Supply & Demand - Modern Italian Trattoria & Pizzeria

In a nutshell
Fudz: Supply & Demand - Modern Italian Trattoria & Pizzeria
Cuisine: Italian-Asian fusion
Location: 277 Orchard Road, #02-13/14, Orchardgateway Singapore 238858 (Flagship is at Esplanade Mall)
Dial: +65 6702 6218
Email: esp@cre8group.com.sg (for reservations)
Interweb: https://www.facebook.com/supplydemandsin?fref=ts
Damage: By the economics of scale, you do the balance yourself

The story

Asians love Italian food. It could be the fact that Marco Polo brought back some of the Asian influences to his country after his travels and that was probably one of the first eastern-western fusions in the history of mankind. To this day, it is still a joy to meld the two together.

A Friday evening demands a good meal to unwind. A meal that erases the fatigue and stress for the entire week spent at your computer desk, talking to unnecessary people and being a useful lego piece to the society. An evening when you can be yourself, with your friends or family or alone, not a provider of answers to anyone's problem but your own.

The same gang gathered at the queue of Supply & Demand. My usual gang of sisters, you-know-who if you've been reading past posts. I eat with other people too but this is my favourite group of people to eat with. Probably because they are more patient with me whenever I want to snap a picture of the food before they can tuck in.

Garlic truffle fries $15

It's hard to eat 'undressed' fries now without thinking it might be better with truffle or parmesan cheese or garlic shavings or sea salt. Check out the cloves of garlic. The thick-cut fries were perfect bases to smear the garlic on. The truffle aroma did not come in as strong. It could have been overpowered by the garlic. S&D also serve sweet potato fries ($9), something I'd really like to try the next time I visit.

Tartufo E Uovo / Truffle & Egg (9" inch - $18, 13" inch - $22)

There's always something to look forward to whenever they leave a soft egg on top of your pizza or pasta. For anyone who likes to destroy.

Aglio olio with shrimps ($14/$18)

All'Arrabbiata with minced pork and pork chorizo ($14/$18)

Ragu di Maiale, rich tomato sauce infused with red wine, bacon, minced pork and oregano ($14/$18)

Frutti di Mare Alla Panna e Aglio, garlic infused cream sauce with mixed seafood ($17/$23)

Pastas come in Tasting or Full sizes to cater to different stomach abilities. There are over 10 different cooking styles of pasta to choose from, with varying ingredients to add to the permutations. We only tried these four during our visit and the general consensus is that S&D does pastas really well. I'm really fond for Ragu di Maiale because of the sauce. It's rich in flavours and simple at the same time. A kind of pasta you like to go home to after a day of hard work.

Lamb rack ($32)

Succulent and tender. This dish is full of heart. I didn't appreciate lamb until this year. When you cut a piece and put it in your mouth, the teenage vocabulary that comes to mind is: AMAZEBALLS. After which, you revert to your adult self and begin to tackle the rest of the meat without words.


Note: I didn't eat anything from the S.E.A menu page. The dishes look exciting. I'm sorry that I missed it out completely. I'll do a follow-up on that. Sorry, no fusion reviews this time round.

Disaster in a jar, chocolate eclairs, brownie chunks, cookie crumble with vanilla cream and banana slices ($15)

Sinful homemade chocolate cake ($11)

Please order Disaster In a Jar. It's absolutely divine. It's far from a disaster unless a disaster can be beautiful in a havoc way. I'm not a dessert person but it tasted so good. The chocolate cake is not half bad but the disaster took the lead and we followed. Other dessert items include Pandan Panna Cotta ($12), Molten Chocolate Cake ($13), S&D Italian Style Tiramisu ($12), gelatos in exciting flavours like pink guava ($7), avocado ($7) and bak kwa ($8), and many more.

This warrants a few more visits before my demands can be satisfied.

Service, presentation and ambience wise, all's good.

