Epicurious (The Quayside)

For full review and pictures, please visit : http://storyofoursummers.blogspot.com/2012/02/epicurious-quayside.html

1) Two Eggs, scrambled or fried - $8 + $2.50(salmon) + $3.50(sausages)

X added smoked salmon and sausages to the dish. Everything about this dish was pretty average, nothing fantastic.

2) Baked eggs with Toast soldiers, with ham - $14.60

I ordered this and I really regretted. The baked eggs had a top layer of cheese crust which was pretty burnt and hard. All I could taste was bitterness. I thought it was supposed to be baked till it's gooey? I wasn't able to taste any tomato that I suppose was to sweeten this dish up, alongside the bitter eggyolk and burnt cheese, the whole thing was just bitter to me. I finished the bread, potato and green apples and left about half the baked eggs uneaten.

The prices are pretty affordable but honestly, I don't think that their food is tasty. Service was okay, it can be quite difficult to get the attention of the staff though.

For more, please visit: http://wanderlustannamolly.wordpress.com/2012/02/03/epicurious-singapore/

Weekends are perfect for brunch and I’ve long heard of Epicurious but never had the chance or reason to visit it… until that fateful day. Taking a long hike over under the merciless sun, I was famished, non-too-pleased about the heat and in need of something cool. In my head I was thinking – the food better be good or someone’s roadkill. As the company I was with knew someone who worked there, the orders were decided upon fairly quickly and the anticipation mounted. 

The relief from the heat came in the form of a jugful of iced lemon tea. It’s not as great as the one I’ve had at Food for Thought but it did serve its purpose. Its essentially Lipton tea with a couple of slices of lemon, that’s what it tasted like to me but I could be wrong.

Roll-up the dishes, mine was an order of green eggs and ham and this brunch girl was in brunch heaven. I love eggs but I’ve never had them green. Color aside, the flavor was out of the park. Aromatic, creamy, well seasoned and surprisingly fresh tasting, a dash of crushed black pepper and I was rolling my eyes back in delight. The portions were generous, I mean the egg was overflowing on the toast, just the way I like it and every mouthful sent my fork diving back in for more. I was a monster on this dish and I was going at full speed. The toast was crisp and substantial enough to taste under the generous portion of toppings and served its role as a perfect complement to the dish. In my opinion, everyone should try this. Egg lover or not. Dairy lover or not. You know how scrambles can sometimes reek of the cream/ milk, this is nothing like that. Manifique.

We also ordered a choco-nana sandwich to share and all I can say is, if you love chocolate, if you love Nutella in particular and if you love banana, this is another winner. I have a sandwich maker at home and on days where there are bananas at home, I make myself a nutella-banana sandwich pocket as a treat. Now this one takes it to a whole other level. I don’t know if its the bread they use, or the method in which they grill the sandwich but the bread remains fluffy with a light crisp to it. Again, generous filling although I did wish there was a tad more nutella in the sandwich but I know that it’d prove to be too much for most other visitors. Chocolate and banana is one combination that can never go wrong but what I love is the icing sugar on top that gives a cool sweetness to the sandwich and the slight tartness of the strawberries refreshed the palate for the next mouthful. Decadent yet simple, exclusively enjoyable.

Three dishes down between the two of us [didn't feature the company's savory main] and our bellies were splitting at its sides. But. Because the company knew someone there, we were offered a complimentary dessert – the red velvet cake. This, this was splendid and despite the risk of splitting the outfit I was in, I was devouring it by the forkful. This is what red velvet cakes should taste like. Dense, moist, light fragrance of beetroot balanced by the icing between the cake layers and tied together with the cream cheese. By God, this cake is beyond stunning and I would be happy to receive this any time, any day. In comparison with the one I had at Ben’s, my Ben’s referral would have melted on first taste of this cake.

What else do I love about Epicurious? I love how they integrate the old school utensils that we’d typically find at our coffee shops into this Western cafe. Its so tongue in cheek, its so fun, it speaks of the owners’ character. I also love the outdoor sitting area, Quayside,  breeze in hair moments [tho it can get really hot out], sunnies on face and adding a couple of new freckles to my bare shoulders with a book in hand as I await my orders. That’s the life right? I can’t wait to revisit this place but please enjoy yourself the next time you find yourself Quayside.

For photos and reviews, visit my blog at ms-skinnyfat.blogspot.com

I have passed by Epicurious many a times when i head over to Robertson Quay for brunch/tea/dinner. Still my favorite weekend hangout spot! Anyway Epicurious always seems pretty crowded to me but i have never given a thought about trying their food (heard that it's not fantastic). Still, it draws a regular crowd on weekends and weekdays alike so i guess there's something about it that keeps it going? 

