I heard Truffle Fries. I couldn't take it. I heard Strawberry Shortcake. Cannot tahan. So we ventured to House, Barracks and Camp to kill the urge and skin the cat. This place doesn't need much mention. Occupying a vast spread over at Dempsey, the 3 storey has everything under 1 roof. Tippling Bar serves quality malt. And there's the cafe, the bar and the relaxing spa to cool your nerves if the alcohol have not done enough. Food were quite decent. The Deep Sea Threesome had squid, prawns n fish together with sauteed mushrooms and sweet mango salsa. The seafood were fresh, especially the squid which was crunchy on the bite. The mango salsa was enuff to keep my mouth full. The sliders of 2 small sized beef burgers done to your preference are served with truffle fries and sweet potato fries. Toppings on sliders include choices of blue cheese, cheddar cheese, bacon, lettuce, mushrooms, truffled aioli etc. Greedy us paid an extra $2 for an upsize of fries. OMG... that truffle fries. An Ahi Taki Salad was also on the table as we wanted some greens. This salad had generous portions of rum soaked raisins, pistachios and tuna blocks. I must say this. This is the best tasting tuna I had ever tried. Non-tuna fans, you may love this. The strawberry shortcake was... so homely. It really tasted homely. Not too sweet, this shortcake came in a tin with big red starberries with powdered sugar on the top. As traditional as it is. We saw some people ordered the 'Metre-long sausage'. Some of the guys kept saying "well, this looks familiar!'.

After the food we proceeded to Camp for some drinks. Had the Tiffin Punch which really came in a tiffin. Quality wise, this drink really has no punch. For that price, I can get better drinks at Winebar.

Service wise there are some hits and misses. One of the waitstuff was very good. Has a smiley face and enquires about your food and experience. Others were somewhat blur and took ages to get something done.

It’s the time of the year for me to get a year older, so to mark this day, the girls organized a dinner at this place.

Barracks Café has an extensive menu, everyone will definitely be able to find something to eat. You can choose to dine outdoor among the “forest” or indoor with the comfort of air-conditioner and vintage chairs. I personally prefer the outdoor greeneries but Sat night was just too warm to sit outdoor.

Down to the food, that’s what we’re here for right? We had

1. Truffle Fries - $9.00
2. Parsley Mash Potato - $6.00
3. American Slider w Lettuce, Tomato and Onion- $22.00
4. Jamica Pork Tenderloin - $24.00
5. Bay Prawn Capellini - $26.00
6. Crispy Pork Belly - $30.00

Truffle Fries - Who can resist fries sprinkle with sea salt and truffle oil? I simply love this, crispy and flavorful, if I wasn’t having a bad throat, I would order another serving just for myself.

Parsley Mash Potato - Potatoes mashed up and infused with herbs. A light and buttery smooth mash with a really light herb taste. The girls love it but I personally find it slightly too bland for me.

American Slider w Lettuce, Tomato and Onion - This mini burgers are powerful; so don’t look down on mini stuffs yeah? With side servings of sweet potato fritters and truffle fries. Who can resist this old fashion? Managed to steal a bite from my friend, the meat is nicely done medium and juicy. oohhh...yum.

One can choose the toppings for the mini burgers at a small additional cost of $2.
Available toppings are: Lettuce, tomato and onion, Plain with truffle aioli, Sauteed mushroom and onions, Cheddar cheese and bacon, Bleu cheese and bacon.
Upsize of fries at $2 too.

Jamica Pork Tenderloin The tenderloin flavored with Jamaican spices (don’t ask me what caused I don’t know) with fruity peach and cranberry chutney with side of roast garlic potatoes and vegetable. A good blend of spices and fruity chutney, bring out the sweetness of the tenderloin, however, there’s a strong pork taste that the spices can’t mask.

Bay Prawn Capellini - Capellini with big succulent prawn tossed in herb and baby leek. Pasta done al dente, with a light spicy after taste. Topped with a cheese shaving. I would say this is a really nice and hearty dish. My friend insisted I order this but me being too fickle decide to order something different.

Crispy Pork Belly I wish I didn’t order this. Claimed to be slow cooked for 7 – 9 hours, this crispy belly is indeed crispy and that’s all about it. With a strong pork taste, this belly is chewy in texture and nothing special about this that I can talk about. Come with kai lan and “sweet” pickled vegetable that are good friend of the lemon family and sauce that are too salty to stomach. This limited edition dish is nothing to rave about. Don’t bother trying.

