all-day brunch @ relish

I like Relish, I like brunch, so when I heard about Relish's all-day brunch menu, I was just dying to try it. Somehow, we only got down to it on Sunday. We went with Shally and Gabrielle. I was mighty excited.

Relish is such a bright chillout place. Everytime I am there, I feel transported away from Singapore. It's high walls and white beams, graffiti walls and chalkboards, how can you not love this place?

Gabrielle had the Eggs Wild Benedict, wild rocket, toasted muffin, poached eggs, bacon and of course, hollandaise. I was quite disappointed with this. The eggs were overdone and slightly powdery on the inside. I like my eggs to be runny. The kind which oozes and melts so decadently in your mouth. Even better than runny is near-runny, it's soft its wet but its not gooey.

I thought that this dish was a bit bland, to be honest. It's probably because I didn't eat it with the bacon because Sharon says that it is a lot better with the bacon and she says the bacon was really well-done. But I thought that the hollandaise was not very well-prepared and didn't provide any winning touch or consolation in this case.

On the bright side, the sauteed potatoes were excellent. They were diced into tiny potato cubes and fried to a magnificent brown tan. These darlings were crisp on the outside and moist on the inside. Very nice..

My breakfast burger, home-made apple and pork sausage patty, emmental cheese, layered omelettle, baked beans, sauteed mushrooms. Now this dish really hit home with me. At first when it came I wanted to run away from it because gawd-the-mushrooms-stink. Shally and I did not want to be near it. The mushroom smell is overwhelming. But Sharon convinced us to try the mushrooms. They were mmmmmm. Need I say more? Possibly the best mushrooms I have had in a long long time. So chewy, so savoury, so delicious.

Now for the real test. My breakfast burger was so good. It tastes like sausage mcmuffin but so much better. When you dissect the patty you can actually make out the pieces of granny smith apples and sausage bits. You can taste the sweet-sour tang from the apples. The sausage was extraodinarily satisfying. The omelette was nicely done, runny the way I like them. The cheese was like icing atop a cake. The muffin was toasted to perfection. I'm sorry I'm gushing but Relish really knows how to do a burger well.

The only thing is that it's quite pricey and you're paying 10times the price of a sausage mcmuffin for an improved version of it. (very much improved I must add, though).

3 words. I ADORED IT. mmm.

The ONLY thing I can fault this burger for? It's crazy-tall! If Relish burgers were difficult to eat in the first place, these are insanely arduous. What a pretty sight when it is presented to you, but it is definitely NOT a pretty sight once you start tucking in.

Shally's open striploin steak sandwich, minute steak, truffle aioli, caramelised onions, baby spinach, fries. The onions were wondrously caramelised but the beef was tough and not well-seasoned. There was also not enough cheese. Sharon felt that the bread:meat proportion was too skewed in the former's favour and that severely compromised on the sandwich's taste. Shally swears she can smell the yeast in the bread (everyone repeat after me, nose of a hound..).

Sharon's pancakes were not fluffy enough and a bit too dense. I liked that the edges were a bit crispy but she doesn't like it. She likes soft fluffy pancakes that are moist right through the edges. I liked that the batter was even and was not clumpy but that was about it. The blueberry sauce was not rich enough. It might have been better if they had beaten blueberries into the pancake batter itself. Then the pancakes would have "double blueberry power".

Oh yes, not a first-date choice. It has the same effect as squid ink pasta. Your teeth, your lips will be stained. Unless your date likes a joke, stay clear.

These are the two desserts that were given on the house. The first was the Wild Rocket Strawberry cheesecake. I don't like cheesecake so I didn't partake of this dessert but they loved it. Shally particularly liked the digestive biscuit base although she did admit to liking anything digestive biscuit.

This is new, the ice-cream burger. Two crisp waffles enclosing on two scoops of chocolate ice-cream and kiwi slices. This was quite nice. The waffles were really crispy and nicely toasted. The strawberry-kiwi sauce that came with it was simply excellent. Sharon claims that the sauce literally fizzes in her mouth like coke, the taste reverberating and exciting the tastebuds so that you taste the sauce even after it has glided down your throat.

