Bistro One Zero Three

Decided to check out this place as the ratings and reviews seem good. Glad to say that the long drive from my place was worth it!

The service is good and the food..wow! Had the crab pasta thingy, lamb thingy, as well as one other item which I cannot recall for the life of me.. all were fantastic! Recommended this place to 2 other friends who went there separately with their group of friends and the feedback fro all of them is again...WOW!

The decor is not fantastic or I might even say 'dated' so if you are looking to impress a date with peripherals like appearance, then forget it! However, if you are looking to impress with good food at reasonable prices, then go for it, boy!

One thing about the location: it's along this stretch of very old shophouses and one can miss it if you have not been there before. The public carpark is behind and is accessible by this slip road BEFORE the shophouses. One then walk for say.. 3-5 mins (??) from the carpark. Generally speaking, I think this place is more suited for folks who drive though I am sure there are buses that ply along that section of Pasir Panjang Road.

Think I found a really good place to eat, and I hope they remain in business for long as it was really quiet with few diners though I was there on a Saturday evening.

I've been here many times for lunch and once for dinner.

The service is excellent; the staff are attentive and they always ask for feedback on the food.
They are also open to special orders not on the menu. I often prefer my pasta done with olive oil instead of in a tomato base and they always allow me to change that except once when the chef injured his wrist.

Lunch sets are a steal with free soup and a drink for the price of a main.

The food is good for the price, and they often change the items meaning there is always a new dish to try.

Selection is limited to a few mains and pastas, but they are open to special orders like i mentioned previously.

I rate the ambience and setting poorly on the fact that the place is out of the way and difficult to get to unless driving. The carpark nearby also has limited lots so that compounds the problem.

Otherwise this is a wonderful place to eat and chat with friends, and I'll definitely keep going back.

Our visit was a few weeks ago so unfortunately I cannot recall everything we ate and how each item tasted but just to say that, overall, we really enjoyed the food very much and will return for sure.

We decided to try Bistro One Zero Three on the recommendation of my better half as she had her eye on it for quite some time and so we finally made a reservation and brought our daughter along.

The ambience is, as I like to put it 'old-world dining', the types of restaurants I used to go to with my parents when I was growing up. The concept/ theme of this restaurant, is that there is no concept (thankfully). I've reached a point in my life where I am just tired of restaurants that seem to spend more effort on the design of the interiors and uniforms than they do on the service and the food while continuing to play mindless, interchangable chill-out music. Clearly not a huge amount of money was spent on the renovation of this restaurant and the Bistro is even more charming because of it. It's easy and comforting to the eyes.

In relation to service, I was pleasantly surprised to be asked if we wanted cold or warm water upon being seated. This is such a rare occurrence nowadays. Sadly, what is viewed as normal practice is to offer 'still or sparkling' water which many sheepishly feel obliged to order or are told they do not serve 'free' water at all. Sorry. The reason I have heard and read for this practice time and again is stop people from sitting around all day in an establishment while not spending any money.

Now, I can appreciate this argument as a business needs to make money to operate, pay staff and make a profit. But in my own experience I have been told I cannot have a glass of water even though we are clearly there for dinner: we have a table filled with appetisers and main courses, some have already ordered drinks and yet we are not given a glass of water because it is 'our policy'. Do we really look like we are there to sit around all night and mooch off the restaurant? This could work effectively in some types of establishments (cafes / coffee houses on street level) but in a restaurant that accepts reservations it's offensive.

So full marks to Bistro One Zero Three for this simple and civilised practice. Less than a minute after sitting down I already liked the place. And they continued to keep our glasses filled throughout the evening without having to be prompted.

The team working the floor also looked really tight i.e.they enjoyed working there and with each other. I don't know if they are related or if it's a family business but their energy and passion to create a positive experience was evident.

As I said, I don't recall all the dishes we ate. We did order the escargots which were superb and the bread that came with them was addictive with the dip provided; we had to order another basket. I had the spaghetti with meatballs and this is my only point of contention. The meat in the meatballs was grounded so finely that there was no real texture to them, they literally collapsed in your mouth. I would suggest not making the meat so fine that its feels like paste. However, they did taste very good. My better half and little 'un also enjoyed the food a great deal.

Please keep up the excellent food and service, we will definitely come again.

Wanted to pen this down right after makan so that I wouldn't forget the experience.. I am not a food critic, but I know what's really bad if it's really bad... and this, is definitely not bad! :)

'Uncle-Frank', that's what we like to call him... brought us to Bistro 103 for a hang-out and what a pleasant experience it was. He made a reservation for 14 of us, adults and kids, and we had a private corner. Came at 6pm and the place was perfect for a gathering of such!

