Instead of our weekly jaunt to Vivocity for lunch, my colleagues decided to be "adventurous" and venture out of the 3km radius around our office. One of them recommended that we take a drive to Portsdown Road as there were a couple of nice places which has since opened. I thought, why not, seeing how I have been stuffing my face with food court fare for the past couple of weeks. Economic crisis mah...

Took a drive and ended up at Cicada because.... well, for no particular reason although I suspect the carpark outside Pietrasanta was more crowded may have helped in our decision.

We all set inside as it was one of sweltering hot days. Although, I would imagine, in the evening, this would be a cool place to hang out. The 3 course set lunch was $24++. All of us started with the rocket salad.I am not a fan of vegetables (although I am still on a food intake management programme :-p) but I must say, the combination of melted cheese, charred corn and rocket leaves sure is delish! The ribeye sandwich is a teenie weenie bit disappointing because the bread was good, the mesclun side salad was good, the wedges were good, the caramelised onions were good BUT the actual steak was a wee bit tough. But dessert saved the day. We had the assorted French pastries and the mango (what I think is a variaton of the cream puff) with vanilla ice-cream. Superb. Absolutely superb. A cup of Illy's coffee (which is part of the set) was the cherry on the proverbial icing on the cake.

Service was great and all in all, a pretty satisfying lunch.

All we need to do now is open a chain in Brunei :-p