Singapore Food Log: Set Lunch at Pollen, Garden by the Bay
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If you have this fantasy of having a garden tea party in Singapore, you may want to check out Pollen. Located at one corner of Flower Dome, the largest glass greenhouse in the world (oh wow, I didn’t know it before I did research for this post) recorded on 2015 Guinness Book of World Records, Pollen is easy to miss if you wander around from the Flower Dome section. Since the entrance to Pollen is not easily spotted, it’ll be better off to make reservation prior to dining at Pollen. Upon making reservation, an email will be sent to you to inform that someone will pick you up near the taxi stand at flower dome’s entrance area. You should really take this offer because walking to Pollen is not near especially if you have kids/ elders tagging alone.
Once you are driven safely to Pollen’s entrance, you will be directed to the dining area depending on what you have booked e.g. lunch/ afternoon tea. If you are taking lunch, you will be led to the dining area at level 1 where I was directed to. On the other hand, the afternoon tea which starts at 3PM will be held at the terrace at level 2. When I was making my way to the our table, I could not help but glancing toward that table full of cheese. I kinda wonder how to enjoy those cheese platter in the right way because I just simply did not understand how to enjoy it when I went for cheese tasting in Yarra Valley two years ago. Maybe I am just not posh enough. LOL.
Anyway, enough about cheese and let’s go into the menu. Pollen has course lunches and you can choose between 3-courses or 5-courses lunch. Our team budget has only enough $ for the 3-courses lunch so I only focus my decision making on that particular lunch menu XD. The good part about eating together in a team is that there will be enough people to order different kind of food and we eventually will be able to taste 90% of what Pollen offers in their 3-courses lunch (because nobody is vegan and hence, nobody wanted to order the pumpkin risotto). Do you know what people usually do after they finish ordering? They either stare into their phone, make some comments about the restaurant setting and take picture of the plate because the plate happens to be kinda nice.
The 3-course lunch includes 2 appetisers which the waiter/ waitress will explain about how to eat, what is it made for, etc etc. Not sure if I got this correct but the first appetiser taste a bit like cheesy puree on top of crackers which then garnished with bits of spring onion. If that is not confusing enough, the second appetiser is even harder to understand because it seems to have something like yoghurt, with biscotti and drenched in wine sauce. Oh gosh, I feel so apologetic toward Pollen’s chefs because I am so lousy at explanation but anyway, I don’t think they care. I like the first appetizer because it’s salty and crusty while the second one hmm, I don’t know, I just don’t understand despite finishing the biscotti.
One of our team member was absent on that day, so we kinda used up his portion of the budget to order the ham and a basket of bread. But we ended up with so many bread because the course lunch also includes complimentary bread. The team seems to have many bread-eater though so I suppose that’s a good surplus of bread. I don’t think I have anything memorable to share except for the fact that olive + butter + bread + ham overall gives your tastebud a salty sensation. Some of the bread is crunchy though and I live crunchy bread hehe. If you ask me, I’d rather order a basket of calamari rather than ham and bread but oh boy, isn’t that so not befitting of the place? Such an ignorant brat, me.
While I was still munching my crunchy bread, my choice of appetizer has finally arrived on the table. I did not feel like eating cold appetizer so I could only order Sweet Potato and Salted Egg Tart. I love sweet potato although I don’t think it goes well with salted egg. I don’t know if I ate too much bread + sweet potato tart, I kinda feel halfway full at this point before even having my main dish. Oh no, this is not a good tummy management.
There are three choices of main courses (oh wait, four actually if you consider the risotto) to choose from: seabass, lamb or beef. I was kinda torn between the beef and seabass but eventually decided to go with the Pan fried seabass. The dish is quite good and the portion of the fish given is pretty generous but what enticed me the most is the basil spatzle. I thought spatzle is some kind of pasta but it turns out to be soft egg noodle found in the cuisines of Southern Germany and Austria region (thanks Wikipedia). That’s pretty unique and I kinda love it because it’s kinda similar to pasta and it works well with the white sauce used to garnish the seabass. I tried a piece of the beef tenderloin but I found it to be too raw. I did not recall the wairess ask about how does my colleague want the tenderloin to be cooked though. Hmm, maybe it’s defaulted to be medium-rare. The NZ lamb does not look a lot so I was kinda shy to ask for a bite. Hahaha. I do have some manners, after all.
At last, it’s dessert time and Pollen has three kind of desserts in the 3-course lunch menu (uhh, no cheese is not dessert in my book): frozen strawberry sponge, lamington cake and apple tarte tartin. The apple tarte tartin is however for two person portion. Geez, why can’t they create a smaller one for individual portion? Since someone else has ordered this dessert and it seems to be huge, I opted for the frozen strawberry sponge instead. It looks so instragrammable in pink although taste wise, I think the lamington cakes (which is hidden underneath the white meringue dome) taste the best for me. The apple tart was too sweet for my liking and the ice cream makes it even sweeter. Sweetness overload I suppose. But that did not stop us from eating the complimentary lavender chocolates and passionfruit chocolate coins though. Chocolate is always a good closing act for every dining moment, don’t you agree?
While the cost of the 3-course lunch seem to be on par with hotel lunch buffet, I feel it’s worth the cost because in addition to the fulfilling meal, you still have free access to the Flower Dome (otherwise, you need to pay for SGD 12 if you are Singapore resident, and even maybe SGD 16 if you are not resident). And it’ll be good to walk off what you have eaten at Pollen while enjoying the view of the beautiful flowers.
