Restaurant Review: Wild Honey (Orchard Branch)

Restaurant Review: Wild Honey (Orchard Branch)

6 Scotts Square #03-01
Scotts Road
Singapore 228209

+65 6636 1816

Wild Honey created an instant hype when it opened its first outlet in Mandarin Galary and managed to replicated the concept with a second outlet on Scotts Road. Interior design firm Distillery created the atmosphere in Wild Honey based on their motto of "no place like home". And indeed, even though the restaurant is not small and mainly features one open space, one cannot help but feel cozy and comfortable in this environment, which reminded me more of a library setting or an English club.

Wild Honey apparently does not take reservations for peak hours, and during these times the places gets quite busy (like all decent restaurants in Singapore), so you might have to either queue or come by at off-peak hours if you don't want to wait.

For an all-day breakfast place, Wild Honey's menu is quite extensive, and the food is organized by regions. Ordering for three people, we went for the Californian Breakfast (softly scrambled eggs, tofu, fresh herbs, red, green and yellow peppers, mushrooms and scallions on roasted ciabatta bread) and a Wild Honey signature dish, the Tunisian Breakfast (comes in a pan and comprises a shakshouka, i.e. fried eggs on top of a sauce of tomato, red peppers, chili and chorizo sausage, with brioche and Israeli salad). As all this sounded too healthy for me and as I do love a hearty breakfast, I ordered a side dish of breakfast bacon.     

Wild Honey really does have the art of presenting their food down to the t, and all dishes looked absolutely mouth-watering. The California breakfast did not only look appetizing but also tasted very decently, with flavorful seasoning and the eggs just right, on top of nicely toasted bread. In contrast, and despite the nice look, the Tunisian dish was rather disappointing. Proper Spanish chorizo is either quite spicy or quite sweet, and should have stood out when tasting the shakshouka. Alas, the dish mainly tasted like a pomodoro sauce, with little Middle-Eastern touch to it. Wild Honey also advertises this dish as "spicy", which I found somewhat misleading, as it is neither hot nor does it have a lot of spices. That said, I was very pleasantly surprised by the bacon side dish. For S$ 6 the portion was quite sizeable, and more than I could have asked for, with the bacon fried to a nice crisp without being overdone.

The main gripe I had with Wild Honey was the service. At a hawker centre I know what to expect and can do with dispassionate staff, but at an all-day, cozy breakfast place I would expect the waiters and waitresses to be more attentive. As it was, more than once we had to wait for quite a while and eventually wave and flag down someone to refill our empty water glasses or to ask for the bill. This is definitely an area Wild Honey can improve on.

Overall, I think Wild Honey is very much worth a visit, for decent to excellent all-day breakfast. While prices are not cheap, they are not particularly steep either, especially considering that you are on Orchard Road. For our two mains, one side dish and drinks we paid slightly above SGD 70.

4/5 Stars 

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Restaurant Review: Salad Le Express

Restaurant Review: Salad Le Express

China Square Central
18 Cross Street #01-07
048423 Singapore

+65 8223 2709

Salad Le Express is a new salad bar at China Square that opened as recently as two weeks ago. As the name indicates, this place is all about salad and calling it a restaurant would be slightly exaggerating, as Salad Le Express merely features one elongated table for about six people to have a quick, healthy bite.

Owner and manager K S Tan is quick to welcome guests to his eatery and patiently explains over and over again to each new visitor how they only use high quality ingredients for their salads and that they employ a special washing method to remove traces of pesticides from the vegies/fruits.

Initially, Salad Le Express offered pre-packaged take-away salads only, but by now they have "Pick and Mix" Salads, where you can choose your own ingredients. The shop is still new, so I hope the speed at which they mix the salads will pick up in time as the employees get more experienced. As it was, we had to wait about15 minutes for our three salads, which is ok if you're out for lunch, but less so if you want to just drop by and pick up a salad. I'd advise pre-ordering at +65 8223 2709, however, they don't have a website yet so going through the ingredients over the phone might be a bit painful and it may be easier to just take a pre-packaged salad instead.

Personally, I would prefer to eat with real cutlery and out of a proper bowl, instead of the plastic items Salad Le Express uses. That said, I do understand the economic rationale behind the decision.

On the plus side, the salads we had at Salad Le Express we're really quite yummy, with decent lettuce and very flavorful ingredients, well worth the wait. Pricing is still on the modest side, at less than $S 7 if you go for the standard ingredients.

Right now salads and canned/bottled drinks are all Salad Le Express offers, however, according to Mr. Tan, soups and juices will be added shortly.