Skyve

In a nutshell
Fudz: Skyve Wine Bistro
Cuisine: European
Code: Orchard townies
Location: 10 Winstedt Road Singapore 227977
Dial: +65 6225 6690
Interweb: http://www.skyve.sg/
Email: enquiry@skyve.sg
Damage: $35 - $55
Taste: Eggcellent (ok, sorry about the bad pun.)
Ambience: Clean furniture, grills and tiles
Service: Great. They greeted and bade with sunny smiles.

The story

I had no concrete plans for Christmas this year so I begged for one. Pamy, Chew Yen and Esther had graciously agreed to brunch on Christmas Day. Saved! I'm saved from being sad and lonely on Christmas Day.

Just to add, my all-time favourite Christmas song is 'Do They Know It's Christmas Time?' by Band Aid (1984). I keep the song on loop. The original composer hates the song but I don't. I still think it's lovely. Everyone needs to be fed.

Skyve is tricky to spell on the keyboard. It messes with the spelling bee in my bonnet. I kept typing the name over and over again to see how many times I could get it wrong. So far the wrong percentage falls around 80%. I hope you have better luck with it.

Pamy said 'brunch' so I shot daggers at anyone who attempted to flip to the 'mains' or 'pastas' pages. The dictator in me conceded with the 'beverages' and 'desserts'. Now I wonder why no one made Christmas plans with me.

Although it's known as a wine bistro, it was too early for us to order wine at 11 am in the morning. We are not European ladies.

INT. Seating arrangements

There's an old-school metal swing at the outdoor dining area. Kids love the space. We saw big groups of families with young children. Skyve is children-friendly.

The bartender/barista behind the tiled counter. He doesn't care for latte art.

This utensil placement style reminds me of Cocotte & Meng's ba chor mee shop. The latter holds chopsticks, minus the leaves and serviettes.

New way of studying papillae

Textbook placemat

Hazelnut latte straight up.

Coffee is good. I could drink it without making a face.

We had the Skyving' Breakfast ($22++) in poached, overeasy and scrambled. Chew Yen had the Skyve Sous Vide Eggs Benedict ($19++).

Typing the 'Skyve' words is killing me. The typos and retypes.

Skyving' Breakfast - Poached Style

Poached eggs undressed... saved for a sprinkle of spring onions

Overeasy

Alien head with yolk eyes

Skyve Sous Vide Eggs Benedict

Wild Mushroom Soup ($11++)

Brownie. I've no idea where Chew Yen ordered from in the menu.

Eggs Ben + Soup + Brownie were consumed by Chew Yen. She liked them all. My attention was on the corn nibblets in the eggs ben dish. Looks like something I would eat even though I had never seen corn in eggs ben until now.

The maitre d' offered white, circular blocks to put our bags next to our seats. They directed us to the unisex restroom patiently and two of them even held the door open as we left the bistro. All smiles and 'see you again's. They probably received some good things out of their stockings in the morning, I don't know. Maybe they just had a good foundation on how service is supposed to be. Anyhow, thank you, Skyve staff. We appreciate all that.

I have been reading their menu on their webpage and I ought to pay Skyve a few more visits to sample their mains and wine for a well-rounded post. Their photos and descriptions are calling out to me.

Skyve Wine Bistro is at a walkable distance from Newton MRT Station.

A Coffee Education Addiction

In a nutshell
Fudz: Penny University
Cuisine: Cafe culture that originates from England
Code: Weekend chic but you can still visit on weekdays except Mondays
Location: 402 East Coast Road Singapore 428997
Dial: +65 9008 9314
Interweb: http://www.pennyuni.com
Email: pennyuniversity@gmail.com
Damage: $13 - 19
Taste: B+
Ambience: B
Service: D

The story
Their coffee is decent and good. No strange aftertaste. A cup of coffee is a welcoming sight in the morning after a night of debauchery at Le Peranakan Hotel (located at the same block). However, the coffee at Chye Seng Huat is still better than theirs in my books. But then again, nobody is asking me to do a comparative essay...

