Balzac Brasserie @ Rendezvous Hotel Gallery

Located at Level 1 of the hotel and is visible from the lobby. Travelled via bus #14 and it brought me right to the hotel's doorstep.

looks cosy inside

restaurant's front

Was met at the door by the friendly service staff, and the place was fairly relaxed at the time of visit, which was around 7pm. An hour later, the restaurant was almost full. We made reservations, so was led to our table once that was verified.

First impression of the place was "wow...so dark". The lightings were fairly dimmed during the evenings so reading the menu with its small fonts was fairly challenging!

menu

candlelit dinner for a party of 6

Everyone was late due to the heavy traffic, so took the opportunity to snap some pictures.

Owl are you?

mirror mirror on the wall, what is that paper roll for?

bar counter

the wall on my left

Ten minutes later, I was still alone and one of the service staff came by so made small talk with him. Friendly chap. He asked if my group was celebrating any occassions, so told him that it was for my birthday. Minutes later, he came back with a complimentary drink; the Burgundy, a mocktail. That was a nice gesture, so thank you~

Burgundy (grape juice, ginger ale, lime, sugar) complimentary

close up of the blackberries

Shortly after, my friends arrived, so pretty quickly we placed our orders. Bread basket was served thereafter. Ice water was also made available.

bread basket, served with herbed butter and salmon rillete

tasty~

rustic bread

For appetisers, we had the charchuterie platter which consists of vintage saucisson sec (salami or dry sausages), parma ham, smoked duck breast, rillettes de canard and jambon blanc (white ham?) served with cornichons (gherkins or pickled horn cucumbers), mustard and bread slices.

charchuterie platter

saucisson sec

smoked duck breast

mustard

yummy rilletes de canard (duck rillete)

nice pickle

A little of duck rillete (fragrant with a little duck fats/oil) and a little butter on the bread, goes a long way. Yums~ We had a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc, and sipping the wine was a good foil to the saltiness of the charchuterie platter. That or ice water if you're a teetotelar.

have a glass of Sauvignon Blanc

My friends are all meatatarians, so our mains came mainly from the land/earth menu or the sea menu. We had duck confit, beef cheeks a la cuillere, entrecote from the land menu and then from the sea menu we had pan seared cod fish meuniere and papilote de dorade. Yes, it's almost like an unwritten pact for us to try and order different items to try.

The first to arrive, duck confit.

duck confit served on a bed of mashed potato "grand mere"

the duck side

duck shreds, tender and yums

Not sure whose grandmother this is but I'm liking "grand mere". The mashed potato seemed like it had a hint of truffle oil. Smooth and nice. The duck meat was tender and doesn't feel too oily.

Next up, the signature 48 hours braised wagyu beef cheek, bordelaise sauce and mashed potato "grand mere". This was the one dish that I wanted to eat initially but since my friend is having it, I've decided to order something else.

Beef Cheeks A La Cuillere

fork tender beef

Just by looking at the beautiful chunk of cheek meat that glistens and served generously sauced on a bed of smooth creamy mashed, made one expects no less than a full-bodied flavour and seriously tender meat. This dish did not disappoint. It was soft and its flavours were good. Understandly why this deserves to be a signature.


Let's take a break and go for something from the sea. The pan-seared black cod.

Black Cod with potato and lemon butter sauce

dreamy delightful morsel~

Had a small bite and the cod fish was tender yet firm, and fresh. Dainty dish.

Then came the most expensive main dish for our table that night, the Entrecote, which was a 200grams of black angus served with béarnaise sauce and pommes frites.

Entrecote, serious meat for serious eater

fun sized fries

beautiful medium rare

The black angus beef done medium rare was tender but retained its beefy bite. Naturally flavoured (since I didn't try the sauce) and very likeable. My friend thoroughly enjoyed his beef, well, except for some fatty bits. The pomme frites should be eaten while it's still hot, otherwise, it'll get soggy towards the end of the meal.

The last dish to arrive was the Papilote de Dorade; steamed sea bream in parchment with wild fennel and fresh herbs. It came 15 minutes after the first of the mains.