Right to the food (pardon me, I cannot remember the names, a lil too much alcohol):
1) Smoked duck
2) Ribs
3) Lamb
4) Spaghetti
5) Bistro house salad
6) fried squid
7) escargot
8) sorbet
9) Panacotta
10) lots of wines

let me get to the easy ones first..
ambience was good, as i mentioned, we were in a pretty secluded place, as long as you make a reservation, it'll be great. tables were evenly spread out and spacious. It's not cramped and definitely not noisy.

Service was great.. just that refill of water was a little slow. clearing of plates were pretty quick, and everyone greeted us with a smile. The manager took the opportunity to explain details of wine and food to us, and I certainly appreciate it. Something lacking would be like in any Asian restaurant, we aren't made to feel really-really special. We're customers..important, but not that 'special-special'. But hey, we have a close family-friend of the manager, so we were treated really well!

Value was decent. Portion was great! I shared a main course with my fiancee, and we were just-right... anything more and we would have commited debauchery! I wouldn't say it's a cheap-dining and economical one, but it's not too expensive that we cannot bring our parents, families, loved ones to have a nice gastronomical evening!

aha! the food!
I didn't get to try the duck, but 2-3 people who had the duck commented that it was excellently done. All said that they're grand-parents would definitely enjoy the duck.

Ribs-ribs.. This was highly recommended by many reviewers and I had the priv of eating a piece. It's tasty, but not too much.. meat is tender, well marinated. Quite worthwhile for SGD 25. Fries are served Steak-Fries, but it'll be better if we would have taken mashed potatoes with it.

lamb... This is GREAT! April and I had this and we both liked it. Unlike usual lamb-chops where it has a strong smell, this didn't. Very well marinated and eating it with mint-sauce was delightful! the portion was great! we almost couldn't finish it! (i came with pretty full stomach lah). Meat was really tender and fats were... hmm, really not much!

the kids had spaghetti and they loved it! it was gone before the adults main-course arrived. I tried a little of the creamy spaghetti and it was great! not too 'jelat' as we would've called it..

House-salad was great! it had a fun-and-colorful variety *nuts, raisin, wildrocket, much-more and I enjoyed it. I am a salad-person and i like it blend. I forgot to mention to put the dressing on the side but the salad came out pretty fine. It was a little sweet for my liking but 5 other people agreed that it was decent. At SGD 6.95, it to me can be half a main-course.. Portion was decent and taste was excellent!

For appetizers, we had fried-squid... Gosh, the meat was tender! it wasn't even rubbery like most squids! It's like... chicken? I have to warn you though, it's real-hot! as in it scalded my mouth! oh, you must try this deep-fried thing with the sauce.. it makes all the difference!

Escagot was... excellent! It didn't have the rubbery feeling to my taste. April loved it. I liked it too! It has given me fresh-perspective of what an Escargot dish should be. this is served with cheese.. no shell, so for those faint-hearted people who can't stand slimy creatures, this is no-problemo!

sorbet was like... hmm.. it's as though you're drinking a lychee drink, just that it's in iced-shavings. It's really yummy, but a little too sweet for me to say 'the best'... nevertheless, it's good, and people liked it!

now.. for the champion of the night.... Panacotta..
my gosh.. this...IS HEAVENLY! hard-to-describe. it's like a pudding.. but when it's in your lips.. it...melts! oh... and the after-taste... hmm... UNFORGETTABLE!!! I don't know how to describe but i have never had anything better as a dessert than this... you ought to try it to believe it!

Oh yes, the wines are great! the starter Rose was really-really appetizing!
we had other drinks too, of course complimentary of our friend uncle-frank! :)
Thank God for such wonderful friends like him... ha! I definitely will put on many KGs if I hang-out with him often!

Saw the countless reviews on this place and decided to give it a try.Actually drove past the restaurant without noticing it haha...luckily my gf is a quite road savvy and manage to spot it.

The restaurant is some cosy place located next to a dingy motorcar repair workshop, totally out of line. Ordered the escargots,kurogata pork neck steak and duck drumstick. The escargots were dripped in warm cheese fondue,and the meat was springy and tasty. First time having a pork neck steak,meat was reasonably tasty together with the accompanying sauce. The roasted duck drumstick was quite good too, with the skin crisp and the meat was tender and didn't have that strong duck smell.

