Was invited by the folks from the newly set up E.Clat ("eh-klah") Gourmet Canteen to try out their food on a Saturday morning at 10am. Wait, 10am? On a Saturday? At Mohamed Sultan? You're kidding? Oh you're not.
Well, on hindsight, it was the perfect time to do a food tasting. It made me wake up early, sure, but I had probably 30% more Saturday because I had plenty of time left to do other things after!
To get there, I took a train to Somerset and then cabbed down from Centrepoint. It costs me $5 because it is really quite near (you can take the bus for 2 stops, and walk too). Best decision ever. The place is slightly difficult to locate - you stop at the Sultan Link building, and there's a lift just beside the carpark entrance. Take it to the "1st floor" and you will be on the third floor of the building, where the restaurant is at.
The place is very bright and airy with the french windows. It can even be alfresco, but air con is definitely good too. It's rather casual but the purple plushy chairs gave it some formality. Apparently people hold D&D events here too!
We found out that this place is opened up by a bunch of property management people who also manages the building. They decided they needed a place that serves affordable and good food. That's really cool! Now if only my company decides to set up a cafe too...
First up was the tomato bruschetta ($6.90). Apparently they use foccacia bread instead of baguette. It is.. rather normal. Bruschettas are often like that. Just a good appetizer!
Even though this place is rather contradictory - it's called a Gourmet Canteen, with a "fine dining for the masses" tagline, and attracts the nearby lunch working crowd yet serves up a variety of dinner items, you can tell that the owner has put a lot of work and thought into it. I also liked how Chef Andy's philosophy behind the food is "fun". Now that is the right attitude!
While this place could have tightened their target audience and perhaps streamlined their offerings, the food is generally of average to above average quality.
If you do happen to find yourself in Mohamed Sultan area looking for dinner on a week day, do head up to E.Clat and give their dishes a try!
E.Clat Gourmet Canteen
63 Mohamed Sultan Road, #03-14 Sultan-Link Building, Singapore 239002
+65 66047998
9am – 8pm (Mon-Fri), 10am – 3pm (Sat), 10am – 3pm (Sun, from September 2012)
Well, on hindsight, it was the perfect time to do a food tasting. It made me wake up early, sure, but I had probably 30% more Saturday because I had plenty of time left to do other things after!
To get there, I took a train to Somerset and then cabbed down from Centrepoint. It costs me $5 because it is really quite near (you can take the bus for 2 stops, and walk too). Best decision ever. The place is slightly difficult to locate - you stop at the Sultan Link building, and there's a lift just beside the carpark entrance. Take it to the "1st floor" and you will be on the third floor of the building, where the restaurant is at.
The place is very bright and airy with the french windows. It can even be alfresco, but air con is definitely good too. It's rather casual but the purple plushy chairs gave it some formality. Apparently people hold D&D events here too!
Here's the menu in case you want to know. It changes every month though, so don't take it as definitive but indicative! What you can see is prices are very fair. It's 10.90 for an eggs ben. You can hardly get that sort of prices around anymore.
Their drinks also costs around 30% less than most restaurants. $2.50 for English breakfast tea.
Well, this is what we had that day! Actually this food tasting is one of the most well-organized ones I've been to. There's a special menu prepared for us and they prepared dishes for us to take photos of first (even providing a lighting stand) and then there's a buffet for us to try those dishes after, without waiting in between dishes to take photos!
First up was the tomato bruschetta ($6.90). Apparently they use foccacia bread instead of baguette. It is.. rather normal. Bruschettas are often like that. Just a good appetizer!
Next, the dish that I was just craving for the day before! I even tweeted about it. I had no idea it will be served that day, so I was delighted to find out. The eggs benedict ($10.90) was just what I need on a Saturday morning. Unfortunately, it did not wow me much, as it felt like a very regular eggs ben. Quite ok if you want a simple and normal eggs ben, but if you want amazing, go to Choupinette.
Perhaps the hollandaise sauce and the size of the eggs could be bigger. The bread was also normal.
What was good was I had a cup of iced latte ($3.80) to go with the food. Needed it. It was served sweet already, so do tell the waiter if you prefer to sweeten it yourself.
Well let's move on to the savoury dinner type of stuff shall we! This next dish is the Cheesy Onion Fries ($9.90). I would never order this should I be looking at the menu, because I don't really like onions much. But it is an original creation by the chef/restaurant themselves, which I would give credit for! However, it felt like a really odd dish. Plus it needs to be consumed immediately or the cheese will congeal!
Next would be the favorite among the table that day. I was sitting with Ms-Skinnyfat, her bf and a really nice girl from a tertiary newspaper. Second helpings of the beer battered fish and chips ($16.90) were had. The fish was nicely coated with batter that is not too oily, and the fish was fresh. Apparently they also can do it breaded style if you like.
There's also the seafood baked rice in tomato sauce ($10.90). What tomato sauce? I can't taste any. Perhaps the buffet style rice was also cooked in a huge portion so the chef was not used to it, because the rice was pretty bland and I did not taste any cheese nor sauce. It looks good on a 1-portion serving though.
Apparently one of their most popular dishes is the black pepper beef pasta ($12). For 12 bucks, I would say it is a really good deal! I quite liked it too, after the fish and chips. The black pepper was not too overwhelming and the beef was tender. Pasta was al dente. This flavor of pasta is not something you can get any where. What more can you ask?
The 12" Smoked duck pizza ($18.90) was not on their regular menu, but I really liked it! I imagine it to be a very good party dish too when there are slightly bigger gatherings held over dinner here. The duck slices are really fun and there's garlic mayo dotted across the thin crust that is smeared with a thin layer of tomato sauce (just right!).
Lastly the panna cotta in rum and raisin flavor ($8.80). There's mango or strawberry at $4.90 too but we got the good stuff. It is not your conventional panna cotta drenched in caramel sauce. No. This is actually more like cream pudding with rum and raisin infused whip cream? Almost like that. It is a very clean yet well balanced dessert. I am glad we had it, because I liked it a lot!
Even though this place is rather contradictory - it's called a Gourmet Canteen, with a "fine dining for the masses" tagline, and attracts the nearby lunch working crowd yet serves up a variety of dinner items, you can tell that the owner has put a lot of work and thought into it. I also liked how Chef Andy's philosophy behind the food is "fun". Now that is the right attitude!
While this place could have tightened their target audience and perhaps streamlined their offerings, the food is generally of average to above average quality.
If you do happen to find yourself in Mohamed Sultan area looking for dinner on a week day, do head up to E.Clat and give their dishes a try!
E.Clat Gourmet Canteen
63 Mohamed Sultan Road, #03-14 Sultan-Link Building, Singapore 239002
+65 66047998
9am – 8pm (Mon-Fri), 10am – 3pm (Sat), 10am – 3pm (Sun, from September 2012)
I agreed that they are still quite confused with their theme. Hopefully they can be more focused. Even their signature dish is just average...they need to come up with some wow factors.
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