Honestly speaking, first impression of this dish was, "small".

small parcel

colourful, feels like summer~

steamed fish

The sea bream was fresh and nicely steamed, soaking in the natural flavours of its own jus as well as the accompanying vegetables and herbs. However, the asparagus was a tad too soft though. Probably this dish is suitable for those who prefers light and mild flavours. Blame it all on the flavoursome bites that I had from my friends' mains that made my tastebuds craved for stronger flavours then!


My friends bought us cupcakes, so we had that as well.

twelve cupcakes hehee~

And we did the song and dance with the cupcake. Oh, did I exaggerate? Hahaha, just the birthday song with my chosen "red velvet" cupcake and yes, the other patrons stared at us while the friendly lady service staff sang with the rest of my friends.

half devoured red velvet

Next, was desserts galore time! We ordered from the restaurant, their Gazpacho de Melon et Menthe (served with homemade madeleine) and the Valhorna Chocolate Moeullex.

desserts

Cold Melon Gazpacho with mint granite

Tahitian vanilla ice-cream, biscuit (milk biscuit, oui?) and moeullux

decadence

The gazpacho dessert was nicely cold and refreshing, plus not too sweet. The mint flavour was cool~ As for the chocolate moeullux, it was full of chocolatey gooeyness.

When we thought there would be no more, the staff surprised us once more with a small dessert for the birthday girl. It was a round chocolate sitting on a thin biscuity base, and has sliced strawberries on top. Came with a candle, so I had two wishes that night! Hahaha! Being a birthday girl was a busy thing, so I had forgotten to take a picture of this complimentary dessert till there was only one bite remaining. I present to you, the evidence as below:

birthday chocolate, part deux (one bite left)

It was decadence part two. Nice, smooth and sweet end to an enjoyable evening.

To my friends; Adeline, Cherlyn, Hui Shan, Reuben and Joanne - a BIG thank you for the birthday treat! =)
To the service staff of Balzac Brasserie: Sorry I didn't get your names but thank you for taking care of us~

Covelli Italian Bistro and Wine Bar @ Orchard Central

Located at B2 of Orchard Central, near the lifts. Visited on a Saturday evening, and before that, had made prior reservation via Reserveit. Really an easy, hassle free reservation system and it gives instantaneous confirmation. They'll even send a reminder sms. Cool!

The restaurant looks rather small and cosy. At about 630pm, there was no crowd. Liked that the tables are not too near each other.

seats for 2 pax

menu

Do note that the menu in the restaurant was a little bit different than its online menu found in Reserveit website. For example, there was a starter called "Foie Gras d'Anantra" that was not found in its restaurant menu. Also note that there's a bit of difference in pricing as well.

wine menu

We ordered a Pasta al Fruitti Di Mare (seafood pasta) and a Quarantaotto (24 hours braised beef short-ribs with mashed potato) for our mains and two glasses of pink moscato.

Diners have the flexibility to choose the pasta and the sauce.  We chose spaghetti and squid ink.

complimentary bread

One thing that I found peculiar with Covelli, was its complimentary bread. One piece per customer. Seriously, no joke.

They do serve iced-water, just that you'll need to request for it. One of the service staff was quite attentive and she came by periodically to top up the iced-water.

pink moscato

Our pasta arrived 10 minutes after the drinks were served. First reaction was that the pasta sauce was thinner than expected.

Pasta al Fruitti di Mare (spaghetti with squid ink sauce)

The seafood pasta has half slipper lobster, prawns (2 pieces), mussels (2 pieces) and baby squids. Its online menu actually listed more items such as fish, clams and scallops but we failed to find it in our dish.

yummy prawn

As the sauce was rather thin and watery, the umami usually associated with seafood wasn't found here. For some odd reasons, the cheese flavour was rather strong as compared to the flavours of the sea. But to be fair, the slipper lobster was nice and not too dry nor too hard, while the prawns were the best. Succulent and firm to the bite, albeit rather limited edition at just 2 pieces.

Next, was the 24 hours braised beef short-ribs.

Quarantaotto (24 hours slow braised beef short-ribs with mash potato)

with such handsome looking beef, can't wait to sink my teeth into this!

The Quarantaotto's beef looked good enough to make you want to eat it! But upon first bite, a question popped out automatically, "Did someone forget to add salt?" I'm all for natural flavours but still felt that something was missing from this dish. Even the mashed potatoes were a tad tastier than the beef! The mash had a bare hint of truffle.

