Au Jardin Les Amis

I suffer from a funny but very typically Singaporean ailment. When I go overseas, I'm happy to pay loads and wads of cash at fine restaurants, but when I come back here, I scoff at anything above a hundred dollars a head. I know. I need therapy I think....
The logic is simple. The food in Singapore is so delicious, so yummy, so accessible, that to think of food as any other experience is almost impossible. To think of a dining experience in Singapore as a place where you can have a romantic dinner, chat, talk, remember the good ol days, well it's all a bit too much when you're trying to slurp the noodles and eat the wagyu beef.
I know. It pisses my wife off tremendously too.
So, C and I have been looking for romantic places to have dinner. And I hesitated when I thought of this place. I mean Au Jardin is almost something out of a hollywood film. The beautiful, calm setting in the botanic gardens, the colonial house, the wonderful lighting, its almost too good to be true.... I think if you decided to bring your first date here, its almost as if she knows she's being wooed. Deliberately. 
And I hate that. I hate going to obvious places. I hate sending flowers on valentines day. I hate all these very obvious romantic gestures. It smacks of a lack of imagination, sort of like when you watch Iron Chef, and you see the Iron Chef puts uni and foie gras on everything, even when the mystery ingredient is cabbage. "Oh here's Iron chef now wrapping Foie Gras and uni in Cabbage". 
Bringing a date to Les Amis Au Jardin to me feels very much lilke that.... throwing money at the problem.
Well at least that part of the experience was correct. This place makes buying a gucci bag look like a frugal experience. For the record, the degustation is 200 dollars, and the 4 course "a la carte" is 150 dollars.
Anyway on to the experience, and when I went up, I was pleasantly surprised. The decor is impeccable, the beautiful colonial surroundings, the china with orchid motif, the paintings, the lighting, and most importantly, discreet service. 
I almost thought discreet service went the way of the Dodo in Singapore. But this place, the service was very very close to the best I've seen internationally. It was just a nice comfy and attentive service level.
C and I opted for the a la carte option. It wasn't that the degustation was more expensive, it was just that for me, if I was going to eat here, I wanted to eat a meal, not 7 small bites of cute and stylish things. I wanted a soup, or a starter, or a proper main course, a nice dessert, a plate of cheese, and a bottle of great wine. I thoroughly recommend this approach to this place than the degustation, which everyone seems to want to do nowadays.
The meal was great. and the Wine list is huge. 
So the point is, I'm going to have to succumb to coming back to Au Jardin. After all, its a beautiful dining experience, I didn't want to leave, I was happy to sit there and chat away, and so what if its an obvious choice to have a romantic dinner. I'm going to have to make sure I come back at least once a quarter. 
Word of warning though, if you don't like a fine dining experience, then this place is not for you. You just won't feel its worth paying that much money. But just think of it not as a SGD 500 dollar meal, but a SGD 250 dollar meal with 150 for rental of the ambience...... does that mental accounting make sense to everyone? If you don't want the ambience, try Iggys, try something else. 
But for that traditional, french dining experience, the beautiful china, the discreet service, I'm so glad I found a place which can be up there with Daniels in NYC, Joel R. in HK, etc. 
:) Btw I never thought I would ever write such a glowing review of this place.....

 

Am I the only one unimpressed by Au Jardin or what?

1. Imagine my disappointment when the menu presented was totally different from the online menu (which is far more interesting), sigh.

2. Point 1 wouldn’t matter if the food itself was good. Since it’s under the Les Amis group, I expected the food to be above average but found it wanting instead. Blame me and my high expectations.

3. If there’s one thing I hate more than subpar food, it’s being rushed through a meal. I think the waiters were rushing the dishes as it was getting close to their closing time, double sigh.

Friday Luncheon ($45++) kicked off with a amuse bouche of bonito jelly emulsion, scallops and fish roe topped with seaweed. I thought this was a rather awkward combination as the natural sweetness of the scallops was overwhelmed by the salty essence.

I applaud the chef for his presentation of the crispy fried egg with filo crust topped with avruga caviar. I got all excited at the sight of that runny yolk! So I wasn’t prepared for the anticlimax that followed. Bland, bland, bland.

Finally, something I can say I truly like! Compared to the previous 2 dishes, ragout of Boston lobster with orange-vanilla foam was outstanding. I adored the succulent lobster and that hint of citrusy aftertaste. Brilliant.

