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

Caffe Beviamo

One of the world's best gastro-invention other than icecream, is the sandwich. The former heightens indulgence whilst the latter eases convenience. Both are indispensable in my regular diet. A Sunday noon i was figuring where to for my daily bread fix, when Beviamo randomly came to mind.

Loose-leaf Green Tea in pot

Its quite a surprise how long they've been here yet i have never set my mind to visit. Perhaps the PS-soupspoon-COVA distractors posed too strong a competition for this unobstrusive cafe to be noticed. They are nestled right up, outside the now defunct Sushi Tei, with a small open kitchen detached from the dining area. You'll need a second look to confirm: YES this IS a cafe.

Smoked salmon will always be my first choice for fillings but when unavailable, chicken does just as fine. Beviamo's Chicken Sandwich ($14)- poached chicken breast, cheese, basil pesto, zucchini- was a good take. Brownbread grilled panini-style, non soggy on the insides, with zucchini and pieces of fresh chicken. Not your usual frozen and mircrowaved junk. My cheese-to-avocado switch was inhesistently fulfilled; flexibility appreciated.

Dad had his Ham Sandwich ($14)- leg ham, tomato, red onion, spinach, cheese- on ciabatta bread. The colourful innards of shaved ham, baby spinach and melted swiss cheese looked appetisingly good from every angle.

Banana-carrot cake

Beviamo didn't offer much of a variety for desserts and a few looked untrustably rickety. My first instinct was to go for the Carrot Cake ($3.50) which 2 out of 3 tables around me were having. Crowd-following effect = not always right. I should have sniffed an amiss from its conventional buttercake shape- cause besides the cheese frosting & measly carrot shreds in the cake, there was nothing more carrot cake about it. The crucial prick of cinnamon was inexistent and most disturbingly of all, blocks of BANANAS were dominating the taste.

This banana cake-in-carrot cake-skin (apply wolf in sheep's skin) needs urgent relabelling.

Not your usual strawberry shortcake. Their Strawberry Shortcake ($3.50): American Edition adapted a local smell too. In short, strawberries+cream and Kueh Bulu sandwich.

While i can acknowledge their stance in bringing old-fashioned American sweets, and am in no position to condemn their local incorporations...their desserts (& poor service) just didn't do for me.

But the sandwiches and loose-leaf teas at $3.50 a pot, did.

Caffe Beviamo

290 Orchard Road

#05-K3/K4 The Paragon

6836 2535

Ristorante De Parma

I admire Ping for her enthuse interaction with bloggers.

While a handful are principally concerned over shunning negative blogospheric-attention, some adamant about their no-photography stance... Parma wields a different approch.

My first encounter here was one-of-a-kind.

Mango Tango

Foccacia Bread


The foccacia bread got my eyes inexplicably glued once it met the table. These rosemary-flecked rectangles resembled Modesto's complimentaries, but are done a slick better. Moister. And even a mocktail distraction became oblivious.

Mango Tango, Ping's recommendation, was like any other employment of fruit and milk.



Soup-of-the-Day


Sipping their tomato & potato soup was a nuzzle. The starchy character of potatoes brilliantly curtained of the acidity of tomatoes... no stifling sour darts! Plus an airy-crackly breadstick worth a mention.

my kind of soup~

Antipasto Misto Petite ($16.90)

And how PETITE. Parma's antipasto misto petite, quiescently laid, is strictly for the dwarfy-appetited. Single portions of prawn, mussel, parma ham, mushroom, sundried tomatoes, roasted capsicums and black olives violently signalled as a deplorable choice.

Warm Spinach Salad


I would have much less to quibble about Ping's diet-friendly meal. A sauteed spinach and button mushroom salad copious in balsamic intensity i loved. Toe-curlingly sour but cringingly good! For me.

Pizza e Ananas con Pomodoro, Pizza Marinara ($27.90)

We did a half-and-half for the pizza, pairing Pizza e Ananas con Pomodoro (spinach, pineapple, mushroom & semi-dried tomatoes) with Pizza Marinara (prawn, squid, mussel, slipper lobster, scallop). My vote deflects more towards those tasty seafood players, scattered over a decent homemade crust and overly thick cheese blanket.

Dismissing the stop-when-you're-70%-full priggy, we nodded for desserts to parade in. Parma's not the place for such adherence- not when raves of their tiramisu already painted melodious covets in my mind...

Tiramisu ($12.90)


Ta-dah. Parma's Tiramisu. Wholly liqueur-soaked fingersponge harmoniously clamped between mascarpone mousse concocted to perfection. I was captivated.

It would be a sin to nullify this.

Note: Have it here. I've had takeaways that weren't as justifying.

Italian Carrot Cake ($8.90)

I couldn't resist ordering the italian carrot cake as well. A substantial slab heavy on carrot and walnuts, drizzled with a liquefied cheese icing, but nothing more than average.

Personal thought: the in-house baker was something.

Ristorante De Parma

14B Kensington Park Road

Serangoon Garden Estate

6281 3380

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

Whisk Cafe: The Confused Kid

black cat. Whisk. food.

I'm clueless about their relation.

Anyhow, it was elation to hear of Whisk's sprouting just as the orchard dining scene needed an expansion. Right inside the fashionistic wisma atria.

Concept's hideous-mysterious, or whatever apt terms you would use to describe black & red Emily. Imagine sadist Emily crashing into Alice's door-copious wonderland- that's exactly how i could depict it. Closer to confusion than wonder.

Mikimo's Pasta ($13.90)

Take for instance the mikimo's pasta- intending to fuse spaghetti, japanese braised beef and a tricky poached egg into carbonara sauce. yes creativity holds, but acceptance was at risk. good thing, my friend gave her approval.

Oven-roasted Snapper ($17.90)

I pinned down on the oven-roasted snapper after a lasting menu-scrutinization. The lean snapper loin's mistily soaked up the juices of its bacon ribbons, hemmed by roasted root veggies and potatoes. Just the portion that made me sore about footing twenties after tax.

R's Carrot Cake ($5.90)

Desserts fall into the western categories.

R's carrot cake, despite being bare on presentation, was particularly actuating. Heavily crammed comfort and an affable frosting to polish off~

Apple Pie with Ice-cream ($7.90)

Then paling in comparison, the dry shrivelled apple fillings of apple pie with icecream lacked cohesion with its shortcrust conterpart.

boring.

At least, it was one of its own kind.

Whisk Cafe. Lounge

435 Orchard Road

#03-15 Wisma Atria