My recent trip home served more of the purpose of immersing myself totally into the Singaporean culture/food that did not exist elsewhere; hokkein mee and prata and chilli crab and carrot cake and sentosa and the gardens and ku de ta and the like. But every once in a while one does need to sit down in an atas environment, preferably surrounded by green lushness, and likely frequented by the casual ang moh in her yoga wear and doggie in the middle of a weekday. Nothing quite beats good old sweaty hawker food, but there must be appreciation for everything else that is good in a different way.
Spruce. Very tucked away and pleasant ambiance apart from the fighting ang moh couple next to us whom we tried very hard to ignore due to extreme awkwardness. The lady was throwing a silent tantrum and refused to eat her $20 lox and cream cheese and not a word was exchanged the entire time. Woops.
Eggs benedict was fine, the saving grace was the corn waffle beneath it that provided some interesting sweetness and texture that raised it a teensy step above a regular eggs benedict. But then, I am hyper-critical of eggs benedict given the number of really amazing ones I've had. So ... not bad but wouldn't return for it.
The advice we had going in was to ignore the brunch items because anything they made, I could probably make just as well on my own. Yes, that is the sad downfall of being able to cook--things that used to be WOW become yeahhhh-I-could-make-that-myself. Snob, I know. So anyway we got a burger which was ... also fine.
Overall it was LOVELY ONLY BECAUSE COMPANY WAS LOVELY, otherwise, a place to relax and nibble and be seen but overrated in my opinion.
Then, D and I tried Jones the Grocer.
An Australian concept, I believe, and actually had inspiring pancakes. Coconut, with mango, and why don't we ever eat pancakes with ice cream around here?? They need to do that more often.
The bread with the "BLT" was lovely, crisp, herby, and the "L" in the "BLT" was watercress I believe which was a lovely touch. The tomatoes were thick and seasoned. I thought the details were impressive.
And this was classic Singaporean customer service, where we wanted hot water for our teapot and were refused because it was policy not to be able to refill teas. We managed to weasel out a cup of boiling water from the server which we poured into our teapot and refilled ourselves. It was bizarre and an embarrassment from the outside looking in but if you know anything about (poor) Singaporean service, it was all rather ordinary actually.
Sitting outside on an unusually cool day, people watching without deadlines and without anywhere important to be or important to do. Thumbs up to vacations.