My pan roasted baby threadfin with stewed split peas flavoured with dried seafood was so humdrum that I’m going to label it as “boring”.

The consensus at the table: Papillote of Japanese pumpkin with vanilla ice cream was the nicest part of the whole meal! I’m partial to anything pumpkin so I did enjoy the pairing of the sweet sweet pumpkin with crispy paper-thin wafer.

I’m confused now. On one hand, the food didn’t impress enough to make me eager to be back. On the other hand, I think Au Jardin really has the potential to wow and blow me away. Reckon it’s just not my lucky day today?

For photos/reviews, please visit My Food Sirens =)

Two if us went a a couple of weeks ago, but the food was nothing special, and it was all in all very expensive for what it was. Over fussy food that didn't taste great. I wouldn't waste your money - approx 500 for dinner for 2 including house wine. Also why so bright, not a romantic ambience. Service was good though.

We arrived at the Botanical Gardens and were duly ‘picked up’ by a member of the wait staff in a golf buggy. My better half realized that she needed batteries to power her camera (for the purpose of putting pictures up on her blog) and mentioned to the staff that she needed batteries.

We were the first guests to arrive and perused the menu. The option was an easy one and we decided to go with the four-course Table D’hote.

Ambience:

It was not difficult to see why this is one of the favourite places for a marriage proposal. The setting in 1920s restored bungalow is charming in the evening, and the chandelier dominating the balcony section provided a touch of class. It was great to be dining semi al fresco without having to battle the heat, given that it was an enclosed space looking out into greenery. We also had the joy of spotting a house lizard stuck on the outside side of glass enclosure, staring at us (or maybe our food).


Food:

Amuse Bouche
- This was pickled quail egg with a refreshing strawberry flavoured foamy liquid in a tube-shaped glass structure as a companion. The egg was refreshing but an issue with the liquid was that the texture somewhat resembled a milk shake and drinking from the glass proved a challenge.

Appetisers
- My partner chose the seared foie gras with duck tongue confit. The liver was nicely charred on the outside and still retained the melt-in-your-mouth texture. My option of grilled langoustine with aquatiane caviar was easy on the palate; the shell fish was fresh and very lightly grilled and the accompanying mango paired well with it.

Middle Course
- My partner went with the tortellini of maine lobster essence, and I was served a chicken consommé. The tortellini was enjoyable and as with my appetizer, this was a light dish that whipped upped my desire for more food.

Main Course
- I was not the least surprised when my partner opted for the grilled wagyu striploin and braised cheek. The wagyu striploin was very well marbled and was exactly medium rare. The glass of Bordeaux was a more than able companion. The braised cheek reminded me of my mum’s braised pork and it was nothing to shout about.
- I decided to have suckling pig with cider apple as my main. The skin was very crispy and I was delighted that the thin layer of meat was not fatty. My partner had a couple of nibbles at my main course and remarked that it was not as good as the version served at M on the Bund (Shanghai).

Dessert
- Against convention, my partner decided to have a cheese platters whereas I wanted to sample the aloe vera with granny smith apple. Midway through the course, my partner decided that she had had enough of the cheese (which ranged from mild to durian-esque) and we swapped desserts. For the record, the aloe vera was a light dessert.

We ended the meal with coffee with petit fours.

Service

When we mentioned that we needed to locate batteries, we did not realize that it was to be the mission of the service staff for the evening. First of all, another wait staff (not the one who chauffeured us in the buggy) came with 4 AA batteries (loose ones, probably from within the restaurant) which we needed. However, these were not alkaline batteries and provided little of adrenaline needed to work our camera into a frenzy. Naturally, we returned the batteries to the wait staff and thanked him. We assured the staff that we would do without our camera and lamented in private, that we would not be able to snap pictures. Fifteen minutes however, the wait staff came again and this time offered us 4 AA alkaline batteries (wrapped) and this time round there was no problem activating our camera. I think the staff went out of their way and for this we are thankful. During the meal, the service was also thoroughly professional, but not stiff.

Conclusion: Good food; nice ambience; impeccable service; with a price tag to match!

Finally tried les amis au jardins and it is indeed a solid fine dining establishment. My problem is that I am gradually realising that I'm not a huge fan of 7 miniature dishes that can be consumed in one bite, which is typically what fine dining is all about. But let me speak generally about the experience...

