Waiting in line for Poulet

The word 'affordable' doesn't usually apply to French restaurants here in Singapore but what with the booming restaurant industry these days with new restaurants opening every month, I would have thought someone would have wised up and started offering good and cheap French food. And I was right. Finally, there's Poulet.

 

It was Sunday, right in the middle of the peak lunch hour when we went there so to some extent I wasn't surprised that it was fully-packed and there was a queue outside the restaurant. What's surprising though is how people in the queue were willing to wait for a seat rather than go somewhere else. I was especially intrigued by the roast chicken - it looked so soft and tender...juices slowly dripping off its skin...and so I was willing to brave the desperate hungry looks of my family members and sweetly smiled and passed around biscuits for us to eat while waiting. My husband gave me an exasperated look before munching on his biscuit.

 

Meanwhile, trying to be efficient, I grabbed a menu and started looking through items to order. Hmmm, soup, yes, salad, no...chicken, definitely...what else....sausages, no...pork belly, yes..... dessert...hmmm....I guess we'll go safe and order tiramisu...done and done. By the time we were seated, we straight away ordered.

 

And it was worth the wait.

 

 Poulet, where the specialty is poulet roti or roast chicken

 Lexi waiting for the chicken to arrive

 Lexi 'promoting' the poulet roti

Cream of mushroom soup. This was supposed to be for my daughter but it was so good I ended up eating half of it on the pretext of feeding her (Is this soup hot? Let me try. Um yup that's hot. Let me try again).

Pork belly. It looks pretty much like a blob on the picture but oh my goodness it was so rich and sinful my husband said he felt a stroke coming on after he ate it which prompted me to say maybe I should've married someone younger if you can't even handle this itty bitty pork belly.

And the star dish, the roast chicken in all its juicy goodness and swimming in a cream sauce. And yes, it was utterly delicious.

 

 

Poulet Restaurant
201 Victoria Street
Level 4 Bugis+, Singapore
Tel: +65 6509 9411
Daily: 11.30am – 9.30pm

Turning Japanese

As part of my resolution to try out new restaurants, I started looking for family-style establishments where I could bring the brood and eat good food without busting the household budget. This weekend we tried out a Japanese restaurant at Cuppage Plaza in Orchard called Izakaya Nijumaru. 

I saw an old review from renowned Singapore food blogger ladyironchef:

'Izakaya Nijumaru is a great hidden gem with good Japanese food at very affordable prices.'

Well that's a good enough endorsement for me, so off we went to Cuppage Plaza.

We entered this rather old building and looked for the restaurant - you'll see this bright green can't miss it sign and you'll know you've arrived.

It's a bad menu. All words no visuals. But if you frequent Japanese restaurants you'll find most of the standards here. We went for the Oyakodon, Kastsudon, Hire Katsu Sets and Chawanmushi. 

It's fairly small and all the tables and seats are really close to each other. When you're inside you'll be immediately transported to Japan. 70% of the customers who were there at the time were all Japanese.

This is a shot of the Hire Katsu set. Quite affordable given that it was SGD11.50 in 2010 and only increased price to SGD13 in 2012. It wasn't as good as the one at Tonkichi but given that the one at Tonkichi is around SGD23, I'd say it's still pretty good value for money. The Oyakodon was pretty good too, and for SGD8, I'd say it was a steal.  

Feeding oranges to the baby. She loved it because it was quite sweet. She also loved the sticky rice, soft tofu and the chawanmushi.

We're definitely adding this restaurant to our list of favorites.

Izakaya Nijumaru

5 Koek Road #02-09 Cuppage Plaza Singapore