STI: Consuming passions

Dec 12, 2004
Consuming passions
by Teo Pau Lin

Green piece in a Pod

Vanilla Pod
200 Mandai Lake Road
Tel: 6368-0672
Opens: Noon to 2.30pm, 7 to 9.30pm; closed on Mondays

IT'S so pretty here, you might end up looking more at the view than at your food.

This two-month-old Italian restaurant is a plant-lover's paradise. Plonked in the heart of Mandai Orchid Garden, its greenhouse-like glass walls offer soothing views of its 4 ha greenery and over 200 species of orchids.

The garden has been a tourist attraction for over 30 years, and its owners decided this year to open a restaurant here.

'There was the initial worry that it's a bit out of the way, but we think Singaporeans would like some place new where they needn't grapple with traffic,' says Ms Monique Heah, 38, the daughter of one of the shareholders.

The garden is located on the road leading up to the Singapore Zoological Gardens and the Night Safari.

Favourite dishes include lobster pasta ($35), lamb shank ($26), and crabmeat tagliatelle ($18).

Former CEO is at your service

Poison Ivy
100 Neo Tiew Road
Tel: 6898-5001
Opens: 9am to 6pm; Wednesdays to Sundays only

APART from the vast blue skies and its 4 ha organic fruit and vegetable farm, the biggest attraction here is probably the co-owner herself, Mrs Ivy Singh-Lim.

Flamboyant and feisty, the 55-year-old president of the Netball Association is pointed about why people should visit her bistro, Poison Ivy, in faraway Kranji.

'Why leave Singapore to holiday in the countryside when we have our own right here?' she says.

Tucked along the vegetable and fish farming belt of Neo Tiew Road, her Bollywood Veggies farm is near the Sungei Buloh nature reserve, which she calls Singapore's 'national treasure'.

 Her 50-seat bistro sits right at the entrance of the farm and overlooks the expansive vegetation.

'This is an extension of our farm business. We want to create a place where people can drive to, stay and just have coffee. In developed countries, city people all want to return to nature,' she says.

The menu offers simple curries, snacks and cakes. Customers will be served by none other than Mrs Singh-Lim herself and her husband, former chief executive of NTUC FairPrice, Mr Lim Ho Seng, 61.

'That's the charm of this place, to have a former CEO serve you. Don't you think it's fabulous?' she says with a chuckle.

As many as 50 families troop in over the weekends. The bistro has played host to singer-composer Dick Lee's birthday party, as well as a wedding between two young architects.

Order the curry ($5), banana cake ($2), vadai ($1) and, Mrs Singh-Lim insists, the coffee, 'because it's made by yours truly'.

Galley is making waves

Galley By The Straits
SAF Yacht Club
43 Admiralty Road West
Tel: 6757-9026
Opens: 11am to 10pm daily

TO GET here, you first have to drive past Sembawang army camp, over a few bumpy dirt tracks and past an unappetising stretch of steel containers.

But once inside the SAF Yacht Club, you'd be rewarded with a startling view of the sea, and across it, the Johor Baru skyline.

Claiming to be the 'northern-most' restaurant in Singapore, this seafood joint spans two floors and a boardwalk that allows you to eat romantically close to the waves.

Owner Jimmy Sim, 54, took over the space two years ago, believing that despite its little-known address, customers would be lured by the waterfront.

And true enough, it is now frequented by corporate types who work in the Sembawang area and families over the weekends.

'They came to know about us, and just kept coming,' he says.

He adds that the best time to come is between 7 and 7.30pm, when the sun sets and the waters slowly get illuminated by lights on the ships.

Try the fish head curry (from $20), marsala fish and chips ($13) and soft-shell crab (from $12).

Eat under an Angsana

Sunset Grill & Pub
140B Piccadilly, Seletar Airbase (from Piccadilly, turn into Lambeth Walk, Hampstead Gardens, Western Avenue, into East Camp, all the way to Singapore Flying Club)
Tel: 6482-0244
Opens: 4 to 10pm; closed on Tuesdays

THIS place is so remote that some sections of the road are not paved. Other parts have no street lamps so at night, you have to turn on your car's high beams.

If you're taken here on a first date, you might even be suspicious enough to jump out of the car mid-way should your date reveal himself to be a serial killer.

But once you get to the restaurant, it is really quite a treat.

You sit on a wooden deck under a huge Angsana tree and tuck into steak and pasta with 1980s music playing on Gold 90.5FM.

The affable husband-and-wife owners are likely to say hi and chit-chat. And as the restaurant sits at one end of Seletar Airbase, you might even catch the odd plane taking off.

American Jerry Griffis, 71, set up shop here in March, after selling off his previous outlet, Buckaroos Grill, in Andrews Avenue in Sembawang, two years ago.

His choice of locales is offbeat because 'I like greenery and there's not much of it left in Singapore', he says.

The food, while hearty and amply portioned, is not cheap. A two-course meal for two can come to more than $80, without wine.

We loved the buffalo wings, which come in three levels of spiciness (from $14.50 for six wings), Caesar salad ($10.50) and lamb chops ($22.50).