Cova @Paragon

I first noticed Cova about a month ago when my friend, Jieqi, showed me a list of places at Paragon that serves breakfast food. At that time, we felt that this placed looked a little too 'atas' for our liking so we gave it a miss.. which on hindsight seems like a good thing because Cova would have disappointed the three of us because we have relatively high standards for breakfasty/ cafe food!

Cova is situated at the far end of the first floor at Paragon. It is separated into two parts: the outer area for semi ala carte buffet and the indoor area for ala carte.

Because we didn't feel like having a savoury-side-dishes-cum-salad buffet on top of our mains, we opted to have plain simple ala carte and got ourselves a table indoors (:

There are many rows of nicely wrapped up chocolates that people may wish to get as presents if they feel extremely rich.

Rows of petite desserts which, in my opinion, are THE things to go for if you ever eat at Cova.

As it was a pretty cold day, we decided to order a cup of hot chocolate ($7) to share. Personally, I was quite taken aback when I saw that the size of the cup which our hot chocolate came in... it was shockingly small! I thought $7 would have gotten me a larger cup of hot chocolate but I should have known that food & beverages come in small portions at such an 'atas' place. Objectively speaking, I felt that the hot chocolate lacked thickness and richness and it tasted too milky for my liking.

We ordered their grilled vegetables sandwich on milk bread ($14), which was pathetically small and slightly below average. Apart from the softness of the bread, the entire dish was a complete let down. The grilled vegetables and almost non-existent pesto sauce made me wish I hadn't suggested ordering this dish. It is, to date, the worst grilled vegetable sandwich I have ever tasted.

Thankfully, their parma ham pizza ($20) was much better than expected. The pizza base was thin but slightly doughy at the sides, which was perfect in my opinion because I dislike biscuit-y bases. The tomato sauce and cheese were a delight to have (: Really glad that we decided to go for the pizza because it made up a little for the grilled vegetable sandwich.

In contrast to the mediocre savory food, Cova's mini pastries were TO DIE FOR! (: We ordered a platter of 6 mini pastries ($13) (all recommended by the lady at the counter) and we enjoyed every single one of them. If i'm not wrong, the pastries are (from left in clockwise direction): chocolate mousse tart, chocolate brownie, cream puff, pistachio and something tart, cream cheese and cream tart and custart puff. Initially, I didn't want to order the pistachio tart because I've heard nasty stuff about pistachio flavoured things in general but Cova's pistachio tart wasn't bad at all! In fact, the entire platter was mouthwateringly good! At that moment, I wish I didn't order any of their savouries so that I could try every single dessert that they have! I'm such a dessert monster!

I'll definitely go back to Cova in future to try more heavenly desserts but I'll probably give their savoury food a miss. It's a great place to catch up with friends or just to satisfy your craving for something small yet decadently delicious.