The ambience is very personal - dark, quiet and tucked away among lush vegetation. Nothing over the top about the interior, save for a beautiful chandelier, so it is definitely more classy than gaudy. The service is very attentive and discreet, you will get ushered 20m to the taxi pick up point at the end of your meal by a golf buggy, and the waiter will then stand by the road until your ordered cab comes.

I was most impressed by the wine list which spans 81 pages, and you can preview it on their website before you arrive. I had set my sights on a deuxieme crus St. Julien bottle, priced at what seemed like a bargain S$215. So sad that upon arriving, there was a small cross in pencil on the menu, softly telling me it was not available anymore. Nevertheless, still managed to pick up a 2000 St. Julien wine for under S$200, though not one of the top 2 tiers.

Sitting downstairs for a pre-meal drink was relaxing. There was no body else downstairs, and a kind of classical singing playing in the background. They don't serve peanuts with your drinks there - but light and crispy seaweed crackers! Nice innovation

Upstairs, as I say, nothing grandiose, but simple and comfortable. We both had the degustation menu for S$175. This consists of 7 dishes including ingredients such as Alaskan crab, seafood / sea urchin, Iberian ham, prawns, chicken broth, wagyu beef, cheese and spicy chocolate ice cream. I would say that each dish was definitely very tasty and enjoyable - they even managed to make eating sea urchin a pleasant experience. But in all honesty there just wasn't enough of each dish. You can finish it in one or two bites, and your stomach is left craving for more. So you then fill yourself up with bread until the next dish comes - which is of a totally different flavour - and so overwhelming your taste buds but never letting you actually sink your teeth into something before it is all gone. Add onto this a bottle of wine to consume, and you get a sensory overload but an experience that does not equate to the hearty satisfaction of a home-cooked meal, served 3 normal-sized courses.

I guess this is what is meant by fine dining, but to me its becoming more of a gimmicky scientific experiment (a la "molecular gastronomy") than a proper dining experience. Others I'm sure will disagree with me. But let me make a suggestion - an underrated experience of equal quality to Au jardins, but considerably cheaper (I think the degustation was c.S$130 per person), is Blu at the Shangri-La. It does not have the publicity, but it certainly has great view and the Chef actually comes out to talk to you about what you want to eat, which I think is a nice touch.

Last weekend....had the urge to go for a nice brunch....was one of the earliest to reach there...and only afew tables...so had the opportunity to sample the food as an early bird !

Wait....while looking at the selection...and looking at the price @ S$78 per pax...I felt kind of shortchange....I mean I'm not some " yao gui ".....but I've had a better selection in front of me like Raffles hotel & Absolute Haven...and way cheaper as well. Ok...told myself it could a magnificient main course waiting for me....but I was shocked that my main course being a steak is quite small....Ok...this time I really felt shortchanged....as I had set lunches at Au Jardin.... and I've never felt this way before...

To make matters worst....with this kind of economy, I don't think there are takers for such brunch....I would suggest AJ to increase the selection and a decent portion main course instead of what they've served me...which is really a joke !

The saving grace for AJ being...good service and attentive staffs at all times.

Will I be back for another brunch ? Nah....I'll rather spend half the amount at Absolute Haven....and get a better selection and portion. I think I'll stick with the set lunches here...

Great food, Awesome wine

Went there with overseas friend who's also a wine/food lover.

Night was just great.
Arrived at 0800PM, left around 1130PM.

Went for the 4 courses menu (was this otherwise degustation menu - did not have a la carte option saw on their website)

We started with Fruits de Mer / Alaskan King crab in the 2 different ways.
Portion are what it should be - lots of flavour, very delicate.

We followed it by Risotto (and not rissoto ^_^) and the scallops.
Perfect risotto, scallops a bit "hard" but very nice flavour again.

As main, lamb was juicy, soft, melting in the mouth, as same as the waguy.

Went of course for cheese as dessert, topped up with a glass of Suduiraud. How many restaurant do serve Blue cheese with honey ?? hummm wonderfull

Got a Leoville Barton 1985-Pichon Longueville 1996 and we end up with a Latour 1964 we cannot resist to.

Service was excellent and warm. Been joking with them all night long.
Got their golf car dropping us to the taxi they arranged for us.

