Ochre

today we celebrate vreniz's birthday. we decided to break away from our lawrys tradition and vreniz gave me the task of selecting a nice and good place. Ochre came to mind because if lionel can choose this venue for his wedding, this place must be good!



located at level 11 of orchard central....








one pick of this place is how despite it (kind of) being a fine dining place, they pack the guests together. when we got there, there was only about 3 tables of people but they had to pack us side by side. the tables were so near we can really hear each other's conversations which can be quite uncomfortable. in my view they can easily sit us further away since there were so many other vacant tables around.

we were first served the complimentary bread basket...



i like the bread they offered, the one with tomatoe on top. and they gave out a special dip. its a tuna dip....



its really yummy! i had two servings of the dip! vreniz initially didn't try it until much later and suddenly in the midst of our conversation she went.. " zhe ge hen hao chi!! " hahaha

for starter, we had a grilled octopus thingy...



hmm.. i didnt find it really good. it was a little boring to me. the texture was ok, not the bouncy kind that i like but it was not hard either. but vreniz liked it. she said its quite nice and she said that coming from her who doesnt really eat octopus.

for mains, vreniz chose a duck confit...



the duck confit was not bad. vreniz liked it.

i chose the veal cheeks...



the veal cheeks were put together into a block.... a small block (so small :( )



the texture was alright.. although i prefer it in bigger chucks.

they also had a truffled potato croquette. it was pretty nice.

so naturally, the small block of veal cheeks were not enough to satisfy me so i went ahead to order another main. its a veal chop which is not on their menu. they informed us of their chef special for the day before we placed our order. i saw the lady beside me order it and it looks damn fine!



i heard the lady order a medium rare earlier and i heard her vaguely mention that its a little too done. so when i placed my order, i was very clear to mention medium RARE and i said it clearly twice.

it still came medium...



i pointed it out to the server who brought it to the kitchen and brought it back to me to insist this is medium rare. not very happy .. not the kind of service i'd expect but ok. the taste was not bad and it was relatively tender. would be much better if its done medium rare (for me).

a tiramisu cake for vreniz...



their tiramisu is reallllly good. its really moist below. i really really like it.