Restaurant Review: The Garden Slug

The Garden Slug
55 Lorong L Telok Kurau 
Singapore 425500
+65 6346 0504

The Garden Slug is a very laid-back eatery near the East Coast. Let me start off with the positives: the place is indeed very laid back and situated in a quiet neighborhood. The staff is extremely friendly and patient, even if you take 10 minutes extra to decide what you want to eat. I'm trying to think of more positives, but really there aren't that many, especially when it comes to the food they serve at the Garden Slug.

The menu at the Garden Slug is by no means exhaustive, which can be a good sign, making you think that they focus on a few, good quality food items, unfortunately here we were disappointed. We had Salmon Cakes, which were rather tasteless, with few bits of salmon, the "bed of lettuce" were 3 big leaves and the accompanying cherry tomatoes were unripe and thus also not tasty. Next we had the Ultimate Bangers and Mash, where the chicken and pork sausages were again very average and of the two chipolata sausages (which did look homemade), only one was spicy/flavorful, whereas the other was bland as well. The Tiramisu for desert was moist, but could have used both more coffee and more rum.

We were quite disappointed and I think it is unlikely that we will go back to the Garden Slug. Total damage was ok (around $50 for the food), yet the meal was quite unsatisfying. I'll give it the staff bonus and thus rate it

3/5 Stars

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Restaurant Review: Werner's Oven

Werner's Oven
6 Upper East Coast Road
Singapore 455200
+65 6442 3897

Werner's Oven is located close to East Coast Park and ideal for a meal and stroll/activities along the coast afterwards. The restaurant has a bakery attached to it, which is great if you have a faible for German bread, buns and rolls. Werner's cuisine is mainly German, but on the menu are also some items that you'd not find in a "traditional" German restaurant.

We went to Werner's on a Saturday afternoon and the place was literally empty. The interior looks German, but everything appears a bit worn, and could do with a renovation. After ordering our starter + 2 mains (the deserts did not look like anything special), we went over to the bakery to do some shopping. Prices are competitive and for S$20 you can get a whole loaf of oven-baked bread, as well as a few buns and rolls. I must say it was cheaper than I expected. On the downside, trying the bake-wares at home later, I was disappointed by the fact that they must have at least been a day old. If you're into bread like most Europeans are, nothing beats the taste of warm/ freshly baked bread or buns. The bun's from Werner's, however, we dry and crumbly. This might be excused by the fact that the bakery is small and low demand might not merit baking every day, still for the buyer this does not make a difference.

After returning from the Bakery after what was were 10 minutes tops, I was astonished to find that our food was already ready. We had ordered a Baked Camembert with Cranberries for a starter and Leberkaes with roasted potatoes as well as Cordon Bleu with dumplings and mushroom gravy.

Unfortunately, any and all of our food was lukewarm, leading me to believe that they pre-prepare most of it and then just warm it up or put it in the microwave. In any event it would have been neigh impossible to prepare all of it within the short time we spent in the bakery.

The Camembert was okay, but nothing special, the same goes for the Leberkaes, and the Cordon Bleu. All these you could buy in a German supermarket and prepare them at home in the frying pan or oven and you'd have the same result. The dumplings were a big disappointment and the sauce was also ready-made. The only positive surprise were the roast potatoes, but then again one cannot do much wrong cooking roast potatoes.

All in all an ok lunch, though not cheap at c. S$70 with soft drinks.

3/5 Stars

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Restaurant Review: Vansh @ Stadium Walk

Vansh @ Stadium Walk
2 Stadium Walk 
Singapore 397691
+65 6345 4466

If you're looking for a nice restaurant in a decent, quiet setting, Indian restaurant Vansh might be right for you. Vansh is part of the Rang Mahal group of restaurants and located right next to the river near Singapore Stadium and has both indoor and outdoor seating.

I have been told indoors is very nice due to the nice interior, where you can take your meal reclining on cushions on the floor. However, we chose to eat outdoors, at one of the tables close to the river. While this might have been a good idea in theory, there were three main issues that took away from the nice experience: 1) the tables are uncomfortably low, so if you're a relatively tall person like me, you'll probably be unable to stow your legs under the table, being forced to sit with your legs spread on either side of your chair; 2) we arrived relatively late and were the last people sitting outside, this might have been nice if it wasn't late enough for the waiters from the Jumbo restaurant next to us to start clamoring about with their dish carts and cleaning the dishes about 10 feet away, not very romantic/relaxing and 3) there was a constant flow of people walking by on either side of our table to get to the river. Not sure what they were doing there, but most were lugging plastic bags, so they might have celebrated something. Either way, I recommend you be seated inside.

The food itself was quite decent, with some items standing out. For starters and free of charge, we were offered Papadum sticks with 3 sauces: mint, chili and yoghurt. Let me just say that the yoghurt sauce was perfect and that I could have eaten it by the spoonful (which I did), so much so that I finished mine too early and had to dip in across the table. The chili sauce had a good kick and was quite hot, only the mint sauce did lack a bit, in my view.

 

For the main course we had grilled lamb chops, which were of the same quality as the ones I've had at Rang Mahal in Suntec, and somewhat overdone for my taste, though by no means bad.

 

As a second dish we ordered Seafood Biryani, accompanied by plain naan and black Daal. The Biryani was good, but the seafood could have been more plentiful, whereas the Daal was good, as expected. Can't go wrong with Daal, can you? 

The desert menu was not overly exciting so we skipped that. The staff could have been more attentive at times, as in between we were waiting to have our glasses refilled and we had to wait to ask for the bill, but again this might be due to the fact that we were there relatively late. Vansh is not cheap, and for the money I might better quality in both food and service, but I'll still give it 4 stars, to be confirmed next time, when we come earlier and sit indoors.

4/5 Stars

 

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