Overall, a little less "express" than the name suggests, but well worth a visit, not only for salad lovers. Given the moderate prices and decent quality food I'll give it 3 stars, with a possible revision to 4 if they up their game after the business gets going.

3/5 Stars

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Singapore Money Changer at Raffles Place

Arcade Money Changers

11 Collier Quay
The Arcade #01-18
049317 Singapore

If you're new in Singapore or looking for a good money changer, I would recommend Arcade Money Changers at Raffles Place. Arcade Money Changers is at the corner of Raffles Place, close to the MRT exit, not in Change Alley itself (which curiously enough doesn't have any money changers anymore).

There reason why I prefer Arcade Money Changers is twofold: good rates as well as pure and simple honesty. The first time I went there to change some SGD into USD, I accidentally gave the guy SGD 400 instead of SGD 350 I had told him I wanted to change. Instead of pocketing the extra 50 bucks as a nice tip for himself (I'd probably never have noticed), he returned it without a comment. Also, they employ a total of 4 people there, so there never are long queues or waiting times.

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Restaurant Review: The Marmalade Pantry (Saddle Club)

Restaurant Review: The Marmalade Pantry (Saddle Club)

55 Fairways Drive
Singapore 286846

+65 6467 9328

Recently, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, I went to The Marmalade Pantry at the Singapore's historical Saddle Club on Fairways Drive. As the name indicates, the Bukit Timah Saddle Club comprises a sizeable estate with stables, training grounds and also a few restaurants. The ambiance at Fairways Drive reminds of the 1950s when the Saddle Club was founded.

Initially, we had intended to go to Ryder's Cafe, located between the Marmalade Pantry and the Saddle Club, but unfortunately when we arrived around 3pm they were no longer serving lunch and their snack/tea time menu is rather scarce if you are looking for a proper meal. Instead, we decided to give the Marmalade pantry a try.

Marmalade Pantry has a relatively big outdoor seating area with fans, but we decided to sit indoors, where besides us only one couple and a family of four were having a late lunch. The interior is comfortable, yet a bit too dark for my taste. As in many Singaporean restaurants, there were quite a few staff around and after being shown to our table, iced water was served (an topped up occasionally during the meal).

We ordered the Crabmeat Linguini, Steak and Eggs, as well as a Strawberries and Cream Cupcake, Sea Salt Caramel Cheesecake, together with a Summer Smoothy and a white wine. I was quite pleased to see that the waitress taking our order didn't write anything down but seemed to memorize it instead (if I had known what was to come, I'd have made her write it down). After a short wait, the Summer Smoothy arrived, but a first sip revealed that it was quite thin for a smoothie and also lacking in flavor, so we we sent it back and told them to make it thicker. Usually, I'm not the type to let food/drinks go back, but in this case it was quite merited. A while later, the smoothie came back, apparently with some more banana in it, but the flavor was still not there. I settled for it anyways.

When the food arrived, it was decent. Neither the linguini nor the steak would win a price anywhere, in fact the meat was quite average. Having heard some quite positive reviews about the Marmalade Pantry (about the Orchard branch), this was rather disappointing.

After the plates were cleared, we started waiting for our dessert. This should really not have taken long, as the cupcakes were all exhibited close to the entrance (you can see them in the pic above) and so we were rather surprised when the minutes just ticked by and no one came to bring us our desert or asked whether we were lacking anything. Again, this was not due to the fact they were flooded with customers, as by now we were only one of four tables (indoors and outdoors) that was occupied. Finally, after at least 20 min I called over the waiter and asked him where our deserts were, he then asked his colleague, who told us they'd be coming shortly. Indeed, someone went and picked a cupcake from the exhibit and brought it over to us, by then it was quite clear that they had totally forgotten about our desert. The cheesecake arrived 10 minutes later.

Again the desert was rather average, the cupcake being on the dry side (no surprise, as God alone knows how long it had been sitting out there) and the cheesecake with little sea-salt caramel was also just okay.

The Marmalade Pantry is not a cheap eatery, and definitely disappointed my elevated expectations. To get back, we tried getting a cab for ages, but as it was close to 6pm by then we were out of luck. Therefore, we decided to have a drink at Ryder's Cafe during the wait. I must say, I regretted not having eaten there instead: the food they served was ample and looked very appetizing on the other tables, pricing is very reasonable and the iced mocha I had was very good.

I'll be definitely back at the Saddle Club to try Ryder's Cafe, however, if I try the Marmalade Pantry again, it certainly will be at the Orchard branch and not the one at Fairways Drive.

3/5 Stars

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