Sits within the lush of its own thousand square foot garden, surrounded by trees and foliage, one can either choose to dine al fresco at Cicada’s charming outdoor patio and enjoy the serenity of its garden setting, or a spacious indoor dining area amid candle-lit, soft music environment for a more cooling dining experience.

Situated just a stone’s throw away from Pietrasanta, The Italian Restaurant and the iconic Colbar Eating House, this marketed and positioned as a French-Californian restaurant is another lovechild of nightclub boss-turned restaurateur Mr Michel Lu, after alfresco bars Hacienda at Dempsey, and Superfamous in Boat Quay. 1-for-1 Happy Hours are from 12pm to 9pm; as such ½ pint of Heineken Draft Beer at $10 is essentially $5 each.

Appetiser was Pan Seared Blue Fin Tuna Salad ($15.90). Considered the prized-catch among tunas, the fish was seared adeptly and came with a nice firm bite but otherwise, it was lacklustre in taste and balsamic vinaigrette seeks to engulf the flavour all the more.

Personally, HFB thought the Sautéed Organic Mushrooms ($6.90) was probably the best dish for that night. Infused with the aromatic flavours of White Cooking Wine and a tint of sweetness from the Cherry Tomatoes, the mushrooms topped with fresh herbs was palatable and produced a nice texture for nibble. However a question looms – HFB wonders there is any different in taste and texture between normal or organic mushrooms?

If you have yet to know, Cicada is famously known to serve a wicked burger dish, which goes by the name of “The Infamous Cicada Burger” priced at $28.90. Served with thick-cut fries, which was slightly dry for me – sandwiched in between two pieces of bread are lip-smacking ingredients consisting of Caramelised Onions, Mushrooms, Gorgonzola & Gruyere Cheese and none other than the marbled Wagyu Beef as patty.

However, joy soon dissipated in frustration as my requested doneness of medium-rare for the beef came well done (again!). A request for change was pretty redundant as the patty was just slightly better – done medium well perhaps. Tired of waiting (and be disappointed yet again), HFB grudgingly finished his food and paid his bill without ordering desserts.

Overall, HFB wasn’t impressed by the food – which seemingly reminded him of PS Café at Dempsey – cosy ambience suitable for couples on first date, but no depth in terms of the fare served.

You can view the all photos here.

SM took me here for a little dinner for two on Saturday night. We love the Wessex Estate area and like other reviewers here hope that it does not turn into another Dempsey where we used to frequent but have stopped going to in the past year for obvious reasons.

They make good appetizers here and I thoroughly enjoyed by rare tuna salad. The caesar was also done well. The mains show good potential although need a bit more work as my penne pasta had a bit too much of a local chili sauce taste and SM's scallop pizza had a bit too much cheese (although there are some people who would not complain too much about this).

Ambience was very nice, especially for those sitting outdoors. The whole area takes you away from the world for a short while at least.

BTW, if you pay by Amex its 20% off so an added bonus we found out when we got the bill

I am a 'Westerner' and like some of the reviewers here, I'm very excited about the recent developments. Looking West is the way to go!

It's a Monday night, and the scene was balmy and quiet. As the night wore on, the tables started filling up. What I really liked was that there was a lot of comfortable green space between each table so that even when dining alfresco, there was an illusion of privacy. I also love the cream-coloured cushions on rattan settees which are all the rage now. There's especially a chill-out lawn cosiness with the cream/brown against the lush green.

Happy hour is 12pm to 9pm with Heineken and Archipelago at 1-for-1. Other drinks are 25% off the usual price.

We had the oven-baked spatch-cock... No, it's not pigeon... I think it's some kind of small bird with white meat. The skin was crispy and infused with rosemary. The meat, was plump juicy and tender. Not at all dried and barbied to death. The side salad was a tasty treat - every leaf was adequately coated with a thin layer of dressing which was not too oily or sour, but just right.

The stud had the Cicada burger which was also delicious. The meat was tasty, not too oily, flavourful, and the sauteed onions and special sauce with cheese just sealed it! The side of fries reminded me of those at Mos burger - large chunks of fluffy soft potato with seared crisp edges. Portion was small though. Hungry men, order more food!

We rounded off the meal with the peanut butter brownie crunch cake - be forewarned - the portion is huge! Soft moist dark chocolate cake with a thin layer of chocolate icing... sandwiching a middle layer of crunchie peanut buttery biscuit; accompanied by a vanilla-based soft serve which only had a hint of sweetness so that the whole dessert was not too cloyingly sweet. Well-balanced...

Service was attentive - dropped serviettes were immediately replaced without having to ask for them.

Our overall experience was better than expected, and we'd be bringing friends back for more!

Wessex village, a tranquil and peaceful estate in the leafy Portsdown Road area is no stranger to the art scene in Singapore. Recently, with the entry of some new restaurants, it is slowly becoming the “It” place to be.

This will be good news for my fellow “west-erners” since LIC always lament the fact that the east side has more good food. With Holland Village, Chips Bee garden, Greenwood Avenue, Sunset way, Rochester Park, and now Wessex Village, who says there isn’t good places to chill in the West!

But this may not be music to the ears to some others, people who enjoyed the quaint environment and would rather preferred Wessex Village not to become the next Dempsey, over-rated and over-populated.

Have no fret about that, because currently in Wessex Village, there is only Pietrasanta an Italian restaurant, Laurent’s Cafe & Chocolate Bar, Klee a cocktail bar, and Colbar a very old-school coffee shop.

