Had dinner with a friend over the weekend.
Ordered 2 dinner sets, inclusive of a soup of the day, 1 drink & 2 scoops of ice-cream:

-Pan Fried Cod Fish with passonfruit sauce
-Mingles Fish & Chips

Food was decent but nothing special.

Ambience was noisy as there were quite a few families with young kids as well as teenagers.

Value was ok. For our set dinners, it was $16.90++.

Service was pretty bad as our main courses only came after about 45 mins of waiting time! The manager simply excused themselves by saying they were shorthanded in the kitchen. Would have appreciated if they had turned us away since they couldn't even handle the crowd?? The manager was the least apologetic about it. As if it was our fault that we stepped into the restaurant.
Frankly-speaking, this will be my first & last time to dine there.

Mingles La’Brassarie is one of the restaurants at the newly relaunched Big Splash at East Coast. From the outside, it looks like another regular American-style restaurant. However, once you get inside, it’s evident from the scenes of Europe on the wall and a quick look at the menu that this isn’t a regular burger or fast-food joint. Instead, Mingles offers European style cuisine at affordable prices and in a casual environment.

Food & Drink

The menu is relatively extensive, and the offerings range for the usual (e.g. fish-and-chips and ice-cream sundaes) to the more exotic (e.g. baked cod in crab broth). And like its sister restaurant at Novena Square, Mingles East Coast offers a large variety of sausages served with rosti, or as a platter.

There were five of us that evening and we sampled many items on the menu. The more notable ones:-

* Salmon tartar ($14): Finely diced salmon was served artistically on a bed of avocado salsa with orange dressing. This was unusual as the avocado salsa was done Asian style, with sesame oil and ginger. I liked this quite a bit although some of my friends found this a little odd.

* Rosti ($17 with a sausage; $7 as a side): I'm a sucker for rosti and the one at Mingles is one of the better that I've had. Well done with a thin layer of crisp on top, without the oiliness and/or sogginess that plagues many other rostis.

* Baked cod in crab broth ($27): This was excellent. The skin of the cod was crisp while the meat itself was fragrant and melt-in-the-mouth. The cod came served on a bed of sautéed clams, and a sinfully rich crab broth. The cod also came with a side of toasted baguette slices, presumably to soak up the crab broth. The bread was quickly finished, and the remaining broth was also completely slurped up.

* Mingles filet mignon ($32): We opted for the steak done medium rare and the portion that was served was generous (although nowhere near the size of the Morton’s steaks). The steak, while well cooked, was a little bit on the cold side. I suspect that it had been sitting for a while before being served. But it was still tasty nonetheless, and I enjoyed the huge asparagus spears and pumpkin mash that it was served with.

* Duck confit: The duck was prepared two ways, regular confit and roast. While I found the confit to be a bit on the dry side when I tasted it, but my dining partners disagreed. The confit came served with a fennel salad – again, an unusual pairing but the slightly peppery fennel went well with the earthy duck.

* Chocolate tartin: Wickedly rich and velvety chocolate ganache served with a side of New Zealand ice-cream. Utterly sinful and a marvelous way of ending a meal. I would have had more of this if I wasn’t so stuffed from the rest of the food we’d had.

This is a great place to bring the family on weekends, particularly if you’ve just come from the more crowded end of East Coast Park and am looking for a quieter place to settle down for a meal.

It's also a pretty good place for tea or a snack – in addition to the usual dining tables, a third of the restaurant is decorated with cushy low armchairs, and I can imagine settling into one of these seats with a smoothie (or beer!) and dessert.

Service

The service was pretty good. Because we were at the restaurant on a weekday evening, there weren’t many guests and the waiters were attentive. Things may be different on a weekend, and I'll update on this when I manage to make a visit then.

Update: On a return visit, the boy wanted an extra sausage with his cod, and I wanted rosti with a sausage. The waiter was able to recommend that for best value, we get the bangers and mash with a side of rosti. I was pleasantly surprised and quite pleased that the waiter was able to make such a recommendation.

