Au Jardin by Les Amis

John and I had a romantic dinner at Au Jardin the night I arrived from Manila. Maybe I should go out of town more often! :) (Just teasing... I was only gone 4 days, after all - and we do go out to dinner for no reason, too).

Au Jardin, in the Botanic Gardens, is rated one of the best restaurants in Singapore. It's in a beautifully restored colonial home which reminded us of Jinpukaku in Japan.

The most intimate seats in the restaurant are the two tables on the small balcony overlooking the garden. Our waiter confided that the man seated at the table next to ours was proposing to his fiancee over dinner that evening. Apparently those tables are very popular and must be booked 2-3 weeks in advance.

We don't normally eat in posh French restaurants and were somewhat at a loss when it came to navigating the courses and cutlery. Our bread arrived with delicious French butter in a small dish, a bread knife, and a small spoon. Hmm. What to do with the spoon? Were we supposed to use it to spoon butter onto our bread plates?

After 5 minutes of nervously looking around at other tables, the mystery was finally solved. Our waiter brought us shot glasses filled with tomato foam and diced watermelon. Tomato foam?? Good thing we hadn't touched the spoons.

The razor clams were delicious. So was the garden green salad with truffles, which was liberally sprinkled with flowers doubtless taken from just outside the window. I guess that's one of the advantages of being located in the Botanic Gardens. :)

John's order of spiny lobster was absolute heaven. It had just a slight sprinkling of curry powder, which helped bring out the lobster's taste.

As for my entree... well, let's just say I'm never ordering roasted or poached pigeon again. :) I am nowhere near as culinarily adventurous as I was trying to be. Well, it was a choice between that and venison. Thankfully, the lobster serving was huge - one whole lobster plus a second lobster tail - so there was more than enough for both of us.

I had persimmon confit with sorbet for dessert, which was very good. The chocolate ice cream cylinder John had was a bit too rich. We capped the evening with petits fours and tea, and then took a stroll around the beautifully lit garden.

If we weren't already married, I would have loved to be proposed to in that place!

Reservations

Call +65 6466 8812 for reservations. The regular three-course dinner menu is S$108++, while the tasting menu (Dinner Dégustation) is S$150++.

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Greenbelt Dinner, Drinks, and Dessert

Note: For those who haven't read the previous post, I was in Manila this week... so all of these places are in Makati, not Singapore :)

Saw some very good friends on Monday in Makati, and went on a food trip at the same time. Pia organized lunch at Racks... yum, I didn't realize I missed their barbeque sauce so much.

In the evening I walked over the Greenbelt and saw some friends who couldn't make it for lunch. Diane was the first to arrive, so we met at an old favorite - Cafe Breton. The crepes are as good as ever. Saving room for restaurant-hopping, so... no dessert crepe for us.

Two friends later, John Q arrived and came up with the brilliant idea of moving to the Ayala Museum Cafe. I'd been meaning to go but had never been. The menu offerings are, to say the least, interesting. We decided to pass on the jackfruit desserts and cucumber & sake cocktails. The brazo de limon was delicious though, and the lychee & lemongrass cocktail was not bad.

With dinner and drinks over, our next stop was the chocolate fondue at Max Brenner. Another favorite. Four more friends arrived to help finish off the food. Sadly strawberries were out of season so we had to make do with apples and marshmallows. Jon Co had a field day finishing up the bananas, which nobody else wanted to touch. After all, between marshmallows and bananas there was just no contest. :)

Diane is wonderful. Before we all parted ways for the evening, she handed me a care pack with my Philippine food essentials - several packets of champorado! So even though I didn't get to do any shopping, I still got my must-have groceries.

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Finding Nemo in Cebu

I decided to take a couple of days off and fly back home to the Philippines for the weekend. I hadn't been back since we left in January and Kathy was organizing a post-Father's Day surprise - that seemed like a good reason to go.

If I'd waited another month I could have saved about S$40 each way on my Jetstar tickets... but we have some other stuff planned in July.

Anyway, four days was much too short! Between dinners with friends, one day in the office, and a weekend at the beach, there was no time to go shopping or visit the spa.

Anybody who's met my family knows that my dad likes making spur-of-the-moment out of town trips. This time, he had the great idea of flying us all to Cebu - so I spent Friday afternoon making bookings on Philippine Airlines for the 5 AM flight Saturday morning. We were supposed to pick up the tickets from the PAL ticket office at 3 AM, but at 3:15 we were still parked outside the Asian Spirit / Seair offices at the domestic airport checking to see if there were seats available for Boracay. As expected, the Boracay flights returning to Manila were fully booked - this meant a rush to the PAL ticket office and then to the check-in counter. When I got to the front of the line, the PAL check-in agent took our tickets and then put up the counter closed sign! Whew.

In Cebu we stayed at Alegre Beach Resort, 1 1/2 hours from Mactan airport. I liked it - it was quiet, secluded, and had a great reef within swimming distance from the beach. Kathy and I aren't the world's best swimmers so we borrowed a kayak, went out to the edge of the house reef, and took turns snorkelling and sitting in the kayak. The water was clear and there were tons of large fish.

