Earshot, Arts House

It was a large group of us for lunch one week day and we wanted a place where we could find seats easily so someone suggested Earshot and off we went to discover some place new! It was an awesome place. Isolated, quiet, a really quaint little cafe tucked away in Arts House. The interior was dimly lit, with shelves of books and a mini stage at the back. Tables and chairs were arranged haphazardly, like they didn't really bother where you sat or if you sat at all and merely wandered around the cafe. It was just so cool. I love such places, lack of arrangement, lack of of planning, just so... lackadaisical. It's like they don't know what they want to do with a place and simply converted it into a bookstore, music store and cafe all rolled into one. 

There were three set lunches for the day and each comes with free flow salad and soup, dessert, and drink at a price of $13.90. I chose the Roasted Chicken with Rosemary Sauce and Mashed Potatoes.

The salad came first. It was a generous portion of greens with a sauce which was slightly sour and spicy. The salad tasted great but I would still prefer the usual Italian dressing or vinaigrette.

A simple soup with cabbage slices, tofu and some fried onion within. The soup was a little heavy and oily, probably because of the fried onion bits in it. Wasn't able to finish the bowl as it was getting a bit queasy so I finished the cabbage and tofu instead. 

I really liked the Roasted Chicken with Rosemary Sauce and Mashed Potatoes though! The chicken was very well roasted, the skin was crispy and delicious and the meat was tender and juicy. The rosemary sauce was sweet and tangy, which goes very well with the meat. The mashed potatoes was nice and buttery, the way I like it. 

I forgot to take a picture of the dessert but the dessert was basically sago seeds in a sweet syrup. Nothing fanciful but quite tasty! The set comes with either tea or coffee but I chose to top up $0.70 and ordered a Coke instead as the weather was really hot and I was not too intent on having a cup of hot drink. 

Another good place for lunch around the area! 

1 Old Parliament Lane

Art House

Katanashi, Boat Quay

I've heard many good things about Katanashi and I really wanted to see for myself how the place was like. Katanashi is one of the first few restaurants along Boat Quay if you are walking over from Parliament House. The restaurant was cozy and very quaint, with dark mahogany furnishing and cute little posters on the wall. We were ushered to a table at the back where we had a nice long table and some privacy to ourselves. 

The lunch menu where everything is $10.20! Reasonably priced set lunches with so much variety! I was completely sold and had a hard time trying to decide what to order. Eventually I went with the Boiled Drumsticks with soft boiled egg. As you can see from the menu below, all the sets come with a mini salad, miso soup, rice and Japanese pickles. 

The bowl of mini salad with fresh greens and a very light tasty dressing. I'm beginning to appreciate salads more these days even though a bowl of salad for lunch is still completely incapable of sustaining me throughout the day.

My sweet and sour drumsticks with soft boiled egg! I was in such a hurry to try the drumsticks that the first thing I did when my dish was served was to break the egg yolk accidentally. What a bummer! I was intending to have the egg yolk with my rice but oh well, half of what there was went into the sauce and I was super busy trying to salvage the rest. But still, the drum sticks tasted super good! It was not exactly sour and tasted more like braised chicken drum sticks instead. There were 5 drum sticks, rather generous portions!

The only sad part of this yummy lunch was when the waiter accidentally spilled a bowl of miso soup on my new dress! It stained more than half my dress and I had to wash my dress hurriedly to remove the distinct smell of miso soup. Thankfully my dress was coral and the stain was not obvious at all. Furthermore, the waiter looked so apologetic I did not have the heart to hold it against him anyway. Other than this little incident, service was impeccable. 

Come here for lunch one day if you work in the area! 

77 Boat Quay