Barracks Café overall is a pleasant place to dine, minus the fact that some dish are just not worth trying and service are pretty slow even there’s no much crowd.

Truffle fries and Prawn Capellini are the only reason that I will be back…but then again, how often will I crave for the above?

We had brunch at House (primarily because brown sugar did not do brunch on Saturday afternoons) because a good friend was back from hongkong, and it would be very nice just to sit down. So anyway we settled on House, and can I just say for the record this was so much a better experience than its wannabe atas counterpart white rabbit down the road.

Anyway, we had (and this is extensive because I painstakingly copied everything down verbatim using the blackberry) please note that following is as stated in the menu except for anything in round brackets

3 servings of Truffle Fries

Hazelnut and Raspberry chocolate cake crunch – “layers of chocolate hazelnut sponge, mille-feuille crunch and french raspberry jam sandwiched in a french-style layered cake”

MMM...Mango Marshmellow Melt “sarah's choice pavlova is a meringue named after the russian ballet dancer (dessert) - Enjoy this medley of mango flesh, mini crunchy pavlova, honey yoghurt, whipped cream and marshmallows”

Barracks Strawberry Shortcake – “Best I have ever tasted. Filled with sweet fresh strawberries and topped with vanila bean cream”

Very Berry Stuffed French Toast – “award winning! Golden crispy french toast mattressed with multiple berry stuffing in the prettiest garden berry bed. Awaiting a swirling of golden maple syrup and whipped butter”

Old-fashioned American Sliders – “a pair of hot buns. Mini burgers served with a mixture of sweet potato and truffle fries. Served medium well” (Bleu cheese and bacon)

BananaCot (smoothie) – “Bananas and apricot blended with natural yoghurt. Great for digestion and an energy booster for your Vitamin B1, 3, 5 and 6 intake”


Non alcoholic mint berry fix – “enjoy our berry popular drink without the gin. Fruity and naturally sweet. The highlight is the chunks of berries and seeds, which we certainly do not use sparingly”

Longan and date temperance delight – “craving for longan? With complexity and depth due to interesting spices like cloves, dates and fresh cut green apples. Warning : a favourite drink in the making!”

More than earl grey (tea) – “mingles 3 black teas with jasmine pearls for complex depth. Vanilla, bergamot, hints of lavender and rose petals make a little party”

Mango (tea) - mango with marigold petals. Excellent iced!

While waiting for everyone to arrive I had a banana cot – a smoothie which, in my opinion was really quite expensive at $10 for the portion served. But it did make for something rather refreshingly healthy – it was not too sweet, and certainly no artificial flavouring. I would say healthy! But a little expensive.

I later on had the Barracks Strawberry Shortcake, which in my opinion was excellent. No wonder its like a top 3 cake (or something like that) as stated in their menu – which has like a top 10 list of cakes people order. Well the cake came with a little jug of vanilla bean cream – only it wasn’t cream of the thick viscous sort – it was liquefied and according to my friends who had been there before, youre supposed to pour it all over the cake, not dip the cake in (as I originally tried to do haha.) so anyway the vanilla bean cream was sweet and slightly rich, and it went extremely well with the cake. I would say it would make for a rather yummy and comforting (think vanilla) dessert. The strawberry shortcake isn’t a light cake – its actually rather densely packed (and some might think heavy) but it wasn’t too sweet, and the strawberry filling within the layers of the cake were excellent. A very good teatime cake, if you ask me. I was originally planning to go with this 7 layer pancake thing they had on the brunch menu, but they couldn’t remove some of the ingredients in the pancake mix for me, because apparently everything was pre-made. So that was a little disappointing. But im really glad I got to have the strawberry shortcake instead.

We also had three servings of truffle fries, which all my friends who had previously been to house raved over. Personally, I think the fries are great finger food, especially since they are very thinly cut and very lightly salted (which is a good thing). But what bowls my friends over is the fact that they think the truffle fries are both savoury (having been fried in truffle oil) and flavourful. The truffle oil does give the fries a rather unique aftertaste. They also were not too oily. Good.