We saw several large parrot fish and chubby blue starfish. And Kathy found Nemo!

Late afternoon we boarded a boat to go on a sunset cruise. Saw a few dolphins and (sadly) a small oil slick far off shore.

The food at Alegre leaves something to be desired, although their spa is excellent. Kathy and I both had traditional one-hour massages. We were so tired from the kayaking that we dozed off halfway through - but woke up feeling great.

The cabanas are comfortable and well-decorated. I love the bathrooms. The bedrooms were almost as nice as those at Alona Palm, and I liked the Alegre bathtubs much better.

Before flying back to Manila, we drove into town and had dinner at a new Italian restaurant in Cebu city. It's called Uncle Henry's - not a particularly Italian name, maybe because the owner is Chinese! Henry Uytengsu. Ambience was good, the bread was delicious and so was the food... but then Kathy came down with a slight case of food poisoning afterwards so I don't think we'll be recommending the place anytime soon. (You hear that, Chip Childers? :) Just kidding...)

We capped the weekend with a night at the Manila Doctors' ER while Kathy was under observation.

At least I got my massage and my great beach weekend.

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Corduroy & Finch

I brought home a chocolate mousse from Corduroy & Finch today. Whoa. The flavor almost knocked me out.

I'm a big fan of desserts and rarely like to share, but the dark chocolate taste of this one was so intense I could only eat a third of the single-sized serving. Not to worry, the rest of the mousse isn't going to waste... I popped the rest into the fridge and will probably consume it over the course of the week.

The mousse isn't sickly-sweet the way many rich chocolate mousses (mousses??) can be. Normally I hit my sugar limit before the chocolate does me in. Try it sometime. But keep the paramedics close by in case you pass out from chocolate shock.

Corduroy & Finch also sells wine jelly, sun-dried strawberries, fruit syrup for mixed drinks, and a lot of other good stuff.

Getting there

They're at 779 Bukit Timah Road, S269758. Just around the corner from the Bukit Timah post office (which isn't on Bukit Timah, it's on Sixth Avenue - but that's another story).

You can call them at 6762 0131 or 6463 8038, if you're planning dinner in the cafe and want reservations.

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Kebabs and Fajitas

Had appetizers at Boat Quay and dinner at Chijmes last night... here's the verdict.

I have to say, Dharma's Kebabs at Boat Quay has very good bread. They also have decent chicken tikka kebabs, though a bit bland and in need of more spices - I guess the dishes were westernized to suit the tourist crowd. Appetizer platters serving 4 or 5 people cost about $25, and the chicken tikka kebab plate was $14. Not bad.

At Chijmes, we decided to bypass Esmirada and try a new dinner spot. After walking all over Chijmes I settled on Maracas. In hindsight, maybe we should have stuck to our usual place (where the chicken kebab is yummy!). John says the beef fajitas were good. I thought they were a bit dry.

Nachos were ok. The serving was huge, probably enough of an appetizer for 4 or 5 people.

Maracas was a good place for dinner conversation. The tables could seat 4 to 6 people but most tables were occupied by tourist couples relaxing after a long day - so, low decibel level.

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Walking MacRitchie

Finally managed to get ourselves up and about early one Saturday morning for a long overdue walk around MacRitchie reservoir. We knew we'd never make it if it was just the two of us... luckily Donabel and Mia showed up to provide some much needed incentive.

There are several trails to choose from. Route 4 (orange on this map), which we took, is roughly 12 km. It circles the reservoir and a good chunk of forest, with a stretch of golf course thrown in for good measure. The walk was pleasant and not too difficult if you’re in shape. You'll be sore the next day though if you aren't used to walking! Lots of people jogging, a few were walking (like us). At our pace the walk took about 3 1/2 hours. Trails are well marked and there are maps at major junctions.

Monkeys hang out on some sections of the trail. They usually scatter when people approach, but if they just sit there watching you and you’re too scared to pass, grab a nearby dead branch and use it to wave them away. There are also lots of turtles in the water and on the banks sunning themselves.

We started off at the Thomson Road bus stop, just where Thomson curves into Upper Thomson. From here we proceeded to our left and followed route 4. In hindsight, we probably should have gone in the other direction because the HSBC treetop walk on Peirce Track is one-way (Peirce Track to Petaling Trail) – that added a couple of kilometers to our circuit, and by that time we were pretty tired.

Mia jogs regularly at MacRitchie and knew all the best routes, so all we did was follow her! 2 km before the end of the trail, John got tired of waiting for us fitness-challenged girls and decided to run the rest of the way.

Bring lots of cold water as drinking fountains seemed few and far between. An enterprising Filipino guy was selling cold drinks along Island Club road... smart. And wear a hat – the sun can really beat down on you when you reach the golf course section of the trail.

Next time I’ll try kayaking. The Singapore Canoe Federation rents out kayaks and gives classes at the reservoir.

Getting there

Buses 74, 93, 130, 132, 156, 157, 162, 165, 166, 167, 605, 852, 855 and 980 all go to Macritchie reservoir (get off at Lornie Road / where Thomson Road turns right and becomes Upper Thomson Road).

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