My friend and i explored the serene area, we checked out Pietrasanta but my friend wasn’t in the mood for Italian delights, but the place looks great and will definitely try it the next time round.

We decided on Cicada, an art centric casual restaurant lounge.

Nestled amid lush green vegetations, Wessex Village is a colonial style residential area surrounded by open space and trees to provide a soothing and relaxing ambience.

The building structure there are mostly colonial style, and this is the same for Cicada in a colonial type of bungalow building.

Al fresco area in Cicada is also spacious and roomy, which makes it a great place for friends to chill out under the the natural environment surrounded by greens, the village feel.

A large group of Caucasians chilling out, but don’t be quite mistaken by this scene. According to the manager Ronald, their main customers are actually locals and not Caucasians, and most of them are people from other area rather than the residents in Wessex estate.

Seafood Mango Salad ($13.90)
Marinated seafood and honey balsamic dressing makes up the Seafood Mango Salad. The mango is sweet, and the prawn springy. The greens together with the sweet honey balsamic dressing opens up your taste bud for the meal.

Sauteed Organic Mushrooms ($5.90)
Mushrooms are always a tricky dish, cook for too long and the mushroom becomes over-cooked, while finish it too early the mushroom will fail to absorb the essence of the other ingredients.

The Sauteed Organic mushrooms have a slight hint of white wine, wild herbs and tomato taste.

Smoothie Oreo Orgasm ($12)
The Oreo Smoothie isn’t good enough, the oreo bits are left too big to go through the straw, usually they will be crushed and mixed with milk. We gave the feedback and the manager Ronald told us the reason was due to fault in the blender that day.

However it is still quite unforgivable as this is a restaurant after all, and the least they can do is to notified us about the problem which unfortunately, they didn’t.

Butter Croissant toast with smoked salmon ($13.90)
The butter croissant toast besides with the smoked salmon, comes with alternatives in ham, bacon or sausages. The greens in the toast complement the smoked salmon salty taste.

However, we lamented the fact that the croissant toast is not cripsy enough, the bread is too soft, and same for the green. We felt that it will be better if there is crunchier greens like cucumber added in, for a more complete taste.

The mayonnaise sauce also threatens to spoil the smoked salmon, fresh avocado sauce will perhaps be a better option to go along with the smoked salmon. The sandwich is an otherwise good and hearty dish, if Cicada can improve on the small issues.

Penne Pasta with seafood ($24.50)
The most expensive pasta on the menu, no doubt so with the ocean prawn, scallops and calamari in spicy marinara sauce. Different type of pasta suits different type of base, tomato base spaghetti is the only choice to go with it. Well for a spicier version, the penne pasta works well.

The first savor of the Penne pasta with seafood is excellent, the spicy sauce together with the oceanic taste floods our taste bud. However, the dish seems to lack in something, because after a while we got a little sick of the dish as it starts to be overwhelming.

Cicada Club Sandwich ($15.90)
The Cicada Club sandwich consists of bacon, lettuce, tomato, weisswurst sausage in focaccia bun. The bacon and sausage is decent, but again the use of mayo sauce here doesn’t quite complement the ingredients. Mayo will be better off when paired up with fried stuff.


Total Bill is $96.90 for the 2 of us. I think we sort of over-ordered given we had two appetizer, two sandwich, a pasta and a drink. The sandwich ranges in the tens, while pastas are in tens to twenty. The drink is definitely no go, while the sandwiches can really be better. And for once, i didn’t have any room for desserts.

I checked out the dinner menu as well, while lunch at Cicada is causal and simple food, dinner is more sophisticated with more selections of mains in the high twenty range. According to the manager, the atmosphere for dinner is more romantic and the area more closed up for more coziness.

We found the day-time area to be too ‘open’. Cicada should be going for the french open space concept, but this does not really encourage longer stay because the space is too bare and open. We believed that a more enclosed area, using different type of curtains can just do the trick.

All in all, Cicada promises a lot with its art-centric causal restaurant tag, but we ended up quite disappointed. Cicada certainly can be better, and hopefully the next time i dropped by Wessex, it will be a very different Cicada.

You are always welcome to visit ladyironchef for a full-up on this trip. Whatever written herein are my genuine feelings expressed in words. Food, my dear, is what they call an adventure!

” The next time, hopefully a very different Cicada “

This is was highly recommeded by my friends who has been there recently. Armed with a "must" order list, a group of 4 arrive at Cicada just before 8 pm. We were greeted at the front by a waiter and we chose to seat outside. It quite a nice cosy place to chill out. They use a lot of candles light (each on every table)and I like particularly the big trees by the restuarant.

Here's what we ordered:-

1) Archipelago Samui - a nice fruity draft beer (our first try). The other tap they have is Heineken. 1 for 1 promotion for their draft beer and selected bottles til 9 pm.
2) We shared a 12" mushroom pizza, caesar Salad.
3) Mushrooms Soups
4) 2 Infamous Cicada Burgers, slipper lobster pasta and seabass as mains
5) Choc Peanut Butter Brownie. MUST TRY. 4 of us shared one 'cos we were too full by then.

The food is good. I will come back for their juicy wagyu beef burger the next time. We generally had a good night out at Cicada dining right under the stars and moon. Probably not many ppl know about portsdown, the area is not as overly crowded as Dempsey. Parking is easy. We saw an newly opened italian restuarant as we leave Cicada. Looks cool too, may check them out.