My friend’s mother had the Hazelnut and Raspberry chocolate cake crunch as well as the more than earl grey tea. I think had some of the cake, but I honestly cant remember how well it tasted. But I do think that House’s cakes are quality cakes so this cannot have been too far off. My friend’s mum said her tea was rather concentrated – I had some, and I agree – we had to ask the waitress to come back with glasses of water to dilute it.

My other friend had the MMM...Mango Marshmellow Melt, and she had nothing but good things to say about it. The fact that there were so many different things in that particular dessert in her opinion gave texture to it, and she enjoyed it very much. I think it was actually a rather delightful dish – as you can tell from pictures. Nicely served, and yummy – especially if you like mango. Oh, and even though there was like meringue, marshmellows and cream – she did not find the dessert too sweet or cloying. So MMM works.

My friend coming back from hongkong had a run the next day and wanted to load up on carbs so she had the Very Berry Stuffed French Toast, which she thoroughly enjoyed. She especially loved how the berry stuffing – which was essentially this berry-yoghurt mix oozed out as she cut into the French toast. Okay, I had some and I did not particularly enjoy it. The berry-yoghurt mix I felt, clashed with the whole maple syrup whipped butter thing. and the berry-yoghurt mix was also at a weird temperature – I had a feeling it was supposed to be cold, but because the French toast was warm in the end what you get is like some lukewarm filling coming out of the toast. That didn’t go very well with me. But my friend really enjoyed it – so hey, if you like berries and French toast and maple syrup – there’s the combination.

My friend back from hongkong also ordered the Longan and date temperance delight (a mocktail of sorts) and she thought it was great for hot sunny days. Very cooling, in her opinion. And also very fusion. – which is why she liked it. Well, I had some, but I thought the whole mix of spices and bits of fruits was just abit over the top. Like when you sip the drink up the straw along comes with it a whole bunch of bits – really not my kinda drink. I like simplicity but this drink had absolutely too many things in it.

Her boyfriend had the Old-fashioned American Sliders – bleu cheese and bacon, and he thought it was okay. Honestly, the patty looked a little charred and dry to me – especially if the miniburgers were to have been served medium well. He also had the Non alcoholic mint berry fix which I tried, and thought tasted slightly less odd than the longan and date drink – it was fruity (in the berry way) and minty (but actually I don’t like mint in drinks either) but my problem again was that it had too many bits of stuff in it (as you can see – as stated in the menu). Dude, it’s a drink man. Not like some kind of Chinese dessert- drink thing. Of course this is my own personal opinion – I think my friends boyfriend did think his drink was fine.

My other friend also had a mango tea and well I had some, and it wasn’t particularly good. It did not taste strongly of mango – just tea! So unless youre a hardcore tea drinker with a slight inclination for mango, I would not bother with this.

Service wise I suppose it was okay – save that they did try (despite our slight protest) to squeeze a party of 7 into a table which would have only sat 6 comfortably (we’re almost lucky one of our other friends had a hangover and couldn’t make brunch even at 3pm that in the end it wasn’t a big squeeze). It was a little difficult to get waitors at times because the whole place is rather big!

But if you do go to House, and its your first time, it’s a really nice place to explore. We’re definitely going back some time, and we might get one of their little “private” (well technically they are glass-walled) rooms which have been done up in style. Of course there are minimum expenditures for those rooms. But the private rooms all look so quirky and nice!

oh and this is one of the few reviews that i actually have pictures for, courtesy of my friends who always seem to have cameras with them.

3 hours for juice? very long lunch or very tall tale!

i have had no such trouble here.

the food is good. the 1m long sausage is divine! and i had two servings of their toffee chocolate cake! pushed to complain, i would say food is pricey; they would do better in attracting patrons by reducing prices by about 15% across the board.

service is friendly; im not caucasian (in fact i belong to an extreme minority race group) but i get the requisite attention from all members of service staff. when busy, my request for attention has been met in reasonable time. i was duly impressed on my second visit when a member of the bar staff remembered and greeted me by name.

will i return? for sure! even if it were just for a bottle of wine by the bar.

The people at this charming watering hole and cafe are just awesome. As is it's setting. Extremely welcoming and hospitable. The food is quite simply deelish! Though misses out on bang-for-the-buck factor.

Get to CAMP, order an Old Fashioned and you're all set.
The thing that I was impressed with (more than their interiors) was service and staff. absolutely charming.