It was our club’s first outing since the updated constitution was put in place, and it was none other than our club’s namesake himself that had the good fortune of experiencing the new rules in action. Originally, the lunch had been scheduled for January 13th, but apparently for some reasons related to dancing, Businessman was obliged to postpone the lunch by a week. Lucky for him, with the new amendments in place, he could invoke his one free postponement pass without penalty or prejudice.
Owing to the usual poor communication between driver and party, the prezzie, cameraman and I were left waiting aimlessly at the lobby for our ride. Thankfully, businessman offered his BMW640 as our ride, and we figured that all the important members (i.e. paymaster, prezzie, cameraman and writer) were present for the lunch to proceed.
Our polished flashy white car arrived at the white rabbit in playboy-esque style, although cameraman and I were rather contorted during the rider at the back of the car. For anyone taller than 1.60m, you have to spread your legs WIDE in order not to have your legs hit the back of the front seat, and according to Jason Lau, there may be some intention in this (and I figured he bought the car for this intention as well). So ladies reading this blog, a HOT TIP! Please be aware, all attires are ok for front seat passengers of BMW640s, but pants and jeans only for back seat ones (midgets are excluded of crse). If however you were unlucky enough not to own any of such items in your wardrobe, extra effort in choosing the right set of underwear will go a long way.
We proceeded to wait for our table to be prepared at the bar area which provided a magnificent view of the interior of what was once a chapel.
After about 10 minutes of gazing and vegetating, we were ushered to our circular booth seats at the far corner of the restaurant.
We were provided with both the ala carte and set menus, and at this point were promptly reminded by the paymaster that notwithstanding this was the eve of the eve of the eve of the Chinese New Year, there was to be no unusual extravagance beyond the usual BMC standards. Amazingly at this point MG and Dann suddenly appeared like rabbits out of a hole just in time for lunch. I decided to throw in my 20 cents worth of table talk by reminding Businessman of the new minimum spending rules, and subtly mentioned that 6 set lunches at S$38++ won’t get him there.
Given the limited selection made more limited by the fact that they were not serving oxtail for the starter or main, our aggregate orders more or less selected most of the rest. I was rather disappointed with not being able to try the oxtail as I consider myself to be quite adept at making a mean oxtail stew (with white wine rather than red… somehow it tastes much better with white although red usually comes to mind when u experiment with red meat). Businessman also offered up 2 extra starters from the ala carte menu in order to meet the minimum spending rule.
As with most European/modern European restaurants, our meal started off with a choice of ciabatta or olive roll, for which everyone promptly chose both (seems to be the standard club order these days), and for the greedier amongst us, both and both again. Unanimously everyone agreed that the ciabatta was nothing to shout about and the olive roll was clearly the better of the 2. The butter provided was also flat out ordinary, so no point sacrificing cholesterol points here.
Of the starters that we had, the tastiest and least common was probably the baked camembert parcel. The camembert cheese went well with the sweet roasted red capsicums.
The tuna Carpaccio was so-so and at the initial glance looked more like salmon than tuna.
The rustic mushroom soup was not well taken by the party. I personally felt it was okay, but these days, most people who have been fed on the thick puree like version of mushroom soups owing to the added cream, may find this rather consommé like soup more eastern than western style.
The other starters that we ordered were the escargots and foie gras from the ala carte menu. The escargots were a disappointment, but the foie gras was respectable, although cameraman confided in me later after lunch that after swallowing a huge chunk of the liver, he felt rather sick (boys…. so you know how come there was so little to go around during lunch!).
On to the main course, we had the Spinach Tagliatelle, Mac and Cheese, Poached Seabass and a sirloin steak which was a replacement for the oxtail that was not available.
Overall the Spinach Tagliatelle and Seabass were agreeable, but the Mac & Cheese and Steak were a disappointment.
For desert, we had the warm sticky toffee pudding, Baked Alaska as well as valrhona chocolate tart. I would say that desert is the white rabbit’s best suit. The pudding I had was nice and warm with the right texture and gooiness which went well with the ice cream.
The baked Alaska was also sweet and tasty, although there were complaints from some quarters on why the torching of the meringue was not done on the spot with a blow torch (luckily an improvisation by MG with his lighter was done on the spot).
And finally the Chocolate tart, which was also decent, but would have been excellent had it been accompanied by a good cup of coffee.
The final bill came to S$342.51, which based on the prevailing EUR/SGD exchange rate of just over 1.65 was comfortably within the club’s new EUR180 minimum spend threshold.
Overall, the white rabbit, whilst not a SLASP, is also not a likely candidate for a return trip, except maybe for desert and the ambience. The service however was excellent as we experienced this first hand. A ponding like rainfall took hold just as we finished our meal and owing to a lack of a porch, we were escorted to our car by the waiters.
Thankfully it was Dann’s E250 which took us back, as it was definitely more spacious at the back especially after a heavy meal!
By: Club Scribe
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