General ambiance is common, what such kind of restaurant level should be, so nothing fancy about.

Great night, great food, great service, definitely a must go back atmosphere...

I'm going to just do a quick roundup of two meals I had here in the same review for convenience. Had dinner here a while back, and I must say that no matter how many times you see the facade, stepping into the old colonial house where Au Jardin is located is always slightly disconcerting (in a good way). The building is rather old, but has been maintained well (throwing lots of money at it helps), and retains much of its old world charm, carpeted wooden staircase and all.

Anyhow, service is always impeccable here, as one might expect of the flagship restaurant of the Les Amis group. Knowledgeable and well mannered, the wait staff were described by my friends as friendly and engaging when they dined there, but seemed to know to keep away and not bother my dinner party (we call that EQ! Very rare indeed).

The whole rigmarole of fine dining grates slightly when I go out to dinner in a famished state, especially the bells and whistles such as the server giving an extensive explanation on where the chicken I am about to consume was hatched, and how this affects its taste. I only object to this when I am hungry, which I was this night. Fortunately the staff here keep the presentation short and concise, and this is something many places need to learn to do if they wish to become part of the upper echelon of fine dining establishments.

Incidentally, the seafood crackers they serve as munchies while waiting for everyone to show up are amusing and somewhat unique. The bread served was rather ordinary, to be honest. Ordinary in the sense that its more or less what I'd expect of the place, warm, fluffy, crusty, a wide selection, but nothing really memorable stood out among the 3/4 types of bread I tried from their selection.

I'm not going to describe the degustation menu in detail, but three items stood out for me. The hokkaido tomatoes was the first. These were served on a large dish, the plating was beautiful, and the tomatoes were tiny and delicious. I still can't figure out why the tomatoes were served as a stand alone dish, however. Sure, they were probably the best tomatoes I've ever eaten, but I think the point I'm trying to make is fairly apparent.

The Alaskan crab was excellent as well, firm and rather tasty. The best course of the evening for me, however, was the wagyu beef cheek. Tender, juicy and very flavourful, it tasted like how all beef ought to taste, and really quieted the carnivore in me. Overall, dinner was excellent, more than satisfactory in all aspects, and quite memorable, if not precisely mind blowing. I believe that the petit fours served with coffee are also worth mention. I have a thing for caneles, and they serve really good caneles here! I always ask for a second helping, so don't skip these even if you're stuffed. The coffee is also very good.

I recently made a return here for Sunday brunch. For $70+++ per adult, you get to partake of their buffet selection, as well as 1 serving of eggs done however you'd like, and 1 main course. I had eggs benedict (didn't dare to ask for the 65 degree egg), and beef cheek for my main. There were 2 other choices for mains, one was pasta with maine lobster, and the other I really cannot recall.

We started with the buffet counter, and there were a couple of impressive items. The foie gras terrine on little toast squares were good, but then again I'm a sucker for foie gras. Daubed with two little blobs of fruit mustard (I think) to cut the fat for the slightly more squeamish, I bravely scraped the mustard off before consuming multiple servings of foie gras terrine. Heart attack here I come.

Another must try is the salad dressed in some sort of cream based dressing, I cannot recall the name but it contains scallops! Which I love! So yes, go for that. They also had a pot of duck rillettes here, and I was going through some form of rillette obsession at that point in time. However, I found this iteration a tad too salty.

Everything else was pretty good, except these few items: Firstly, the pizza was cold and slightly soggy. Probably no one took it (Au Jardin la, too atas, cannot eat the pizza), and it had been left there for quite a while. Beware of the pizza. There were also some form of fried fish and prawn (2 separate dishes) fritters hiding at the dessert section. The prawn ones were barely acceptable and the fish fritters were pretty bad, so do beware!

The eggs benedict were good, but rather ordinary. I love eggs, so all was well. My main of beef cheek was decent, slightly underdone and not exactly top grade marbled beef, but I really don't have any complaints. It definitely looked better than my friend's tomato based Maine lobster pasta which I did not get to sample.

Desserts were also available from the buffet section, and I had the chocolate tart which was really too rich and chocolatey for me, but definitely wasn't bad, as well as some fruit and yoghurt concoction served in a little glass which was decent. Nothing to shout about either way.

