Basil Alcove

Dinner was at Basil Alcove. Read about it from liquidshadow's blog. We were won over by the prices on the review. Took a short walk from SMU over to Fortune Centre at Middle Road. As we were approaching Fortune Centre, i made a phone call to the place and the chef who answered was giving me instructions and was waving to me at his side of the road. We were amazed by how he recognised that it was us.

We took seats on the inside of the place...



The walls were very nicely painted. After chatting with the chef (Xander Ang) after the dinner, realised that the walls were painted for him by a friend of his. Its a really pretty piece of work with butterflies and some designs... i like it.

Their menu....



At really affordable prices.

When Xander pulled a chair and sat down to make his recommendations, we could already feel the warmth of his hospitality...



Initially, we were a lil disappointed that many of the popular dishes were not available anymore. Reason being, they will be closed tml for about 4 days, reopening on 25th Oct, to take a break, do some maintainence of the place and come up with a new menu for the month of November. Both lil bee and myself think its really cool of them to do that.. and that's not a common practice for restaurants in Singapore.

The place is operated mainly by their own family members so its very cosy. After recommending us the dishes, Xander went back to his kitchen to whip up the dishes for us.....



some condiments of cheese, chilli flakes and olive oil were served to us...



First to be served to us was the caesar salad ($4.80)....



The caesar salad was so good. I like the sauce be it in terms of taste of quantity. U know how sometimes some ceasar salad comes with very lil sauce and you feel that you cant get enough of it? Well, the amount of sauce was just right. I also like it for the fact that they added raisins. A nice combination. Real bacon was used instead of the artifical bacon bits that some other eateries uses. Truly value for money. Thumbs up!

We also had a soup.. mushroom soup ($3.50)....



The mushroom soup was cooked using shitake mushrooms. Lil bee didnt quite like the taste. I found it alright. It definitely didnt feel like it was some canned cream soup but i found the taste a lil too bland. Later while chatting with Chef Xander, we realised its coz he usually doesnt add much salt to his food. He lets his guests decide on the level of taste because taste is subjective. Some guests might like it more saltish den others. The bread on top was really good.. there was melted cheese topped off the nicely toasted bread. You guys know im not a bread person but i just couldnt resist having a piece of it.

Next up was shrimps aglio olio ($5.90)...



This is actually not on the menu. What they had was bacon and mushroom aglio but lil bee requested for seafood aglio. Xander offered to prepare shrimps aglio for lil bee. The two mussels was added in because we had wanted to order their sides of mussels (cooked in white wine sauce i think) but it was out of stock and he had only 2 mussels left so he was nice enuff to add it in for us. The good thing about small family style eateries like these is personalisation. Sweet!

The pasta was really good. There was melted cheese on top. Shrimps were fresh and crunchy. Their aglio olio was not the really spicy kind but the flavour was there. If you want it more spicy, you can add ur own chilli flakes. It was really good and for that price, its really worth it.

Next up was the chicken with avocado and tomato salad ($5.90)...



with that kind of presentation, portion and garnishing, this is easily comparable to those upper class restaurants that charge their mains at around $20 odd? But no, over here, its only $5.90!

A close up of the chicken...



The chicken was the tender parts. The avocado was somewhat like guacamole but Chef Xander made them them himself.

The sides was potato gratin...



the potato gratin was also very good.

Being greedy, we ordered another mains to share. We had the chef special of the day.. fish and bacon ($12)....



Detailed look of the fish....



as you can see from the picture, theres a top and bottom layer. Both layers are slightly different. One is the bacon wrapped around the fish. Another is the fish wrapped round the bacon. I can't remember which is which. Lil bee loved this item. The fish was dory and it was juicy and yummy.

The sides was also the potato gratin topped with.. hmm.. some vege which i duno the name...



Soft drinks are served at $1.20 per can.

As we were one of the last few guest for the night, Chef Xander was chatting up with us. We had a great chat with him and Sok Wah. They were really friendly people. A brief chat with Chef Xander and you probably can feel that passion that he has for food and cooking. It was such delight hearing him share his stories. Lil bee was especially excited because we all love to see people who are able to pursue after their passion and achieve something out of it. There was some point when we joked about Chef Xander being the Robinhood of the cooking world. haha..

Chef Xander would tell you how happy it makes him feel when he sees customers enjoying the food and leaves with a smile. Sok Wah also shares my view about achieving orgasm from food. Muahaha... oh.. maybe if you can show Chef Xander how much u really enjoy his food when first dish is served (hint: close ur eyes and display an expression of intense enjoyment.. haha!), u can be assured the rest of the dishes are gonna be at its finest!

The chat we had was truly interesting and engaging. We stayed on even after their closing hours because the chat was so good. Lil bee and myself truly enjoyed ourselves.

Chef Xander...



if you ask me, we're definitely going back to Basil Alcove. Food is great, service is excellent, pricing is fantastic.

Gotta note though, there might be slight adjustments in the price after the November menu comes out. But for this quality of food, a slight adjustment in our view is still gonna be reasonable.