Oh wait. Back track. Why did we need coffee?

A very good friend of mine, Xaviere, just turned 30. We spent the previous night drinking beers and BBQ-ing food - to be exact, we were drinking more than we were eating. Until the clock struck 1 am, we began to feel hungry. We started BBQ-ing again in the middle of the night and ate cheesy crabsticks and sausages until 3 am. We began to talk about life in general while lying three-on-a-bed. You can't possibly go straight to dreamland when you have your best buddies lying next to you in the dark. All inhibitions strip and girls just want to talk their hearts out.

We concluded the night/morning around 5 am.

Not a very smart move for a bunch of 30-year-olds. We are 30, not 13.

It was half past 10 when we finally willed ourselves to open our eyes. Candy woke up hungry. At least our appetites remain like 13-year-olds'. (Too bad that the metabolism doesn't.)

"There's Penny University downstairs..." someone remarked helpfully.

You cannot make reservations and please be always present when you've left your name on the waiting list. Free tip for you. And because it's a free tip, it's also a no-brainer. Good things in life don't come free. That's a second free tip, by the way.

With eye bags and overnight bags, we made our way down to the cafe and found it bustling with customers at 11 am. The world has been up and about way before we came to our senses.

It was a Sunday morning. Everyone has the same thoughts about getting some brunch on a weekend. They have a good business going.

7 oz of flat white

Some personal exposition here. You've been forewarned.

There are many, many cafes sprouting their roots in Singapore. There are many ways to differentiate themselves from one another. One of the best ways is to serve good coffee or tea. The coffee beans have to be well-chosen and you need experienced baristas to make cuppas after cuppas after cuppas. The food comes next. It's great that PU's menu is not extensive. Makes choosing a lot easier for the indecisive. I'm never into 10 pages of menu if 80% of the food items are below par. A one-page menu is great if 80% of the small selection is great-tasting food. Decor and themes are also part of the campaign to make one's cafe stands out. In my opinion, there are too many 'dime-in-the-dozen' cafes that makes the cafe culture in Singapore rather stale. I hope new cafes grow with character and not with cookie-cutters. Last but not least, service. I don't care how 'cool' or 'popular' your artisanal cafe is, but if you don't have staff who serves with smiles and genuine good cheer, all that well-brewed coffee will still leave a bitter taste in the mouth. Not the good kind of bitter from a coffee, is what I meant.

To the waitress at Penny University: When I asked if that second cup of coffee was for my table number or for my friend's, it was not because I was overly anxious to get my caffeine fix despite what my dark eye circles said. The first cup of coffee was placed on our table by your colleague who did not properly specify to whom it was for. One order was a flat white and the other was a latte. It didn't help that we both ordered 7 oz and your cafe does not serve lattes in latte glasses. We don't work at PU like you do. We wouldn't know. Your sour reply that the cup you'd just placed on the table was for my friend, which was great. At least you know which order it was for. Except that your tone was not. Neither was your facial expression. You didn't have to sound as if I was asking for the obvious when you had placed the cup in front of her. FYI, your colleague placed my order in front of my friend too, thus my confusion.

I do not have high expectations from the service industry in Singapore, therefore, I'm seldom peeved by bad service. I just wave it off like how I wave off an unfortunate fly who flies into my face. It could be your bad day. It could be that you were tired from seven days of non-stop working. It could be that you were having the mother of all PMS. It could be that you had just met a customer who demanded for his/her coffee right here right now, seconds after ordering. Many could-bes. But you know what? It could be my bad day. I don't give a damn. Nobody gives a damn. Especially not from a paying customer. Seek comfort from a friend but don't ever show your bad face to a customer. Poor service is poor service.

Suffice to say, it was not my bad day so I did not bite anyone's head off that morning. It could be but it was not. It was in fact, a lovely day because it was Xaviere's birthday. Everyone was in a joyful mood that morning. All ready to eat breakfast like hungry ghostbusters.

