Did I just get 'clubbed' at Coffee Club, Holland?

Coffee Club, a chain coffee cafe along with TCC and Starbucks, are all competing with each other in the small Singapore.

I happened to pop into the branch at Holland Village after my class at about 4.30pm. The whole cafe is almost empty at that time. The manager greeted me and lead me to a place at the 2nd storey. Wonderful view i must say, as the cafe is located at a corner of Holland V and i am seated at a table next to the glass panel where i can see the people that are walking outside.

Since i was the only few patrons in the cafe, ordering was easy and serving was quick. I had ordered a Choc Delice and a pot of Earl Grey.

Bistro Petit Salut

Located along the stretch of Chip Bee Garden restaurants, is this french bistro Petit Salut. It just so happen that a friend of mine also went to another Au Petit Salut restaurant but at Demsey Hill on the same day.

Bistro Petit Salut offers authentic French fare, and the restaurant provides both indoor and alfresco dining experience for diners. The environment is rather cosy with warm lightings and is of a contemporary style. There are quite a wide variety of choices for the food. Being a french restaurant, their wine list consist of a huge selection. Wine lovers will be spoilt for choices.


Food
Cold cut platter of smoked speck bacon, pork pâté, duck rillette, pistachio sausage and sliced Parma ham (S$24)

Presentation:
The starter comes with some greens and slightly crushed walnuts. There are simple dashes of olive oil on the plate for decorating the dish. Being in a platter of different kinds of processed meat, I am not totally in the know of what each type of meat that i am eating, though i can guess a few. Though i am not able to tell which is which, this platter overall is a very good starter, the portion is quite huge and almost fill half of my stomach.

Taste:
This is a very strong platter to start with. For people with a light palate, this dish will prove to be too strong a starter. This is especially true for the duck rillette. Most of the meat are smoked and has a slight peppery taste. The parma ham is too salty. After this starter, you may want to rinse your mouth with water to clear your palate for the main course.


Seared onglet beef “Café de Paris” with French fries (S$30)

Presentation:
Onglet beef is also known as the prime cut of beef in english. The Onglet beef comes with french fries, that lies on top of some onions. The sauce is green in colour and it is not that appetising if seen in the bright day light. The medium cooked beef retains the pinkish colour on the inner part of the meat, while the outer part is slightly charred.

Taste:
I had ordered the beef to be medium done. The outer portion is well done but the inner part is still juicy and tender. However as the cut of the meat is not uniform throughout the whole piece, some of the thinner portions were well done. Even though the thinner portions were well-done, the chef done the meat just right, that is the meat is not too tough.
The green sauce, could be their special sauce but overall it is a little too salty. What i can taste from the sauce is mostly pepper, and a little bit of mushroom.
The fries tasted normal, but it is lightly salted.


Floating Island (S$10)
Poached meringue and Crème Anglaise topped with almonds and caramel

Presentation:
Floating Island is simply poached meringue and Crème Anglaise topped with almonds and caramel. Why this dessert is called floating island is because the meringue lies in the center of the plate and surrounding it is the Crème.
Crème Anglaise is a light pouring custard used as a dessert cream or sauce. It is a mix of sugar, egg yolks and hot milk, often flavoured with vanilla. It is also known as English Cream.
The web of solidified caramel put some patterns on the otherwise white meringue and the finishing touches of the almod makes the dessert looks nicely decorated.

Taste:
A lot of times, meringue are taken in the hard form, and it is a totally different texture in this poached cooking method. Meringue has the characteristics of disintegrating and melting in the mouth especially when it touches the tongue. The hard version usually will absorb all the water and disintegrates, making the mouth very dry, but leaves a sweet feeling in the mouth.
If you had taken poached egg before, the poached meringue tastes just like poached egg white (though it is really made from egg whites). When taken alone, without the creme, it is only slightly sweet. However when consumed with the creme, some people might find it a bit too sweet, though i find it still acceptable.
The caramel web add to the extra sweetness but I find that it is only suitable for display purposes as the caramel always sticks to my teeth when it enters the mouth. The almonds gave the dessert a welcome twist to the sweetness of the taste.
I would highly recommend this dessert and i wont hesitate to order it again.


Petit Salut Service Attitude
Considering that this bistro is located in part of Chip Bee garden, the service staff may not be giving full attention to the patrons. Most of the times, the interaction between the staff and the patrons are only when they take the order, and serve the dishes. I feel that the servers should check more on the patrons to ensure that things are going right and more interaction can be made.


