&Made by Bruno Menard

C says:

I love stumbling upon a new food gem when you least expect it. We had originally planned for a simple dinner at Cine Cafe after catching a movie, but decided to try &Made instead, since it was still pretty empty at about 6.45.

Bruno Menard was a 3-Michelin star chef at L’Osier in Tokyo, till the building in which his restaurant was located closed for renovations. During a guest chef stint at Jaan, he met up with Olivier Bendel of the Deliciae group (responsible for Sabio and L’Entrecote) and decided to collaborate with the group to open &Made by Bruno Menard at Pacific Plaza. The name &Made is actually meant to be a pun on how the French pronounce “handmade”, with a silent “h”.

The food served here is decidedly not fine dining, conceptually, but make no mistake – there’s still no lack of care and thought in both the menu and the execution of the dishes. The concept is casual, everyday food, but done well. The menu comprises a few salads (including some Salads to Drink, which we’ll try the next time), and either burgers or Toastoos as the main event.

The Toastoo is a bit of a cross between a toastie sandwich and a crepe – they use buckwheat crepes with a sandwich maker, with fillings ranging from ratatouille, ham and cheese, and the Viking which A ordered – smoked salmon, broccoli and curry cream cheese. Not exactly ingredients that you’d expect to see together, and could’ve gone really wrong, but somehow everything went together really well.

The 3 Little Pigs burger consists of a pork, bacon and chorizo patty, with shredded cabbage, a yuzu-kosho mayonnaise and Japanese pickles. I loved this – best burger I’ve had in a while. Incredibly, all 3 flavours were discernible in the patty, which was perfectly cooked and juicy. The condiments, again, complemented each other perfectly. I read somewhere that the ingredient pairings for each dish are the result of careful deliberation, so requests to “hold the pickle” or similar are not encouraged.

The burger came with shoestring fries and their homemade BBQ sauce, which was less a sauce and more of a onion chutney of sorts. It had a slightly Asian twist and went really well with the fries.

We passed on dessert, but after reading some reviews after dinner, we really should have ordered the Lollipop Waffle. It looks almost like a flattened churros on a stick, and comes with 3 dips - dark chocolate, white chocolate and caramel. They also have a hot caramel lava cake which, if the caramel isn't too sweet, sounds like a piece of heaven.

To me, the mark of a great place is when you're already planning your next visit before you're even done paying the bill. That happens every time we go to Esquina, and SPR MRKT too because of their elusive daily menu. Now we can add &Made to that list.

A says:

So awesome. This could be my new fav place in town.

&Made

9 Scotts Road

#01-04/05/06 Pacific Plaza

Tel: 6732-9808

Sun – Thurs: 10 am to 10 pm

Fri & Sat: 10 am to 12 mn