Portobelle Cafe & Restaurant

128 Killiney Road
Singapore 239960
Tel: 6737 7127

August 01, 2006

The 1st time I had of this place is through a Channel 8 9pm drama show. I overheard "Du De Wei" saying: Portebelle serves the best pasta, mama mia. Till now i remember it by hard and after looking at the I-S Guide on the good comments, I die die also wanna come here & eat.

Pulled the reluctant meow along with me for dinner after work. Navigating our way along killiney for some time before we managed to find it. Shop location was not very ideal, kind of out of the way.

We took a step in and was very surprised by the small area of the restaurant, inside only occupy 4 to 5 tables, outside another 2 to 3. There were already one group of expats drinking outside when we arrived. We choose for the indoor seat. The whole place seems old with limited lightings. And there are only 2 pax taking care of this place as far as I know, kitchen not very sure.

We were trying hard to browse the menu when one of the guy came over and ask us for drinks. We kindly reject as still can't make up our mind. After 10 mins, we still can't make up our mind as the food listed on menu don't seem tempting. Then the guy pressed us to make drinks order again and began asking us if we want lime, lemon or etc drinks. We just anyhow make our choice or drinks to be done with his pestering first.

After which, then we realised their freaking choking drink is @ $6 per glass. The lime juice totally choke up my throat as it is too sour. Mel's ice tea is too sweet as he added in too much sugar syrup.

When our starter came, which is foccacia garlic bread, we were turned off by the huge amount of olive oil on it. Our bread was totally soaked in a basket of oil, dripping & soggy. Though the garlic spread is good, we were trying hard to drip off all the oil.

The main course were the lamb shank & pizza. The lamb shank has a strong mutton foul smell, and the pasta that came along were very dry. And we definitely ordered the wrong pizza. Coz it was filled with chilli padi all over, too much for us to handle. On the menu indicates chilli, but god knows it was chilli padi. And the pizza was also very oily.

We had a hard time consuming the food and in the end, requested the left over pizzas to be packed and take away. Bill came as a shocking near $70 for the items ordered. Terrible.

Rating: 4/10

Movenpick Marché Restaurant

260 Orchard Road, B1-01/03,
The Heeren Mall
Singapore, 238855
Tel: 67376996

Feb 14, 2006

It's Valentine's Day where couples are stupidly being chopped by expensive dining & happy faces florists. Me & Meow are one of them, as Meow bought me a huge bunch of pink roses for me...*sweet*. As not to splurge further, we thought of dining at Marche as not very high end, and we doubt ppl will go there to makan on Vday as not romantic.

And much to our surprise, it's super long queue and stated on the entry, minimum spending of $50.00 for 2 pax....so they are also money sucker when it comes to Vday. We have actually eaten here quite a no of times while we're still schooling, but always find that not much varieties, mainly pizza/pasta stall, vegetable stall, seafood stall, fried corner stall, drinks stall, bread stall, rosti stall, meat stall and dessert stall, expensive & very little portion. As just one slice of mini chicken breast already more than $10, super not worth it. Therefore have stopped patronising there. This is considered our first step in after so many years later.

As usual, we ordered their famous rosti sour cream with snail sausage, the scrap off cheese thingy, my favourite ice cream waffle, 1 root beer float & etc. We didn't eat a lot and it is easy to just hit $50.00 with a few items, haha.

Final Verdict: But of coz, it is still a nice place to dine if you haven't dine here for a long time, a novelty idea. And, when u dine here, don't forget to buy the waffle & put lots of maple syrup.

Rating: 7/10