Petit Salut Cleanliness
Speck and clean throughout the restaurant. Nothing much can be said.


Ratings
Food Presentation: 3.5/5
Food Taste: 4/5
Service Attitude: 2.5/5
Cleanliness: 4/5
Value for Money: 2.5/5

I would want to go back again to try their other main dishes and also the other desserts. I was also told that their escargots were good. I would be going back for the food and not their service. It is also a good place to hang out, though sometimes the other patrons could be speaking a bit too loudly, especially after they had drank some wines, that you can hear all their conversations.

Fancy Having Dessert in a Bar Early in the Morning @2am

Anybody wants to have dessert early in the morning? 2am:DessertBar does just that. Tucked away in a little corner in Holland Village along Lor Liput is this DessertBar that serves dessert till 2am. I have been searching for a dessert place like this for sometime and a tip off led me to this place. It is really not easy searching for this place even though i know the address.

The bar is designed in comtemporary style and this is where dessert and wine takes centrestage. The only hot food are the side orders, which are finger food. The menu tells your what wine will goes well with the dessert, so there is no worry if you would like to have a glass of wine to go with your dessert. Its all recommended in the menu.


Dessert
Twix (S$13)

Presentation:
Twix is a dessert dish that consist of Caramel Mousse, Peanut crumble and Home-made Valrhona Chocolate Ice Cream. Typically the mention of mousse will be lead to the thought of being in a container or cup where you will scoop from. This caramel mousse is in the shape of a stick and is placed on a bed of peanut crumble with the scoop of ice cream on one side.

Taste:
The Valrhona Choc Ice Cream is a dark chocolate ice-cream of about 70% cocoa. Even though it is a dark choc ice cream, it does not have a heavy cocoa taste, however it is not your typical chocolate ice-cream. The ice cream is very very smooth and the texture is just like a mousse.
The Caramel mousse has a texture that is exactly like tofu and it goes down the throat very smoothly. When it enters the mouth, the mousse almost melts in the mouth and gives out the fragrant caramel taste, but the taste is not over powering the choc powder taste that is on top of it.
The bed of peanut crumble compliments the mousse very nicely giving it the extra sweetness and crispiness. This crumble also goes down well with the ice cream.
However one thing that must be noted is that this dessert is quite a sweet dish once the crumble is taken together with the ice cream or the mousse. This is definitely one that makes your tooth ache with sweetness.


Amedei Chilli Chocolate (S$15)

Presentation:
This dessert consist of Dark Chocolate Bricks, Fresh Honeycomb, Toasted Ice Cream, White Chocolate Peanut Butter ball on top of a bed of Chocolate Soil. This dish packs less of a punch than the other desserts served in this bar, but the chef's attention to details is not to be neglected. There are some herbs that were erected on the melted honeycomb.

Taste:
The main star of this dish is the Chocolate Ice Cream, which is infused with chilli padi. It is not spicy but only with a tinge of spiciness on the throat. However it is to be noted that this ice cream is not to be taken in big mouthful. One recommendation is to take the ice cream together with the peanut butter ball. This gives a tingling sensation to the crispy ball. The chocolate soil do not go well with the chilli ice cream as the soil will first cover your throat so that it becomes dry and when the ice cream goes down, the spicy flavour will appear and it can be easy to choke on that.
The toasted ice cream is a wheat ice cream and it has a malty sweet flavour. The texture is also quite rough. I am not a fan of wheat and so this scoop of ice cream do not gain my favour.
Do note that this dish is for the more adventurous.

2am:DessertBar Service Attitude
The staff are friendly but not imposing. All the staff are well trained and they know their ingredients to the dessert really well. When the dish is served, they explained the dish very patiently. If it is the chef that serve you the dish, you will also be told what to expect of the taste of the dish. One chef is very attentive and upon knowing that i had ordered another dessert, without me asking for the replacement of my fork, a waiter was asked to replace one for me.

2am:DessertBar Cleanliness
There is nothing negative to be said of the cleanliness. Even the chefs' workplace are sparkling clean and tidy when they are preparing the desserts. Thumbs up for their cleanliness.

Ratings
Food Presentation: 4.5/5
Food Taste: 4.5/5
Service Attitude: 4/5
Cleanliness: 4/5
Value for Money: 3.5/5
Definitely, I will be back for another visit to try out the other dessert dishes that I could not gobble up on my 1st visit. However a lot more exercises need to be done to strip off the calories that will be added. It is not a place for the calories lookout people.