Overall

A nice casual place for a not-so-casual meal. On first glance, the menu prices are a bit high for such a casual, cosy restaurant, but I would say the quality of the food on offer justifies the prices.

End note

The kitchen closes early (9pm!) on weekdays. Do take note of this if you're thinking of a weekday visit!

Click for photos

Lunched with a friend here and we sure had the most interesting soup.

Whilst poring over the menu, we were told the soup of the day by the wait staff. In that instant, our eyebrows raised and went 'huh?! Gross! Eww! How is it possible?!' And I am sure that anyone of you reading this will wonder too.

Soup du jour was: Cream of Capsicum Soup.

Despite our misgivings and warning bells ringing loudly in our heads, we still went ahead to give it a try. No venture, no gain. :) Lo and behold, the soup was alright. (heng ah!) There was the capsicum taste but not overpowering. So its pretty 'edible'. :)

I had the Crispy Chicken with Yoghurt and it was delicious. My friend recommended this main course to me and so insisted that I get an additional side dish of the yoghurt to go with the chicken. Lucky thing I did, 'cos the minute quantity provided on the dish was not enough. The chicken was crispy on the outside but tender on the inside. Nicely done! The mashed sweet potato was tasty and slightly chunky with some mash. Good in terms of texture.

Wouldn't mind a re-visit, only thing putting me off is the distance. Perhaps it jus boils down to pure inertia. Heehee!

No value rating as its a treat. Thanks friend. :)

Was back at Mingles for lunch one weekday afternoon because I wanted to try out their seemingly inexpensive set lunches. It also helped that the place was virtually empty.

Complimentary Bread & Cream of Pumpkin - I didn't think too much of either the complimentary bread or the cream of pumpkin soup. The bread was well, bread that you can get off the shelves at any supermarket. The cream of pumpkin was way too sweet for my liking and I don't know if my tastebuds were playing tricks on me, but the soup actually tasted very strongly of curry powder.

Crispy Salmon with Couscous - I tried a little of this and found it quite decent with the skin pan fried till crispy. There was also a noticeable absence of the overpowering (to me) fishy taste that is common to salmons. I didn't quite fancy the couscous though, but thats just a personal preference.

Crispy Chicken With Yogurt - Served up atop a mound of subtly sweet mashed sweet potato, the crispy chicken was surprisingly quite good with its crisp skin and succulent meat. However the down side to crispy skin is the inordinate amount of oil that comes with it. And I couldn't taste any yogurt at all.

Ice Cream in Waffle Basket - The ice cream tasted rather normal although it was supposed to be from New Zealand. The waffle basket tasted funny though , dry with a kept for too long in the cupboard taste.

2 set lunches set us back by about $48, which puts it in the mid range for set lunch prices. Service is still excellent and the environment is definitely cosy. Will definitely drop by for lunch again.

See all my pictures here.

Wandered into Mingles while strolling around the area.

Wasn't very hungry after a late lunch which we ate too much (story of our lives), so went in there for something "light".

Appetisers were skipped in favour of impending desserts.

An order of St Patrick's Roast Duck Confit (or something like that) and a Rosti with Pork Cheese Sausage.

The rosti and sausages were pretty normal fare but the roast duck was to die for. Granted the mystery vegetable wasn't that nice but the slices of medium rare duck breast, and the duck leg, melted as a goodness of flavour burst in your mouth.

Dessert was a Baked Alaska (ice cream baked in meringue) and three flavours (expresso, chocolate and vanilla) creme brulee. We requested boysenberry, rum and raisin and macadamia nut ice cream (they messed up and put in two macadamia nut ones but it's okay). Good.. yum.. what can I say but.. yum!

Now the creme brulee. Three flavours in three expresso cups. Starting with expresso. Instead of drenching it in expresso, they put a cracked coffee bean in it, infusing the coffee flavour all over the creme brulee, and the stuff was pale! The chocolate and vanilla ones were just as good.

We'll be going again to try out the other stuff, compliments to the chef. I look forward to the next time we go.