Le Bistro Parisien

Posh french bistro this was not. In fact, it was rather strange - french food in a Haji Lane shophouse with framed posters of Malay movies and actors and playing Spanish music. It was almost as if Le Bistro Parisien had an identity crisis.

But strangely we enjoyed ourselves - the food was hearty and overall quite yummy!

For starters, we shared the escargots and the french onion soup. I wasn't too impressed with the former - the escargots were a tad over-cooked and tough. The puree they sat on was tasty though.

The french onion soup was excellent, one of the better ones I have had for a while. The soup was incredibly rich in flavor and the cheese crusted bread it came with was absolutely delish. We ordered an additional bread basket just to mop the bowl clean. Definitely a dish I'd order again.

For mains, B had the lamb and I had the salmon. These came highly recommended by the waitress. Both dishes came in huge portions which brought huge smiles to our faces. I thought the salmon, although nicely crusted, was a tad dry. The accompanying cream sauce and buttered rice helped some - overall I quite enjoyed it. B's lamb fared better, he seemed quite happy with it.

This is a halal restaurant so they don't serve wine. It would have been nice to have enjoyed the food with a nice bottle. But oh vell. I still think this is a gem of a find and the in-congruence of the food and setting was strangely refreshing and definitely made for good dinner conversation!

French Kitchen

I had originally suggested KW’s birthday dinner at the French Kitchen because I thought they allowed BYOB with no corkage charge on Mondays. Unfortunately, they had apparently discontinued that and only allowed a 1 for 1 – we buy a bottle from them and they waive corkage for 1 bottle which we bring. Bummer. Still, we had read consistently good reviews and decided to still check out the place.

That’s the thing about expectations. It’s best not to have them. We had all these high hopes to be wowed by the food but whilst it was an overall enjoyable meal, nothing really stood out.

I ordered the traditional set dinner menu at $78++ and the rest had the menu du jour ($68++) and Degustation menu ($88++).

We all liked the egg cocotte, it was perfect runny goodness, although I would have preferred a stronger truffle taste. The second course for me was the lobster bisque and that was good too, I wiped my plate clean. The rest had oysters and escargots, which they said were good.

The main was a major disappointment. My pork chop was not tasty at all – the pork was way too fatty and the sauce was not flavourful. I left most of it untouched. The wagyu beef and duck confit the others had fared better, but nobody was impressed with anything in particular.

I never thought I’d say this because I have a sweet tooth but the chocolate fondant dessert was wayyy too sweet.

Disappointed! The meal came up to $130 for each of us (we bought a bottle of champagne from them and paid corkage on 2 bottles @$40 each) which was pricey and didn't really justify the food.

Creperie de Arts

When I think of crepes, desserts come immediately to mind. My idea of savoury crepes is limited to the ham and cheese ones you used to get (or are they still available) at Marche’s, all rolled up like a popiah. So when I visited Creperie de Arts and saw the huge selection of savoury crepes there, I was quite bowled over. Brittany, the motherland of French crêpes indeed! Excellent suggestion to go there, Ling!

Creperie de Arts was a small and intimate joint clad in warm lighting, not unlike eating in a friend’s home kitchen. We had indoor seats but I imagine it would be nice nursing a bottle of wine with a special date at one of the tables outside. Yes, they do a rather palatable bottle of house Côtes du Rhône red wine at a good price.

I had read the hungrygowhere reviews about the Saint Caradec (scallops and leek) crepe and the Auguebelette (potatoes, bacon, onions, melted reblochon) crepe. They all sound delish. But I had my eye on the Complete Forrestiere. Ham, cheese, mushroom and egg – there’s no way you can go wrong with a combination like that. Plus, I am a sucker for anything with a sunny side up on it. The disappointing part was that they overcooked the yolk - sigh, I was looking forward to runny goodness. Fortunately, everything else was tasty and fresh, I loved the texture of the buckwheat crepes. It wasn’t too salty and went very well with the wine. My friends who ordered the salmon crepe said it was good too.

You’ll need to try the traditional apple cider too. Nice aperitif to whet the appetite. Will I be back? Likely, the raclette looks good.

Black Sheep Cafe

I wish I had taken K somewhere else for the celebratory dinner.

Food was just satisfactory and the service was really quite jialat (I'm sorry but the two indian waiters didn't seem to understand English). The only redeeming point was that the limited wine list (only 5 whites and 5 reds) was reasonably priced. Overall for a bill of $115 nett for 2 pax, I normally would not complain.

But wait. This was the highly raved about place I tried to book 3 weekends in a row and failed to get a reservation. Sheesh, we went all the way out for this? Pardon me, but it was a waste of my time.

The baked brie cheese appetizer was nice but it was salty and it took them 20 minutes to get us serving of bread. By that time we had already finished the cheese out of sheer hunger, but we gobbled the bread down anyway. We then asked for 2 more servings of bread to while the next 30 minutes away before our mains came.

Duck confit was sheer disappointment. It was dry and unflavored. The crispy pork cheeks K ordered was a tad better but it was very fatty, sigh, so much for my long gym session in the afternoon. I wanted to try the souffle but it was sold out when I ordered it at 7.30pm (?!!).

Oh well, it wouldn't have been worth the calories anyway.