Birthday celebration at Outback Steakhouse

Me and Dear was informed to go to Outback Steakhouse for the birthday celebration for some of Dear's friends. I had no idea where was the location of Outback Steakhouse in Singapore. When they said Millenia Walk, I didn't even know of such a place. Well, we still managed to reach the restaurant with our guide bringing us there from Suntec's Fountain of Wealth after a birthday cake was bought from Bakerzin.

When we were looking through the menu, a friend asked what was nice at Outback, to the two people who've actually visited the place. Both of the friends said that EVERYTHING was nice, and the Blooming Onion was a must try.

Upon much consideration to a quite limited menu for someone like me who doesn't take beef, I finally decided on the Grilled Lamb Chop. I'm a lamb/mutton fan who likes the taste and smell of it which a lot of people can't stand. There was also can order of the must try Blooming Onion for everyone to share. We just love ordering different dishes to eat, while swapping bits and pieces for everyone to try. Dear ordered The Mad Max, which is described as a serious burger.

After we finished making our orders, the staff served us 2 cutting boards with a chocolate like stone in the picture below.


I was wondering why they brought the cutting board along with the stone. I was curious what did we order that needed a cutting board and a stone. I was pleasantly surprised that the brown coloured stone was actually bread. Chocolate bread I think which was served warm and yummy, along with the butter which was meant to be eaten together.


Just look at how good the bread look, with the butter on it, melting away as the bread was warm while the butter was cold. It tasted so good! Upon finishing the slice of bread each of us got, a friend asked whether was the bread free flow as well. The answer was no, but I could have eaten a few more servings of the bread. I even ate half of Dear's portion as he offered it to me upon him seeing the gleam in my eyes, aiming at his yet to be eaten portion of the bread. Thanks for being such a sweetie Dear!

The Blooming Onion (S$13.90) was served. It was definitely very cute looking and we wondered at how many onions went into the making of this dish. My guess: One very HUGE onion!

I was crispy on the outside but the onions inside of the batter tasted very raw. I could tell that it was onions that I was eating there. It wasn't the best tasting onions I've eaten before. If I'm not mistaken, I've been to Tony Roma's in Malaysia where their Onion Loaf was really very good. The onions were sliced too thickly in Outback which caused the onion taste to be much stronger than my liking. The sauce which came with Blooming Onion was too salty. Maybe that was the reason why I drank more than 4 glasses of water that night. ;)


Here's a look at Dear's The Mad Max (S$18.90). I didn't try it as I don't eat beef. The fries were quite good though. It was cut from potatoes into long strips and it was really crispy although I tried it after sometime it was served. Heart the fries.


My order of Grilled Lamb Chop (S$28.90). I usually like my lamb chop with mint sauce (although I dislike the taste of mint in anything else) but I was too shy to ask whether was there mint sauce which I could have. I cut my lamb chop into a smaller piece which could fit my mouth. On first bite, the lamb chop was remarkably quite good. I quite enjoyed the taste of the lamb chop itself that I didn't feel a need to lather it with the sauce it came with or ketchup either. However, when I was cutting it up nearer to the middle of it, I realised that the lamb chop wasn't well done. In fact, I could still see a reddish hue when I cut into it, which looked like blood flowing out of a rare piece of meat.

I don't have any picture of the lamb chop after I'm cut it up but I didn't like the taste of it after that. I didn't make an order for my lamb chop to be done medium rare. I don't know what's the norm for lamb chops but I think I would rather have some forewarning that it would not be well done, and I would still be seeing some reddish stuff coming out of the piece of meat. The steamed vegetables and rice which came with the lamb chop was quite ok but not worth any much mention.

To finish my lamb chop, I ended up dunking it in the sauce served together with the lamb chop or ketchup. I usually don't dunk my food in the sauces as I think the food should be able to stand on its own without all those condiments like ketchup or chili sauce.

As it was for a birthday celebration, the staff of Outback was very nice and willing to sing a birthday song while presenting the cake to the birthday girls/boy. Following the different birthday rendition which was sung for my friends, there was a repeat performance for at least 3 other tables. Guess a lot of people share the same birthday. ;)

I'm not sure what did the total bill come up to but from the price of the Lamb chop which I had, I can say that it wasn't cheap and therefore I expected better from Outback.