What works

The food wasn't too bad. I had the Breakfast burrito ($14.90) which came with home fried fries and salsa. The salsa was tangy and refreshing but it was a really small portion. I took little bites of the tomato bits.   



The inside was a moist and running scrambled egg centre with diced tomatoes and tiny morsels of chorizo and well mixed with melted cheese. I really like the wetness of the dish. Nice blend of textures- the creaminess of the egg, slight pull from the cheese and chewiness from the chorizo. The amount of chorizo is pathetic though. Everything was held nicely together in the flour tortilla which didn't break despite the moisture from the eggs. I think this dish isn't too badly executed and i sure wouldn't mind having it again, this time with an extra side of sausages (i'm such a carnivore).



What's average

Bernie had the baked eggs with ham, oven baked with cheese on top. My first reaction to the eggs was that it was really oily! I could see a layer of oil on the top and in the dish as well. That said, the cheese was a savory complement to the plain eggs. I think Pamplemousse at Dempsey does a better baked eggs (that has foie gras and truffle oil in it). Really small portion again but somehow we were both pretty satisfied (amount-wise) after brunch.





What's bad

The coffee. We had the iced mocha which IMO is the worst mocha i've had in a while. The chocolate didn't melt and was separated from the milk coffee. It was like drinking floated bits of waxy chocolate after a while. That was $6 for a hot mocha and another additional buck for the ice. I've paid less for better at Lots. What's worse was that it gave me a terrible caffeine headache with the lousy beans. With so many good coffee places around the area e.g. Kith, Toby's, Dimbulah and Smitten, Epicurious should really up their game. Or at least cater better coffee from their neighbors. 



I may give it another shot, for the food if not the coffee. Afterall it's a nice place to chill out on good weather days. The indoor seating kinda smells of food and outdoor is kinda warm. Nevertheless, Epicurious is a good spot for people watching and chilling. The food is well.. something to keep you occupied while you catch up with friends.

We got a late start to the day and needed a place serving brunch at 3.30pm. Tired of Cedele, we decided to take up ladyironchef's recommendation and try brunch at Epicurious. I didn't read reviews here before going and thus was expecting something decent if it made it to some famous blogger's list of best brunches in Singapore. 

As you can tell from my review title, our brunch experience at Epicurious was MEH. Just to back that up, my take on eating brunch outside is that the cafe/restaurant has to serve food that is better than what I, the average cook, can do at home. Whether it's perfecting a scrambled egg (Food for Thought),hash stack (The Porch Cafe, Sanur, Bali) reinventing french toast (Brennan's, New Orleans) or serving a classic pain perdu (Mimi's cafe, California), paying for brunch means I expect better than my fry ups.

We found a table easily when we got to Epicurious. A female waitress walked up, dumped 2 menu's on our table and declared that they were out of eggs Benedict. Uhhhh ok. Does that mean all eggs or just poached eggs (because half the brunch menu had eggs in it)? Well who knows because she left before we could ask.

Ordered the breakfast burrito, which was a must-order given that we hardly see any texmex breakfast fare at most places in Singapore, and the french toast. The burrito arrived looking small (as is with most American dishes served here ex-Tony Roma's and Mortons). The eggs inside were good but the chorizo sausage "bits" if you could call them were pitiful. I actually asked my dining partner, "hey didn't the menu say there was chorizo some where?" and he pointed to the little julienne bits of sausage sitting in the scrambled eggs. The salsa was great too, except that there was so little. Come on guys, this dish is $15! Our extra order of chopped spinach was rather tasteless unfortunately and reminded me of dining hall food in college. 

The french toast fared slightly better. We got 3 fat pieces of raisin french toast that looked great but were... dry. This is one of the peculiarities of restaurants here (we had the same dry french toast experience at Spruce). Why is  french toast always cooked "well done" and not soaked through with the egg wash? It's not like eggs cost a bomb here but I guess they got used up for those magical egg benedict;s that everyone uses to claim that "best brunch" prize. After you slather on the home made marmalade (+1 point) and ask for some syrup (I don't know why I have to ask for syrup with french toast. It's like serving fries without ketchup), the toast was edible. So it's not like the dish failed thoroughly but it could have been so much better.

So would I return again? Probably not. There's better food to be had in my own kitchen or a few other joints - Food for Thought (big breakfast, to die for pancakes), Rider's Cafe (their famous dishes are actually good) and Robert Timms (great value for money: wholewheat croissant with eggs, a sausage, grilled tomato & beans for $10-11). 

Q and I decided against friend's recommendations and tried Epicurious one weekend.

We were prepared for the packed crowd and was not disapointed. A not-so-friendly wait staff was less than happy to see us coming her way and very promptly told us the wait was at least 30 minutes.

 

Upon 'close' observation, we spied a seat available but of course, with such F&B outlets, to form an illusion of a queue seems to be the goal in mind.