The slow braised beef was tender but not till the extent of easily breakable by a fork.

tender beef on a bed of creamy truffle mash

This meal would've costs us about $48 per pax, but with Groupon vouchers, we paid about $28 per pax.

Chiso Zanmai @ The Central, Clarke Quay

Located at Level 2, go round TCC and walk across the bridge. It's only opened after 12pm and need to queue to pay first. Lunch is about $14.90++ per pax and top up $1.99++ for unlimited drinks. The drinks include
cold drinks (green tea, iced lemon tea, root beer etc) and hot drinks (coffee, cappucino, latte) all from drinks dispensers. Self-service please.

still empty

reserved seats

this thing cannot be moved, and it's smack right in the middle of the table *LOL*

view from our table

The restaurant was really crowded around lunch time. But do note that there is no salmon (nor any other sashimi) during lunch time on the day of our visit. This was really sad because salmon should be a staple feature in Japanese buffets, no?

cold items section

hot food section

sushi (see, no salmon... sads)

dessert section

First round, here's what I came back with:

boiled octopus with broccoli, ebi and sweet potato tempura, tuna cubes with yam, takopochi, mackerel and okonomiyaki

The food selection wasn't very tempting for me. Really tried hard to want to try the food offered in this buffet. The ebi tempura wasn't replaced as fast as we would like to and it remained unreplenished even after 15 minutes. So, only had two pieces in total. Sads.

looks nice, but the taste was so-so only

beef okonomiyaki (with burnt outer layer??)

The cabbage okomiyaki, can skip because the egg was quite hard and not alot of cabbage in it. Probably can try the boiled octopus (where it retained its bite but it was a nice chew), ebi tempura (if you're lucky), tori karaage (not bad only), tuna cubes (closest thing to raw fish......), matcha tofu (sweeet~), braised pork belly (no salmon belly, will have to make do with pork belly!) and desserts.

matcha tofu (must try)

tuna cubes

braised pork belly

Should eat the matcha tofu before having the sweet corn tofu because the corn tofu has a stronger taste. Both are nice. I ate 3 servings in total. The pork belly was soft enough and not too salty.

soy pudding with ginger syrup

cappucino

Was quite worried when I saw the cappucino. It looked like it had too much milk! But the taste was quite nice. Bitter and foamy enough. Best compliment to the sweet desserts.

from left: profiterole (puff), cheesecake, eclair, matcha jelly, sponge cakes, passion fruit cake

All of the desserts that's in the picture above was nice except for the passion fruit cake as it has a too tangy taste. For some odd reason, also found that the milk filling in the profiterole and eclair were too watery. Nice and sweet but watery. Odd.

yums

Thanks Cathy for the birthday treat!

Tianfu Steamboat (Paradise On Earth) @ Tanjong Katong Road

Located after Caltex gas station (opposite side) and there's a durian stall nearby. We were there to have steamboat buffet @$20.80+ per pax.

steamboat set menu

steamboat buffet items (can only choose items from B and C)

table setup for steamboat

For drinks, we ordered a jug of lime juice (@$8+ per jug).

lime juice (good for about 5 glasses)

The soup base (for buffet, can only choose mala/tom yum/chicken/fish head), we chose mala and chicken soup (yuan yang pot).

cooking and we waited patiently

Hmm, forgotten to take pictures of the raw ingredients but one plate portion was rather small. So in a group of 6 pax, you might want to order triple plates of the same thing. Things that I quite liked were the carp fish slice, chicken meat, pork belly and the various vegetables. But the pork belly was two thirds of fats and one third of meat! The fried yam and clams gave the soup a good flavour. But the mala flavour wasn't fiery nor spicy nor numbing. It was just a little pepperish. Oh, and some of our orders were not delivered at each round. We ordered three rounds and each time, they'd forget to bring a certain item. But it's ok, you can try again at the next order.

We also got ourselves a plate of har jeong gai (prawn paste chicken) @ $8+ per 8 pieces (one wing yields 2 pieces).

watch out, served piping hot!

The prawn paste chicken wings were crispy, tasty and juicy although the marinade wasn't even for most pieces.

aftermath...

We paid $27.20 per pax for the meal.