The prices were quite steep and I wouldn't be back here if I had a choice in it. I think that this would be more suitable for a big group of friends to meet up and have dinner together as the restaurant wasn't too crowded and it was big enough to fit all 8 of us together quite easily.

Millenia Walk
9 raffles Boulevard
Time2 @ Millenia Walk
Telephone: +65 68373242
Fax: +65 68373241
http://www.outback-sea.com/index.php

Briyani for brunch

Weekends are the best time of the week to sleep in late, as I don't have the luxury of doing that during the weekdays where it's all about waking up early to rush to the MRT, while prepping one up for the week ahead (This applies the most to Mondays! Hate Mondays!). Since I slept til 4pm last Saturday, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't sleep in so late this lovely Saturday. I guess I contradict myself at times. It's nice sleeping in on a lazy Saturday, but I would have wasted my weekend, my free time with sleeping right? It's hard to please myself! ;)

Back to my nasi briyani for brunch. There's this stall located at a corner coffee shop in Commonwealth (near the Commonwealth Tanglin Halt market) which sells prata everyday during breakfast and for Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, they sell nasi briyani starting from around 11am. The queue is usually very long and I've always passed it by without an extra thought.

The initial plan was for me to wake up at 8am to have roti prata at the same stall with my Dear before he headed to work. Well, that obviously did not happen.

So when I was awake and finally out of bed, my mind was on the briyani as I have yet to eat a plate of briyani for a very long time. Armed with just my wallet, I walked out in the sun and braved the blazing sun.

When I got there, as expected the line was long. I stood patiently in line, looking at what they were doing serving up the briyani. I could see that they were very efficient and prompt in wrapping up packets and packets of briyani for the long queue of people. There were some customers who left with a huge bulging plastic bag which contained at least 5 packets of nasi briyani in it.

However prompt I saw their movement were, I seemed to notice that I was still standing at the same spot as when I just joined the queue. After 5 minutes, I shuffled along in line with the rest of the customers in line. More people were joining the queue behind of me. After 5 minutes, the sun was shining so brightly and I felt that my feet was burning as I was wearing those strappy sandals to get my much needed brunch.

I was getting hungrier and hungrier during the wait and with the queue getting longer and longer, I was hoping that it would be worth the wait. I didn't bring my Hp or my watch with me, but it felt like it was way more than 30 minutes in line just waiting for one packet of nasi briyani.

After a long wait, it was finally my turn! I made an order of nasi briyani mutton and looking excitedly at the stall owner packing it up, with a huge piece of mutton, heaping lots of nasi briyani on it, with a good scoop of vegetables which I know I won't eat. I waited for him to pack it up, along with a packet of papadum. Wait a minute. Something was missing. Every single customer in front of me got a packet of curry along with their nasi briyani. Where was mine? Well, I didn't think too much of it, as the people in front of me basically asked for chicken and fish. I didn't see anyone order mutton so I guess mutton don't get a serving of curry to go along with the nasi briyani?

When I opened up my packet of nasi briyani after reaching home, I brought out my spoon and fork while readying myself to dig in.


After my first spoon of the rice, I was disappointed. I felt as if I wasted that 30 minutes waiting in line. The rice was tasteless. I drank a sip of water and ate a second mouthful of rice. It tasted the same. When I added pappadum to the rice, I got a bit of taste, which was from the pappadum. When I bit into the mutton, there was some taste, but it tasted better when I broke the pappadum into smaller pieces to be eaten together with the whole serving of rice and mutton.

Overall, I didn't like this long awaited nasi briyani. I think I made a mistake on my part to not request for a packet of curry, which according to Dear who had eaten there before, was given to him upon his request of this and this and that. Being shut mouthed about requests are not a good thing I guess.

It's a shame though that nasi briyani doesn't have taste by itself, and might need to be drowned in curry to have some taste in it.

Pocket damage: S$4.00
Time wasted: At least 30 minutes in line (in the sun)

I won't go back there to get in line for another packet of nasi briyani unless I'm craving so badly for nasi briyani.

It's located at the corner of Block 46, Commonwealth Drive.

High tea buffet at Lenas

The thing that attracted me to take a second glance at Lenas was its signboard stating 'High-Tea Buffet Everyday'. When I looked closer at the signboard, I was attracted by the picture of pancakes. I can't seem to understand my own interest in pancakes and waffles. I'm constantly searching for fluffy pancakes so I made up my mind last week that I would be coming for the high-tea buffet.