It was a usual hot and humid day but Q and I waited patiently, trying not to obstruct the many service staff in green coming and going with sometimes nothing in their hands.

To cut the long story short, we finally got our orders (eggs were all out) of french toast (soggy) and ratatouille (bland).

Let’s just say we left very curious, on why people are still excited about this place when there are more brunch places in Singapore worth our hard earned money.

I must be going mad because I love this place and yet the reviews are dreadful on this website. I acknowledge the point about not going on sundays at brunch time--service is a nightmare. But the food is innovative and amazing. We've been here dozens of times and been disappointed probably once only.

When it's not madness hour on the weekends, the service is warm and charming. Some of the dishes are simply brilliant and they change their specials bi-weekly, always try new flavours and invariably pull off something special. Compared to 90% of places priced two to five times as much as here in Singapore, Epicurious is fantastic by any measure.

Please do try, a place like this should not be underappreciated.

My friends and I trotted down to epicurious after hearing rave reviews about its brunch but I think that its heyday may already be over. The wait - an hour and a half from the time we started queuing to when we got our food - was expected and tolerated with the hope that we would be rewarded with delicious food. Unfortunately, (as I'm sure is a common woe), the eggs benedict was already out of stock! I opted for my second-favourite brunch option: breakfast burrito. This turned out to be merely some (deliciously scrambled) eggs in a tortilla, and served it with a tiny saucer of tomato salsa and a few sad rocket leaves; the 'chorizo' was most definitely plain sausage. Rather underwhelming. The much-lauded pancakes were far better, but I have to admit that I've tasted equally good ones from (dare I say it) McDonalds!  

The ho-hum food, combined with the lengthy wait in the sweltering heat and exorbitant prices means that I would highly not recommend a visit to epicurious for anyone. 

Came here for brunch on a Saturday late morning. The three of us were seated rather promptly. .

I ordered the Egg's benedict with smoked ham, friends had the Egg's benedict with salmon and Ratatouille.($14.80 for each if i did not remember wrongly).

 I also had my caffeine boost, ordered a cappuccino ($4.80). 

Cappuccino came 20 minutes after ordering. It was frothy, coffee was fragrant, a good start. 

Main dishes came 30 minutes after ordering. This was a really really long wait! 

1. Presentation was lovely, the poached eggs sat comfortably on top of my ham though one looked slightly bigger...wonder why.

2. Hollandaise sauce looked creamy and rich with chopped potatoes by the side. 

3. Potatoes were caramelised with onions - tasted great. 

4. Poached egg - One of my poached eggs was overdone and it turned out to be a hard boiled egg! So no wonder it looked bigger. Slightly disappointed but decided not to make a fuss of it. 

It turned out that my other friend who also ordered eggs benedict had one of her poached eggs hard boiled as well! Mega disappointed.

If you are lookin for egg's benedict I wouldn't recommend this place because the standard for the poached egg does not seem to be consistent. Well, unless you consider the 2 hard boiled eggs consistently inconsistent.  

Not a pleasant brunch there. Heard that the egg benedict is good and decided to try it out. When we were seated, we were told by the waiter that restaurant runs out of egg benedict, so we end up ordering other food in the brunch menu.

A couple shared the table with us and they were told by this same lady who took our order that the restuarant run out of Egg Benedict, then when the guy said  he don't want anything since there is no Egg Benedict, this lady told him she can check with kitchen to see if they can "squeeze out" ONE portion of the Egg Benedict (standard Egg Benedict comes in two) but the guy rejected the "special offer". Since  the guy rejected the offer, i asked her (the same lady) can we order ONE egg benedict (thinking that since she can help the guy to check, she can also do so for us), she straight away replied and said restuarant run out of Egg Benedict. C'mon, this to me is definitely Double Standard service. Hmm, maybe the regulars got special or extra service compare to the 1st timer customers? 

Though I'm unhappy with this double standard service, but nonetheless, here is my review on the food n drinks that we ordered:-

Egg n Green - Average, nothing fantastic, slice of bread top with thin slice of parma ham and scrambled egg and with potatoes as side dish.

Additional Order - Spinach and Sauteed Mushroom - Mushroom taste nice, spinach is bland but good to have as portion of cooked veg if you like vegs alot.

Toast Bread & Jam /Butter  - Nothing special but just that we are sharing the food, so i ordered additional toast to fill our stomach.

Beverages: Flat White and Long Black.

The location is good: along the river a Roberston Quay, price are reasonable and taste OK, However not like really goos signature taste.

Apparently it is popular as they do not take reservation for brunch. You have to queue 15-20 minutes to get a seat and then 45 min for kitchen/ccoking time!!! Well, they do have a warning on their menu and staff also be so kind to warn you. But I do not think it's popularity is 100% justified.