Scone - only short of clotted cream

Cheese toasties with marmite and poached eggs

Cheese and marmite go well together. Then again, cheese is like everyone's favourite friend. It goes well with anything. It can go anywhere it pleases.

I'm about to show you more Eggs Ben pictures. Don't groan. I already tried to show less of them in this blog. There are more in my folder. I'm already holding them back.

Healthy-looking eggs

It's an art to pile one food on top of another. They are unapologetic about dumping the hollandaise sauce on top.

Oh the perfect roundness of it.

The sourdough bread was not something to crow about because it tasted like normal, thick slices of white bread to me but their poached eggs were great. Large and shapely.

The rocket leaves on the side were alright... simple and straightforward with a dash of balsamic vinegar.  I guess for the price of $12, this is decent Eggs Ben fare.

Coffee serves in 3, 5 and 7 ounces. They will ask you which size you want in these number terms. I'm used to small, medium, large. And thanks to Starbucks, tall, grande, venti, trenta. If I ever go back to Penny University, I will try to say the numbers. We have to learn something from this coffeehouse, yes?

And no, coffees are not available for a penny. It was a grand old time when a penny could give you good coffee in London, as what the board read at their door. Just like how our parents used to pay 10 cents for a bowl of wanton noodles in Singapore. Nevertheless, PU's prices are affordable and their items are value-for-money. You can easily get a hearty breakfast under $20.

Good as their coffee was, the earl grey tea that my friend ordered was weak. Sometimes, I rather they just hand us a teabag instead of a tea-press. The flavour of the earl grey tea leaves did not come through.

Note: Their Turkish eggs are popular and if you google, its reviews are stellar. It reminded me of the African-styled eggs Pearl had in Taiwan. Also reminded me of our local half-boiled eggs with kaya toasts. Same same but different. Eggcites.

The therapeutic brunch

Writer's note: I realised I didn't post a single review in 2012. 

First of all, how lazy. Where did my time go to? 

Secondly, I didn't stop eating. Last year, I kind of turned into a eating monster. I'm almost proud to say that I'm the first person my friends think of whenever they want to have a steamboat buffet. It could be my famous fixation on tau kee (translate: beancurd skin), cooked soft and flavourful. No, I don't want to talk about steamboats. In 2012, I ate my first ever eggs benedict in NYC. I love it. I didn't understand why people eat poached eggs when they could eat half-boiled eggs or have them scrambled.  Poached eggs sound messy and yolky. These are probably also the reasons why people like them. The next couple of reviews have a lot to do with eggs and brunches. Bear with me. I'll move on to other food types very soon. I mean, who doesn't know how a poached egg taste like?

Me. Before April 2012. Like seriously. Get a move on.

In a nutshell
Fudz: Group Therapy
Cuisine: Predominantly breakfast and coffee. Don't worry, they serve tea too.
Code: Whatever that makes you feel like a breakfast champion
Location: 49 Duxton Road, #02-01
Dial: +65 6222 2554 (they don't accept reservations but you can call half an hour upon reaching to check if there are available spots)
Interweb: http://www.gtcoffee.com/
Damage: Depends on how many cups of coffee you drink.
Taste: Many hot favourite items remain the same but some main courses change frequently. You can see dates printed on their paper menus to ensure that you received the current copy.
Ambience: Cheery. Looks like you just visited a friend's living quarters. Couches and dining tables.
Service: Staff are friendly but food takes long to arrive. They explained that they have a long queue for food to be prepared for their large throng of customers. 

The story
We studied psychology together in the mid-2000s. If I don't remember wrongly, all of us passed our exams. It could be apt that we are finding therapy as a group... Those years of studying abnormal behaviour and how we think with our brains could be the cause of this need.

Hazel brought her son, An An, a very sweet young boy about four years old. He grew pretty much attached to me, literally, by plopping himself on my laps and wriggled about for the entire second half match.