Upon entering the restaurant, we were promptly ushered to our seats amidst friendly calls of "Welcome to Lenas!" We were given a menu which contained its normal food but I was more interested in the promotion, which was the High Tea promotion. The promotion menu was just printed on a laminated paper.

We chose the chocolate and cheese fondue to start. The high tea buffet set only allows one order from the choices of fondue per person. As there was two of us, we were able to try both the cheese and chocolate fondue. We also ordered scrambled eggs with italian sausage and scrambled eggs with smoked salmon. I placed an order for original pancakes with maple syrup, which is the way I love my pancakes. We finished our finish round of order with 2 glasses of their unlimited homemade iced tea. Dear wanted 2 glasses of iced water but we were informed that they charge 50cents for iced water... Well, guess that just proves our point that to make the most out of the buffet, we would have to stick to the unlimited homemade iced tea.

I didn't like the taste of the homemade iced tea. It tasted too strong and no amount of syrup I put into it could make it taste any better. I kinda gave up after feeling that I was pouring too much syrup into the tea and just drank it as it was. Not my cup of tea... ;)

The cheese fondue came next. It came accompanied with 6 pieces of garlic bread and one glass of vegetables, made up of baby tomatoes, celery sticks and carrots. When I saw that that was all, I made an order for potato wedges as I didn't have anything else to be dipped into the cheese fondue. I've never had cheese fondue before so I'm not sure whether how is it compared with other cheese fondues. I didn't really like the taste of the cheese as it was too sweet. The potato wedges and garlic bread was very good though. Loved piping hot wedges to be dipped into cheese fondue!

As for the chocolate fondue, I've tasted better chocolate fondues. The chocolate here was runny and my the tealight candle just didn't seem to be able to warm up the chocolate. They gave quite a lot of bananas and green apples to go with the chocolate fondue. They also gave Oreo biscuits, which I found really cool and different. Dipping Oreo biscuits into warm chocolate... I just wish that the chocolate was actually warm.I think we ordered too many things at the same time that we weren't able to savour the food when it was hot and fresh out from the kitchen. Added to the fact that I was greedily tasting everything while Dear was busy on the phone discussing construction contracts and WIP. Boring stuff to be discussed when a high tea buffet spread was waiting for our attention.

Next, my favourite pancakes. The main attraction of this buffet. The picture just leaves me salivating. Just look at the butter which is about to melt and the maple syrup about to drip onto the plate. Wow...

Looks aside, this pancakes just didn't make it. The pancakes just didn't have the fluffiness I was looking for in pancakes. In addition, the maple syrup was different from the maple syrup that I was used to. It's much thicker and tasted different. After finishing this two pieces of pancakes, I am sad to say that I didn't make any more orders for pancakes, although this was the main reason I wanted to try out their high tea buffet.
The scrambled eggs were much better. The serving size was a bit off. They were generous with the eggs, however they stinged on the italian sausages and smoked salmon. Smoked salmon went better with the scrambled eggs as compared to the italian sausages. I enjoyed the scrambled eggs a lot and it reminds me of the scrambled eggs I can only get at those hotels' buffet breakfast.

We placed another 2 orders of omelet, with me going with Mozarella cheese and Dear choosing mushroom and ham. It was just ok tasting. I was too busy talking with Dear and absorbing in the atmosphere that my omelette was cold by the time I ate it, causing my Mozarella cheese to harden in the middle of my omelette.
Dear enjoyed his mushroom and ham omelette. I tasted only a few bites as I was too full by the time I finished my Mozarella omelette.

We decided to finish off our buffet with an order of Crushed ice with strawberry. I cringed at the taste, as instead of tasting crushed ice with strawberry, I had crushed ice with rose syrup. It tasted more like ice kacang with the syrup. Would have tasted better if they used strawberry jam or strawberry syrup instead of the rose syrup which didn't go with the taste of strawberries.

Overall, I felt that it was worth it's money to eat such fare at 3pm on a Sunday afternoon where there wasn't even a crowd. The whole bill came up to S$37.40 (The buffet was priced at S$15.90 ++ per pax). I won't be going back there anytime soon as they are lacking in the pancake area. If their pancakes tasted better, I would definitely go there much more often for my needed dose of pancakes and tasted scrambled eggs.

LENAS
80 Middle Road
#01-88/89
Bugis Junction
(Situated between Sketches and Fish & Co)
Tel: 6336 7630