The only thing was the the staff was quite blur, actually didn't accord me the discount for my Citibank credit card when he was the one who told me abt it haha....had to key in the amount twice. Other than that, the staff were friendly and responsive.Oh yah remember to try the tartar sauce too,its self made and has veggies inside. Cool.

wanted to find a place to have dinner with my 2 beloved step daughters, been reading their reviews for quite sometime, always wanted to give it a try..

at first was having a hard time finding the place.. once we reached there.. the place was cosy.. not too crowded.. i saw quite a few family having their dinner there.. we had porkribs, salmon spaghetti and seabass..

over all their food is worth.. we couldn't manage to finish.. portion were good.. ambience wise.. not bad too.. all of us feel it's very comfortable

service was alright.. not that attention but overall all of them are very friendly..

in total we had 2 starters , 3 mains 2 desserts and a few drinks

i personally recommend their pork ribs and a very good place for dinner with your beloved ones

I took a sudden liking to escargots and hubby started searching on HGW for places that serve decent ones =)

Chanced upon Bistro103 and was really eager to give them a try after so many good reviews on their escargots!

Finally the day came. So excited! It was a Fri night and the place was almost full at dinner time. Considering its rather-out-of-the-way location I would say its no mean feat.

Was immediately impressed (and repeatedly so throughtout the meal till the moment i leave) by the service staff. The Best. Thumbs up & keep up the great work guys! =)

Hubby had ribs which he enjoyed, portion was good too. I had mushroom & escargots pasta with red pesto cream sauce. Yum!

The only only less-than-perfect item was the soup, which was a tad watery and somewhat tastes like Campbelle =( but the garlic bread that came with it was yet another winner! super good, toasted just right, not too oily but flavourful! =)

all in all, i would definitely come back. defintely.

Oh gosh, where do I start?

So Wifey and I were planning a gluttonous brouhaha for the folks in our CG - grand total of 12 adults with a plethora of kids. Yes, we were the guilty noisy party mentioned by Ang Mo Mike below. Some are fans of HGW, and so all of us had been looking forward to a grand feast on Saturday.

Getting a reservation though, turned out to be trickier than we thought. Can’t blame the Bistro, they were closed for the few days we tried reaching them. That, on Thursday morning, left us with 12 highly expectant people with kids, and with nowhere to go. First we tried to call them, but there was no answer for two days. Wifey was starting to grow a little edgy - not good. Then I emailed them on Wednesday morning to try my luck – no reply by Wednesday evening. So I drove down to the restaurant on Wednesday night – they were Closed! Shutters down and all. Heartbreak! A thousand thoughts ran through my mind. Why? When? For how long? What happened? Who can I call? Where else could we go?

Alas, a simple check with the nice Uncle at the motorcycle workshop next door allayed my fears. They will be opening on Thursday – tomorrow.

And open, they did. Got a sweet confirmation email on Thursday morning, apologizing for some maintenance job, and it was all set.

The Bistro reserved a special corner for us right between the kitchen, the pantry and the wine cellar. Great views. Couldn’t be better. Quaint, homely paintings hung by charming walls, peppered with chalked menus. The staff were extremely welcoming, and patient as each family slowly streamed in. In typical Singaporean style, each of us arrived in our own time, at our own pace, all fashionably late.

Free flowing warm or iced water was served spot on.

A slow buzz, grew into a noisy ruckus as soon as the kids arrived. Yet, the staff never once winced, and served the kids special cutlery sets, making them feel part of the adult affair. Kudos!

The Food.
Given the sheer number of us, we were tempted to order every main on the menu. Sounds really cool doesn’t it? But since that will mean missing out on the highly recommended pastas, salads and entrees, we did not. But we did share pretty much everything we ordered.

The Bruschetta - Four rectangular pieces of toasted bread served with tomatos, onions, balsamic vinegar and a touch of olive oil. Wonderful starter. L says it opens up her palate – which I agree - great to share with friends.

Escagot in white wine cream sauce – half a dozen per serving. If you like shells in your snails, stroll to your neighborhood park after the rain and go catch some. These come without their houses on their backs. Large, rich and creamy. Need I say more? Again, good to share as you might get Jelak really quickly if you take one too many.

Salads – We tried a variety of salads, those with feta cheese on them, the 103 house, those with mushrooms. I discovered that different people love different types of salads. Some like it with loads of dressing while others like theirs plain naked. And so everyone had their own opinion about it, but mostly good reviews.

Everybody just had to try the highly reviewed Salmon with Crabmeat Pasta and we weren’t disappointed. Even the kids loved it. Several other pastas were also sampled. Meatballed, mushroomed and pestoed. Thumbs up from everyone.