My only quarrel is that it's not special. The ice-cream, the waffle, the strawberry-kiwi sauce, they tasted store-bought. The chocolate ice-cream was not rich and creamy enough. The sauce tasted artificial because it was unnaturally sweet. The waffles, well, let's just say we have a suspicion which brand it is. ;)

Nonetheless, it was definitely tasty. Whether it's value-for-money, well I don't know. Afterall, this is something you can put together at home.

All in all, brunch was uneventful and sadly quite a let-down. We must add that this menu is still in its experimental stage and they are still trying to figure out how to make this work. This means that many of these dishes are still being tweaked. Hopefully, when the new FINALISED versions are out, I will be able to recognise the Relish-standard once again. Till then, brunch@Relish is average with more misses than hits. I expected better.

Relish
#02-01 Cluny Court
Singapore 259760

relish-mania

it was the third time going to relish today and instead of going for the normal wildrocket burger (which is sublime by the way), we opted for the spicy crabmeat linguine with tomato cream and the much raved about charsiew burger.

now, this would be the third time giving the linguine a chance. The first time we had it was ok but nothing to rave about. In fact, we didn't have it. Y had it and she doesn't even take spicy food. We just tried a mouthful. It was aight, but not whoa-gimme-some-of that. After reading so much about how absolutely scrumptious it was, we decided to give it a second shot at Wild Rocket. Sadly, we weren't too impressed by it then and P was adamant that the chilli tomato crabmeat linguine with pinenuts at Marmalade Pantry would beat the version at Wild Rocket hands down.

So it was with apprehension that we ordered that instead of the wild rocket burger. And it was whoa tonight. Like really, whoa. Wild Rocket has always been known to serve good pasta, their pasta is always perfectly al dente and this was no exception. But even more than that, today's pasta really created a symbiosis with the tomato cream, a perfect amalgation. It was also a lot spicier than the last time which was really good. True, they weren't crazy generous about the crabmeat, but there was always a sufficient amount in every mouthful. The best part about it was that the crabmeat had actually 'fused' with the pasta so that they are one and the same. You know how you always end up with a lot of crabmeat after downing the pasta because the crabmeat doesn't 'stick' to the pasta so you don't end up eating much crabmeat during your meal and find a whole lump of it after you have finished all your pasta? Well, no worries about that today. Every mouthful was blessed with a chockful of crabmeat and equally coated in that delicious cream, so that you really do eat crabmeat linguine instead of crabmeat and linguine. Kudo to Relish for that!

Now, for the star of the meal. The charsiew burger. FWAH. It was so good. It was sweet and savoury the way charsiew should be. Although it didn't really taste like charsiew. It was more of a cross between charsiew and the sauce for kongbak bao. And I have to admit that when it was served, it looked like a lump of black substance above toasted bread. Very not appetising indeed. But boy was it good. From the first bite, I was stunned for a while because the taste was so unexpected. The meat was tender (apparently quite fatty but we took the fat off) and so so well-marinated. I'm not a fan for pork and apparently, it is poison for all blood types (I've been reading up on the blood type diet) but this is one poison I would die for. The bread, well, nothing to shout about, but hey, they're not a bakery so I'm less fastidious about that.

Interestingly enough, this burger was not slated to be a hit at all. They had only included the burger because they wanted more variety. Since we have beef, chicken lamb, seafood, hey let's throw in some pork kinda thing. And it was charsiew so Wilin and Sam (boss and manager respectively) did not expect the burger to be such the success it is. And according to Sam, it is his favourite burger. Fantastic.

Dinner was extremely enjoyable. I just love Relish for its gorgeous ambience, the high ceilings and understated chicness. It's like casual for the high-living man. And Sam, who we thought would to be reserved initially, turned out to be quite a lively character, sitting and joking with us a good portion of the meal. From pretty but dao girls at Island Creamery to Wilin as Cleo's top 50 EB to even Daiso and 1.99 shop, maybe next time he will direct sit down and eat with us.Maybe we will really be part of the Wilin Empire in future!

We set up an appointment for Friday lunch, my favourite burger place with (one of) my favourite people. :)