Serenity Restaurant & Bistro

Serenity can be best surmised by Rob Gonsalves as " In brief, Serenity feels like a capitulation to the dumb mass audience." Oh wait, that's from efilm critc about Serenity the movie. Serenity Restaurant & Bistro however does invoke similar movement, in my bowels.

Its not like I didn't like the restaurant, but the wife best surmised the restaurant and the food as "its not the worst place on earth, but we definitely won't come back," and that's after the 3rd tapas plate that arrived.

I also don't understand how a restaurant that serves, or at least claims to serve Mediterranean and Spanish food, puts ads in the drink menu for Spanish schnapps and don't have them yet and never tells their customers that there isn't chorizo available but its still on the menu? Really?

The meal of tuna puffs. toastadas, marisco seafood soup, bruschetta, olives and jarmon iberico with one apple juice and beer (the wife ordered the beer) costs $102.

For readers unfamiliar with tapas and Spanish food, lets get some things clear. Tostadas is Mexican. Tuna Puff was closer to what I could get at my neighborhood Malay food store, bruschetta is Italian and jarmon iberico never tasted that horrible.

With the restaurant located at the edge of construction facing Sentosa and the side door open, flies made up for the customers filling up the empty seats on a Sunday afternoon. I have to say if this restaurant has a 7.2 rating at the hungrygowhere website, I am beginning to not believe that site anymore.

YUCK.

2 Oscar the Grouches.

Sushi Jiro

We are at Cheesecake cafe at Siglap and thinking what to eat after dinner, and the super cool owners recommended this Japanese restaurant about 2 stores down from the cafe.

Great suggestion. Pampadam Pam, myself and the wife (after so many entries, I should give her a cool nick name) had a try.

Spoiler alert. Restaurant is expensive. But fish is flown in twice weekly from Japan and the owner goes to Japan to bring it in himself. (how cool is that?) Fish is fresh and delectable, egg sushi was creamy and sweet, and everything else was actually of a good standard.

A very good surprise near my house and great help from the owners of cheesecake cafe.

BOOMARANG Bistro & Bar

Okay. Has anyone seen the movie Australia? The movie where Hugh Jackman sings and fall in love with little aborigine children? There's also that topless scene of Hugh Jackman where he pours water on his hairy chest? Yes, from that country comes some food as well. And we visited such a restaurant.

Boomarang Bistro & Bar is located at one of the many quays in Singapore and in the midst of television blaring rugby and thick inconciousable accents, lies a good restaurant. Me and the mrs went there to people watch and we had a great time.

The restaurant serves all day breakfast over the weekends and arriving there at 2pm on a Saturday. The restaurant was relatively empty. It was somewhat difficult to get the attention of the servers but when we did get their attention, our order was not missed! (YAY!)

But it was missed.

But before I digress, the servers quickly realized their mistake and made the change. While I like to believe that the meal was of a decent quality. Alls I believe is eggs are eggs. Bacon is bacon. A cheap frozen hashbrown is a cheap frozen hashbrown.

I would still reommend this place to people. In a summer afternoon, with a cold beer in hand, to people watch and watch rugby. Take away the cheap tasting frozen hashbrown, I like the place.

SPRUCE

There are many puns that I can throw at a restaurant name such as SPRUCE. But to do so, would be terribly crude of me. Things like the restaurant should "SPRUCE," up its service, or the restaurant needs SPRUCING, or even the restaurant is not very SPRUCE. Lastly, oh look, the restaurant is in the midst of a SPRUCE of trees.

This SPRU-TECULAR restaurant is well, neither impressive nor reasonable. To ask about the whereabouts of my order of pancakes, and instead given my bill before I finished my meal is quite a feat, but true enough. It happened.

Pancakes were cake like, breakfast was typical and burger was neither impressive nor interesting made this restaurant boring. Unless of course you live in the area and want to be in the midst of an expat enclave and want to be seen, not heard (that's why light travels faster than sound) this might be the place for you.

Of course I am being exorbitantly mean, but I think that people should give this restaurant a try. But at your own risk. I sense that this restaurant is still relatively young and finding its feet.

Return to this restaurant I shall not.

SPRUCE
320 Tanglin Road
Phoenix Park

Qi Ji

That my friends is a Nasi Lemak. And I want to use this blog to tell my friends and family to try it. Yes,it looks weird. Yes, it tastes weird. And yes, those little brown things are crispy anchovies. But besides the food, I would like to also talk about lessons that I have learnt while eating Nasi Lemak.

The first being never listen to your wife who is not from Singapore when she tells you that a semi-local dish is good. Traditionally, and like a great boyfriend that I am to my wife, I generally believe everything she tells me, so it was about to pour and we are there at Marina Square wondering what to eat. I was thinking about the food court (yes, I do eat at a food court) but since my wife already ate her lunch ( clue no. 1), she suggested that we eat, wait, I eat there.

Second lesson is never under estimate the power of condiments. In this case here, was belachan chili. It was missing and it was my choice. It became my fault. The Nasi Lemak was okay. It was just too plain. It needed something to spice it up but I only realized it when I completed the plate in 3 mouthfuls (clue no. 2 - i tend to eat food that are not delicious very quickly so that I can forget about it.)

And the last and most important lesson I have learnt at Qi Ji, was well, eat Nasi Lemak at a place where they don't charge SGD $5.50 for something that can be $3.50 at the food court or cheaper at the hawker center. The thing wasn't bad, but it was Nasi Lemak purgatory. Never eat at a place that claims to serve local food when it actually specializes in something that is not Nasi Lemak related. (clue no. 3 )

Critic Out.