The guys needed their protein, so we ordered 3 sets of Ribs. These come with thick 2-by-4 bats of real potato, and not some wimpy fries. The consensus amongst the group is that for $25.90, you get quality 1000% better that the crap you find at Café Cartel and its about as good as those at Tony Roma’s. Only that those at TR will cost 30% more. Great value.

Honestly, I was so busy eating, catching up with friends and joking around, I forgot about taking photos. I also didn’t get to see what the other end of the table was gorging on. Silly, greedy me. Men - tsk, tsk, tsk.

Personally, I’m not into desserts. But something was missing after a feast like that. And given that there were only 4 choices of desserts, we chose multiple servings of all 4. I shared the brownie and ice cream with Wifey. Loved it. Love her. Love, love, love, but I digress.

Took several bites out of CS&K’s cheesecake, slurped up a chunk of S&T’s sorbet, and helped myself to L&M’s panacotta. Yums.. Oh, did I mention I’m NOT into desserts??

Burp. ‘scuse me.

Cosy, homely, good ambience, good food, good company. We’ll be back.

I think my visit to Bistro One Zero Three was a classic example of setting my expectations too high. After reading all the glowing reviews of Bistro One Zero Three here on HGW, I had a certain image in my mind. Unfortunately my dining experience didn't live up to that image due to the crowd and some bad food choices on our part.

Tonight was a busy night for them and they had several large parties which turned what otherwise might have been a quiet place into a noisy restaurant. This also had an impact on the service which started out really well but went downhill as the night got busy. The staff was really nice and understanding - particularly when I spilled and broke my glass of wine in the middle of dinner. Must have been something in the air tonight because I wasn't the only one, another table dropped and spilled an entire bottle!

My wife and I started with the eggplant salsa w/toast. This was very tasty and may have been the highlight of the meal for me. Would definitely order it again. It had a great garlic flavor and was lightly sweet.

We both ordered a glass of house wine. In hindsight, I would have preferred to bring a bottle of wine with us instead. Their corkage fee, $5.00, is very reasonable and the house wine wasn't spectacular.

After the eggplant we shared the crumbled feta cheese and sun-dried tomato salad. This was a bit of a let down, particularly after the reviews. The salad didn't have much feta and was a little light on the lettuce as well. It was mostly diced tomatoes, onion and sun-dried tomatoes. Tasted ok but needed to be better balanced.

My wife had the salmon and crab pasta with red pesto for her main. It turned out to be a pretty dull dish! In fact, my wife never finished it. Perhaps it needed a little more pesto. The pasta had the faintest tint of pink to it but not enough to impart much flavor. If we tried this again we would order it with the tomato cream sauce instead.

I ordered the ham and bacon pasta arrabiata. This was probably a huge mistake on my part. The last time I had pasta arrabiata was in Tuscany just a month ago and this couldn't compare. There was too much sauce and I found it a tad sweet.

We finished the meal with the warm brownie with french vanilla ice cream. Very nice dessert and would definitely recommend it to others. Our friends all seemed to enjoy their dishes, particularly the round of desserts.

It was really nice that all the pasta dishes came with a choice of sauce. Definitely a factor that would bring us back since we can re-try the same dishes and potentially get a better combination. Their menu isn't long but there were a few other options that looked interesting. Another time! A week night might have a better chance of the restaurant being quite.

The restaurant itself is not large so definitely make a reservation. And don't let HGW build up your expectations to high!

6 nov just went for dinner with ex colleague, her recommendation
if u want a good seat pls make reservation, we didnt so was seated at a corner. even though we saw some empty seats but staff didnt allow us to sit elsewhere :(

we ordered sides soup of the day:mushroom, a salad (cant remember the name), eggplant with garlic bread
my ex colleague ordered a pork dish and i got crispy duck leg
dessert is panacotta with mocha sauce and grilled pear with vanilla ice cream
The names of the dishes were hard for me to rem sorry!

soup was nice with bits of mushroom in every spoonful
as for eggplant and salad they were not my liking the sauces used was a bit sour for my taste, but my colleague liked it

as for main, i tried my colleague's pork steak was nice but she didnt liked it said a bit hard. texture was ok for me, its comes with a portion of fries and salad
crispy duck leg was not so nice, although meat was soft still tasted a bit too oily but its not easy to make a good one and i have very high standard for it haha so overall its average, comes with a portion of mashed potato and cooked vege, i liked the vege, with aubergine and mushroom

dessert was nice, panacotta didnt felt 'heavy' after eating it, not too sweet, same goes for grilled pear, tasted a bit of alcohol, not too strong just right, served with vanilla ice cream both of us liked it

not sure how much the bill was. would go back again only after pay day cheers