Everyone has to eat their Eggs Benedict at least once before moving to other pastures. 

Their Eggs Ben is topped up with a generous amount of hollandaise sauce. It muffled the taste of the eggs but otherwise, most of us brighten up at the sight of the hollandaise that spread out far and beyond. My preferred choice of dough is English muffins but I understand the rationale of using a thick toast to mop up the overflowing yolk and hollandaise sauce. Its purpose is like an absorbent sponge. It's chewy and filling. The eggs are well-poached. People who love eggs, love egg yolks. People who only eat egg whites miss out a lot of things in life, like for examples, yummy Bombay toasts and high cholesterol levels.

After a cup of JING's Earl Grey tea, I succumbed to a glass of iced chocolate. It should be pretty okay because my recollection of how the iced chocolate taste like is dimmed. Probably An An was kneeling on my laps and I was too busy in pain to notice. An iced chocolate is a drink to make you feel fuller than full when you feel like it.

Lynx waited over half an hour for his shepherd's pie to be baked and served. Fortunately, it tasted good, so his impatience and annoyance wore off a little. 

We had a large group and many of them were late. Oh what's new about the waiting culture in Singapore? The waitress came over a few times to check if they were still coming as their influx of customers was high. Sheepishly, I told her that they WERE coming but I've no idea when.

Before the meet up, I called up the place and the nice lady on the phone gave good advice that we should pop by before 1100 or 1130hrs. That's the period when the place starts to get crowded.

Also, first-timers to the therapy are usually lost because most of us do not possess peripheral vision, contrary to biological claims of the human eye. The cafe is on the second floor, with only a small signboard and quaint staircase to lead the way on the ground floor. You can train your eyes to read numbers in order to track #49 along the row of shophouses. Surprisingly, there were quite many available parallel parking lots along the road. Taking a cab solves most of my commuting problems.

Brunch was brief and we disbanded right afterwards. Just like how a group therapy should go. We don't really know each other once we get out of the place, do we?

Brunch with the bunch

In a nutshell

Fudz: Oriole Cafe & Bar

Cuisine: European

Code: Casual and smart

Location: 96 Somerset Road, Pan Pacific Services Suites, #01-01, Singapore 238163

Dial: +65 6238 8348

Interweb: http://www.oriolecoffee.com/

Damage: $30 per pax

Taste: To get your caffeine and alcohol fixes at the same time

Ambience: Dim lighting unless you choose to dine al fresco. Neighbouring patrons are a tad too close for comfort in case you want to whisper top trade secrets or sweet nothings.

Service: Good

The story

To be honest, we only went for the breakfast menu that was displayed on the acrylic tabletop board for weekends (till 3pm). We need eggs - scrambled, poached and fried and nothing could deter us from having breakfast at midday when normal human beings are already thinking about lunches.

Great coffee. So I heard from those who indulge in the black-brown liquid. I am not a coffee drinker so this pledge of thumbs-up come from everyone who had their coffee in Oriole. The owner is an award-winning barrister so we shall assume that he knows his coffee beans from the good and bad.

Latte

I did not intend to talk about Oriole's coffee. I only want to talk about their breakfasts. I am deeply in love with their Caesar Salad too but I have to save that for another day as well.

I am terrible with documenting.

They have Moroccan styled lamb sausages that come in a bowl. Do Moroccans eat their breakfast out of bowls? I wonder, I wonder.

With fried egg, chick peas, feta cheese

Scrambled

The portions look small for ravenous creatures like us. Our hunger subsided but we are used to being stuffed. I could have ordered that bowl of Caesar Salad... I dream about it all the time.

Eggs Benedict with ham topped off muffin buns

Full English Breakfast

The bacon strips are extremely salty. I am good at eating salty food but their bacon defeated my tongue without much of a fight. The eggs are done well but the sausages are either too porky or dry.

Breakfast is definitely not its forte but we asked for it.

I know, I really want to tell you how good the salad is.