With your bill coming up to over $80 each if you don't have any wine, it might not be the best value place to go to for brunch, but it is by no means a rip-off. Food quality isn't compromised at brunch, and service is still impeccable. What's most interesting, however, is how the classy, romantic setting of Au Jardin by night is transformed into a vibrant, lively environment for brunch, with sunlight streaming in through the many windows, granting views of the lush greenery surrounding the place, as well as the presence of children even, at brunch. The food was better at dinner, but brunch was definitely a great experience too!

Went for a dinner with the wife to celebrate [any excuse to eat out]… The service was immaculate from the off. As someone who gets unreasonably annoyed by amateurish service, I was seriously impressed. The wife thought that the guy who replaced our cutlery put it down a little too heavily, while I thought he was being professionally to-the-point. That’s the kind of level of nitpicking you get to with service this good.

The house itself is really nice, I recommend asking for the balcony (which is enclosed and therefore airconditioned). There’s two corner tables that look out into the foliage outside, which are especially good.

Against my better judgement, we had the degustation menu. I rarely find that they live up to their promise because they usually consist of about 30% food to which I’m indifferent and another 20% to which I have a positive antipathy. The missus, however, loves them. I therefore uncomplainingly accepted the eight course menu and settled in for a few hours of eating. Except, strangely for a tasting menu of eight courses, it took less than two hours for the whole meal including dawdling over our coffees. The whole thing was served at quite a pace. The courses are small but you leave pretty much where you’d want to be in terms of satisfaction. Unless you’re a big fat biffer -but then you could probably do to eat a little less anyway.

There was a range of bits and pieces that came with the meal, which I’ll gather in an ‘ostensibly free’ section here:

Seaweed prawn crackers: I really liked them, the wife didn’t – she said they were too salty. (No, I’m not married to Zhang Ziyi).
Breadstuffs: Smelled good, tasted good.
Amuse-bouches: Tempura frog (with its little thigh bone as the cocktail stick – bless…), which was more or less indistinguishable from fried chicken, and an accompanying coconut and pineapple drink thingy, which was far from special.

The first real course was some crab, some salad and some mayonnaise. I don’t really care about seafood – find it slightly pointless – and didn’t find anything about the dish to rave about. The wife found it well cooked enough but there wasn’t really anything that made you think ‘wow, I’m in the hands of a culinary alchemist, here.’ My feelings in re the pointlessness of seafood were slightly relieved by the second course, lobster and sweetbread ravioli. The sauce in which it was served was delicious, although my lobster was slightly stringy. I didn’t detect any sweetbread, either. The next course was some tuna, lightly seared with a thousand island dressing. Tuna also doesn’t do much for me and the lightly seared variety is something of which I’m not a huge fan. I can say that the thousand island dressing wasn’t exceptional. Mrs A. also wasn’t too excited about the tuna, although there was nothing wrong with it as such.

The next course, thank god, took us out of the seas and into the air. Pigeon. It was a little tough, and also tasted a hint too bloody for my liking but maybe that’s just pigeon. The next course was the best, wagyu beef cheek. It was braised and very tender but the real stand out was the red wine sauce in which it came. The wilted spinach leaves and puree potatoes were pretty much perfect accompaniments, although a hint more potato would have made for better balance. This said, the wife didn’t like it that much… There’s no accounting for taste.

The next course was a mango soup concoction, which I would probably leave if I had it again. Then a chocolate thingy in a cup, which was very good – crispy outside with a hint of melt inside – and actually tasted very chocolatey, as opposed to the sweet/no-cocoa chocolate that predominates here. (Yes, I'm talking to you, Max Brenner).

Drinks: a good gin & tonic and a good Riesling (went well with the seafood) and an okay claret. There were a few other things, coffees, petits fours but I think I’ve gone on quite long enough…

Partly, I think my view of the degustation menu suffered because it covered too many foods by which I’m not terribly excited. It’s fair to say, though, that Mrs A. shared my reservations – i.e. that it just wasn’t nearly special enough to justify nearly SGD300 apiece. There certainly weren’t any moments where we felt that something really clever had been served up. I’m probably going to come back – I want to try the a la carte menu and see if food I choose, as opposed to the chef choosing, bowls me over.

Ooh, I forgot to mention the first course of 'some tomato'. Which was some tomato. Seriously. Not even especially tasty tomato. Just tomato. On a plate.