Ultimate Beef Burger.

Nothing comes baby except for that blackish beef patty downsized in visual comparison. Huge mayo-dubbed buns, bountiful straightcut fries pile, yet a disappointingly overdone centre.. let's falter before we even pronnounce it again.

Sticky Date Toffee Pudding ($12)

Here is the magic.

A sticky DATE toffee pudding?! Utilize the mouth. I got a heavenly smack of sugar rush perfumed with mcdonald-hotcakes-alike goodness. And doubly bilssful when paired with the graceful vanilla bean icecream.

Yes, this is a sticky date toffee pudding.

Never judge a book by its cover.

Homemade Lemon Tart ($12)

The homemade lemon tart with wildberries & raspberry coulis also contained much fairy-appeal. A tartwall-to-fillings disproportion delighted... where chilled, flowy sour-sweet yellow avalanched out of its broken enclosure. berries are my thing too (:

I'd love a slice of the tai-tai life.

a-bra-ca-da-bra.

Marmalade Pantry

390 Orchard Road

#B1-08/11 Palais Renaissance

6734 2700

Epicurious

"Just to let you know, our food isn't the most photogenic.."

Helena helmed in modesty as my camera made its appearance.

While restauranters today flaunt over their elaborate brain-childs, Helena'a frankess was to applaud. Well, i believe that greater satisfaction would assert if we all began with the lowest expectations. not the other deluding way round.

And brunch began with unique characteristics.

Undeniable were their crockery. Old-fashioned flowery-trimmed and nostalgic rooster imprints- a complete renounce from comtemporary intentions. Bonusing that, the sight of a caucasian enthusiastically dunking his tapas into rooster sauceplates became an oddly entertaining sight. Lol.

carrot & celery juice ($5 each)

Double-cupped fresh fruit juices, catered to our ice-it-when-you-feel-like-it whims. Carrot for bunnies, Celery for me. (the waiter showed disbelief when he heard me say celery. yes c-e-l-e-r-y)

grilled chicken tenderloin sandwich ($9)

Lunch swang in steadily with my grilled chicken tenderloin sandwich. tasty chicken fillets done old-school hawker western style, slabbed between sunflower seed-deficient bread and little mushroom inserts. Felt like Uncle ____'s chicken chop in angmoh roti. (fill in the blank as you please. i remember an uncle joe's!).

smoked salmon side ($3.40)

Sided by indian pappadums and my darling smoked salmon silvers.

I add smoked salmon to anything, and almost everything =D

Epicurious beef burger ($18, +$2 for extra bacon)

Moving on, the high profile Epicurious beef burger turned out to be Burger-in-Black. Now i can confidently second Helena's claim. BIB was, regrettably, colour gone wrong + patties gone charred + reputation-questioned. I didn't taste, but verdict's clear from the beef burger patron.

carrot cake ($5)

Thank goodness there was dessert to cheer about. Epicurious' carrot cake comes light and pleasant, halo-ed with just enough creamcheese frosting for sweetness input. i love seeing the clearly-defined carrot shreds and walnut blackies.

Neat (:

what an inventive recyclable!

it felt fortuitously like home- warm service, down-to-earth fare, and a lovely river view to digest. hmmm.. like breakfast in the garden similar. Ignoring the marring cockroach disturbance my neighbours (on the next table) faced, i think Epicurious is an appropriate non-haughty sunday brunch spot to go.

Epicurious

60 Robertson Quay

#01-02 The Quayside

6734 7720

Jones the Grocer

Jones' big name has long been heard about and inserted under my to-go-list. One Sunday afternoon, i saw myself entering the refreshing scene of an Aussie-style gourmet bustling with eager diners and shoppers.

Yes, you could do shopping there too!

We tucked ourselves into an available table and scanned the menu. Breakfast dishes were the only options as brunch hours lasted till 3pm on weekends.

Cuppuccino

Toasted bagel w handsliced woodbridge smoked salmon, avocado, creme fraiche, watercress ($13.50)

Having glanced up and down the menu several times, i was very unsettled until i noticed this dish my caucasian neighbour was savouring. The Toasted bagel w handsliced woodbridge smoked salmon, avocado, creme fraiche, watercress was indeed a right decision.

I adore light, fluffy breads hence bagels, due to its dense and heavy nature, were never my kind of thing. Yet this was clearly something of fine edible calibre- that toasted circle, fluffily bearing a gentle milk flavour, together with salmon slices, seasoned mushrooms (avocados ran out) and a handful of raw bittery watercress... so easy to relish off.

Jones english breakfast ($20)

Jones english breakfast- eggs scrambled w sentosa sourdough toast, just meat butchery bacon, pork sausages, slow roasted tomato, sauteed mushrooms. Here's the signature platter covering all the breakfast bites with hits and misses. I merely enjoyed my bit of the toast and roasted tomato. More for the meat lovers i suppose.

I simply could not resist one of their homestyle cakes on display. Three was offered for the day- namely mocha, chocolate fudge and my favourite carrot cake.

Carrot Walnut Cake ($6)

Oh, how could this not be a winner?

This Carrot Walbut Cake of theirs comes a notch closer to my delight than Cedele's bestselling version. Oh-so-crunchy walnuts surrounded by moist, tasty cake... all lovely except that cream cheese frosting requiring some finetuning. Missed by a glitch but the hearty portion makes up for it.

I felt like yelling, one more slice please!

China Jasmine Tea ($4.50)

Choosing a tea here is one of the toughest mindchore, where the list boasts of 37 varieties. I picked the China Jasmine Tea on a random note and it arrived elaborately on a teapot with a leaf-sieve for the meticulous.

Strolling down their produce aisle was another joy. You could spot all the interesting imports from flavoured balsamic vinegars, exotic cheeses, murray river pink salt to many more unexpected goods. I managed to pick up a box of squid ink packets, ready to twirl up some black gooey pasta soon.

Carrot & Lemongrass Juice ($4.80)

Even the packaged juices rock- there's no way we wouldn't return!
mr jones, you rock.