Have a look around the Roof Terrace

In a most unlikely place to find a nice ambience restaurant, is one that brings you out of Singapore and it is located at the top of an old shopping centre in Holland Village. I believe most people will have heard of this place called 211 Roof Terrace in Holland Village. Out of the 10 i spoke to about this place, 8 told me they heard of it.

211 Roof Terrace has both indoor and outdoor dining. The indoor dining area is relatively small and does not provide any special dining experience. Their outdoor area is on the contrast a much better place to be. It has a very nice surrounding, adding to it are the easy listening music that are playing in the background, loud enough to be heard but not intrusive. One damper though is that HDB flats can be seen. If not for these high rise concrete forest, it could easily be forgotten that you are in the busy Singapore city.

A surprising realisation is that I did not hear the hustle and bustle of the busy street activity even though it is located right next to a busy street, that is always full of cars and business activities. This would be a perfect place to spend a cooling afternoon with friends to chat over a couple of beers or drinks.

Food
Baby Back Ribs (S$24.00)
Hickory BBQ sauce over baby backed ribs served with chunky chips and tossed salad

Presentation:
This dish comes with tossed salad mixed in olive oil and a dash of balsamic vinegar. The Ribs comes covered with Hickory BBQ sauce. The portion of the ribs are huge and it already fills me when i am 3/4 done with it. There are about 10-11 ribs when combined the 2 racks together, which is a commercially acceptable size for the ribs.

Taste:
The ribs are not too dry, but could be a bit more juicier. The fats portion are still attached, though not overwhelming, and this is the reason why the ribs are taste juicy. However towards the side of the ribs, the meat turns slightly dryer.
The meat is easily separated from the ribs and this made it easy to extract the ribs out from the meat. A big taboo in cooking ribs is to undercook the meat causing it to stick to the bone, or overcook the meat till it becomes like a jerky.
The BBQ sauce is just nice, not too salty nor too sweet. A lot of BBQ sauce will cause the palate to itch or even numb due to the saltiness of the bbq sauce towards the end of the meal, but i am still able to feel my palate being active after the whole meal.
It is a acceptable standard ribs and given the big portion, it would be better that this is s shared dish.

Recommended Dish


Peach Fantasia (S$8.00)
A classic blend of yellow peach fruit and peach liqueur with traditional gelato and Chocolate centre, dipped in natural coloured chocolate and hand painted

Presentation
The dessert is a little over decorated with the strawberry and melted white choc. The whole peach 'fruit' looks likes more like an apple than a peach, even though the outer layer of choc is hand painted to look like one. At certain angle, it does look like a peach especially the transition areas from red to yellow colour. You may have to zoom right into the peach and ignore the other parts and it will look entirely like that part of the peach.
The peach itself consist of 4 parts, the peach choc outer shell, the peach gelato internal, the chocolate stem and the chocolate core.

Taste
The outer shell is a peach flavoured which chocolate. This shell takes some time to crack as it is very hard when it was served, due to the freezing temperature that this dessert was placed in. The 1st moment this outer layer enters the mouth, it gave me a very refreshing, fragrant peach flavour. The peach fragrance fills your mouth and it feels as if you are walking in peach farm with slight cool breeze blowing the fragrant towards you.
The gelato inside is not too sweet and although it is also made with peach liqueur, there are no taste of any alchol but only a slightl taste of peach, so parents can be assured it is children friendly. As with any gelato, it do not freeze and has a smooth texture once it enters the mouth.
As you chip your way down to the center of the peach, you will find that there is a twist to the peach. The core is a chocolate. This core is the spoiler of the whole dessert. It is Ferraro Roche, and Ferraro Roche chocolates are not supposed to be eaten with the chocolate frozen. The 3rd layer of Ferraro Roche has become so hard that it takes some effort to bite thru it.
I love this dessert. It is light and has a very refreshing taste. However, the Chocolate core can be given up as it definitely spoils the dessert. It made the whole ending very unbalanced.

Recommended Dessert(Skip the choc core)


211 Roof Terrace Service Attitude
The staff were quite relaxed when i visited them. This could be because of the off-peak time that i went in. Not much recommendations and interactions were made. The staff were also not available when i needed them, possibily due to the fact that they were decorating the X'mas tree, which was about 4 taboles behind me. These 2 staff could be more alert and attentive.

211 Roof Terrace Cleanliness
Cleanliness is as expected in any restaurant, seats and utensils were clean. Not much comments can be made.

Ratings
Food Presentation: 3/5
Food Taste: 3.5/5
Service Attitude: 3/5
Cleanliness: 3.5/5
Ambience: 4/5
Value for Money: 3.5/5
Roof Terrace is a good place to chill out with some acceptable food. If you want to skip the hustle and bustle of Singapore, while not forgetting that you are still within Singapore, this is a good place to be at. Do note that it is not advisable to go at about 2 to 3pm in a hot and sunny weather, you could be getting a sun tan if the tables under the shade/shelter are not available.