Au Jardin

Hello!

It's been a while since I last blogged so I'm going to do a post with quite a number of photos today to make up for the lack of updates this week! One rainy afternoon about two weeks ago (it was during the period when rain kept falling for almost 2-3 consecutive days), I celebrated by birthday with Jeffrey at my favourite place in Singapore! Considering how much I love eating, we decided that we should go to some place that we've been wanting to go to but can't find an occasion that's important enough to justify the cost of the meal. After some deliberation and schedule-checking, we were left with one option:

We opted for the non-champagne brunch which costs $120++/pax since both of us aren't champagne drinkers! This is, to date, the most expensive meal that I've ever eaten in Singapore and I did feel a little guilty for spending so much on one meal but I figured since it's my birthday, I'm allowed to have a little guilty pleasure so I dismissed the guilt after a while.

Had I known that we could call the people at Au Jardin to pick us up from the Visitor Centre, I would certainly have done that because it was raining quite heavily and we had to walk in the rain, upslope (that means that rain was cascading downwards onto our feet, eww) to reach Au Jardin! Thankfully I wore slippers that day since it was raining so my feet dried quickly enough after that.

The postcard-looking menu that actually contains the menu that I cut and pasted on the top of this post.

Complimentary warm bread rolls! (: They were freshly baked and they tasted so good in the cold weather! We ate the crusty bread rolls heartily while ordering our food (:

Apart from ordering some dishes off the ala carte buffet selection, we also helped ourselves to the mini buffet bar at the corner of this cosy ex-colonial house. Here are some photos of the food that is available at the mini buffet bar:

Salad, smoked salmon, deep-fried shrimp roll (yum!)

Seasoned asparagus (yum), mushroom quiche, seafood gratin (yumyum!), smoked salmon

Deep-fried shrimp roll (yum!), smoked salmon, mini lobster, seafood gratin (yumyum!)

Seafood gratin (we just can't get enough of this!) & blueberry tart

More seafood gratin & deep-fried shrimp rolls, two baby lobsters

After waiting for quite some time, our ala carte buffet dish no.1 arrived! It's the crab au gratin and it tasted absolutely delightful! =) There was sufficient crab meat amidst the cheese and it was well-blended and creamy. We loved this so much that we ordered some more! Also, we absolutely loved the presentation of this dish, don't you think it's pretty?

Our next ala carte buffet dish was the steamed seafood with lime and lemon grass. When I first opened this container, it immediately reminded me of the lemon grass fragrance that the hotels we stayed in in Cambodia last December used! What nostalgia! This was a relatively light and healthy dish that I think will be appreciated for those who like soupy dishes. It wasn't my favourite dish that day but it's nevertheless quite nice (:

They decided to serve each of us a cup of lobster bisque because our main courses were taking quite a while to come. This was the first time I was drinking lobster bisque (or any soup for that matter) directly from the small little cup! The lobster bisque was just right but somehow my stomach doesn't really take lobster bisque quite well and I tend to feel funny after drinking lobster bisque so I stopped drinking it once I started feeling uncomfortable.

One dish that you must NOT skip when you're at Au Jardin is the egg dish that you choose. This is a photo of Jeffrey's eggs benedict and it was cooked to perfection =) He liked it so much that he wanted to order another portion but unfortunately we could only have one of this!
I decided to go for scrambled eggs with truffles and trust me - Au Jardin's scrambled eggs isn't anything like the normal scrambled eggs! The eggs were beaten till they had a rather grainy and full-bodied consistency and they tasted exquisite! I know you must be thinking how exquisite can scrambled eggs taste right but till you try this, I think you should hold your judgement! It's really good! =)
For my main dish, I chose to have the seared scallops & boston lobster 'en papillote'. Based on the name of this dish, I should have guessed that it would come wrapped in some sort of way! This dish tasted pretty alright - it's like seafood cooked with light tomato-ish kind of sauce which wasn't sour or tangy in any way so it's actually quite pleasant to the palatte. People who are not looking for a very heavy main course should order this! =)

Jeffrey had the roast US prime beef rib eye with shallot sauce which he commented was more than fine! =) He said that the meat was very tender and this dish kind of reminded him of the beef that he had at Park Hyatt except that the portion here is much smaller. Guess this is worth a try!

We waited for a very long time for our desserts to arrive but before they made their appearance, we were served these petit fours and we savoured them happily!

Finally, after a very long while, Jeffrey's crepe arrived! It tasted different from the crepes we had in Paris but nevertheless, these were still GOOD!

I ordered the french toast with maple syrup and stewed berries and the thick slices of french toast really made my day! =) I half-wished that I had told them that I didn't want the stewed berries because I didn't enjoy them at all but on the whole, this was one of the more uncommon desserts that I've had in a while.

In short, I thoroughly enjoyed my maiden trip to Au Jardin and I hope to be able to return again in future to try other set meals or ala carte dishes! If you are planning to have a meal at Au Jardin, my advice to you is to be prepared to spend at least 2hours there for their service is pretty slow (in a good way). It's definitely a good place to dine at if you want a slow, relaxing meal to chitchat and look at the greenery around you (:

Thanks Jeffrey for this birthday treat! =) Thank you all who celebrated my birthday in one way or another, you know who you are! =)