Was my first time visiting this quaint little restaurant off Dempsey road.

Being a lazy Sunday, we decided on a casual brunch affair.
Known to be popular amongst the higher echleons of the society world, we were being treated to a bevy of eye candies the moment we stepped in.

Menu was limited, there were the brunch must-haves- Eggs benedict and more eggs (the way you like it), Mac and Cheese, Mushroom Pasta. About 4 mains on the menu: Cote De Boueff (In short, Beef), Salmon, Lobster and something else I can't remember.

We decided on an Omelette and Lobster cheese souffle. Being a Sunday, freshly squeezed orange juice is a must.

Wait staff were pretty attentive, doing their regular rounds armed with a basket of freshly baked bread. The onion bread was mediocre.

Took about 30 minutes before our orders came, could be because the souffle takes a while.

When the food finally came, a look at it, and we were seriously disappointed with the portions. Plating's huge, portion's tiny. Great place for the diet-ees. For healthy eaters like us, at the back our minds, Macdonald's as a back up plan B came up.

Food was so-so. Cheese souffle had three small bites of lobster in it, and a splash (I do mean literally a splash) of lobster bisque with it. Omelette was served in a pan with some vegetables. Well, the omelette tasted like an egg.

Having heard rave reviews about their dessert Mars Bar Souffle (and seriously still hungry after our eggs and lobster) we decided to try the Mars. Takes another 20 minutes to prepare. Souffle for you.

Served with chocolate gelato by the side, Mars Bar Souffle was probably the highlight of the entire visit. Light and fluffy, not too sweet, it was pretty well done for a place that served lobster cheese souffle with no lobster and not much cheese.

Bill time.
2 Orange juices, 1 Omelette, 1 Cheese Souffle, 1 Mars Bar Souffle, came up to SGD 110/=

For the portions that we had, and the still growling stomach, the only thing we left with was an half empty wallet.

All in all, this place is probably good for people of the below criteria::
1. Don't eat much
2. Whose tummies fill with feasting on good looking people
3. A lot of cash to spare

Otherwise, a hearty meal at the nearby Mr. Roti Prata is definitely preferred.

i've never bitched about lousy food & service till after being to the "famous" white rabbit. i work in a restaurant kitchen myself & i know how everything goes, both behind & front of the scene. my expectations are always on the high side but when i dine out with my fiancée, we, or rather i, will try not to expect too much from some places. we always have an open mind when it comes to different cuisines.

firstly, i must say that we were rushed to have our orders taken so my fiancée (from now on i'll address her as "X") suggested that we have a glass of their mumm champagne by the glass. right after that order was taken, the waitress asked if she could have the wine list back. i then asked her if i could hold on to it till we actually ordered our main course, just in case we wanted to have a glass with the mains. she then gave us the "oh... err... okay" look. i mean... why? don't they have enough wine lists for the whole restaurant? her explanation for the main course wasn't impressive either. she didn't have the basic food knowledge as what an actual service staff would be required to have. i asked if their main course would come with any salad as a garnish or anything like it bcos "X" is allergic to certain things (which i shan't tell you) & she was, in my own lingo, "lost". HEY! wake up girl! i had to feed her the examples to get my own questions answered. damn. i got pissed off.

i didn't have time (as you already know why) to actually absorb the menu but i had the shallot tart tartin (shallot confit on puff pastry). "X" didn't have any appetizer to start with. it came with rocket leaves, a quenelle of cream cheese & on the base of the tart was balsamic reduction drawn in a spiral form. the shallot was reduced in r/w (red wine) & it was alright. can't complain about that except for the cream cheese. it didn't go with the dish. it would have been better if it was on it's own. canape even.

when the mains came, the manager (he looked like one) served "X" first then myself. it was only then that i was impressed by the service. maybe it wasn't the whole place that's like the first waitress. i gave them another chance.

after placing my plate down, he then gently asked us if we needed any pepper on our mains. i was thinking to myself... dude! i haven't even touched my cutlery, how was i to know if it needed any more seasoning? i gently replied "no thank you" right after "X" did. of course it went along with a smile. within 30 seconds, another wait staff came to us & asked the same question, "sir, madame, would you like some crushed pepper?" while we were still admiring the plate.

"X" had the herb crusted lamb rack (medium rare) w dolphi spuds while i had the scallop linguine. presentation was nice for both but as for taste wise... (let me think before i speak) let's just say the lamb was done correctly. the herb crust wasn't "crusty". it was "wet". if you were to ask me, i think their salamander wasn't working on that nite when we were there. flush it into the oven if you don't have one. the texture of the lamb was very "flaky". it doesn't melt in your mouth, it actually falls apart. that's not good. was it the quality of the meat? there are a few reasons for it. could it be the suppliers fault? for sure it wasn't the cooking method.

the pasta which i had was... in short... it made me recall of my meals after sunday mass. i would have my usual. prawn noodles, dry, w spice. i was excited to have that taste on my palate but having it there, at the white rabbit was not pleasing actually. the scallops were way over cooked. not all singaporeans like everything nooked, killed twice, or even thrice.

i didn't finish the pasta but it seemed that "X"'s plate was almost done. that was only bcos i had to try the lamb. i tried quite abit of it just to have a picture of how it could have been that way.

anyway, just for your information, "X" & i were there to do our own little food tasting for our wedding. i thought that it'll be a nice, cool place to hold a reception but after the service, food & the whole feel, we've dropped the idea, totally. i've even thrown their really cool business card.

oh! another thing, the catering sales guy didn't even bother getting back to us about our wedding so we went down privately on that nite. bad move for us.

p/s: the waitress was what i'd call, "a stonner". i'm sorry but these things are important to me.

So I’ve finally trooped down to White Rabbit – something which I’ve wanted to do for a long time to check out the interiors / décor more than anything else. Obviously food was also top of mind, given the mixed reviews both on this website as well as mainstream media. Secondary was the service, where it seems that White Rabbit has almost become synonymous with “great interiors, so-so food, patchy service”.

The interiors did not disappoint. It was heartening to see that even for a Tuesday lunch the place was almost full. This is obviously one of those places to see and be seen, and already at today’s lunch sitting I spotted a few familiar faces. Once I walked in I already began to wish that I’d come with my regular group of girlfriends as the place was flushed with so much natural light and oh so pretty.

Food wise, there were hits and misses – but the misses outnumbered the hits. Before our dishes arrive I have to say I really enjoyed their warm ciabatta breads and the butter they served there. My friend and I shared the raw oysters, but we were immediately hit by how salty they were – there was just so much salt water in the oysters. I had the foie gras and this was good – competently done, and if I ever went back to White Rabbit I’d order it again. My friend’s duck confit salad was also good. My mushroom cappuccino however was too salty, too diluted, lacked punch and mushroom flavour (despite the fact that it contained porcini powder, per the menu) and was forgettable.

I ordered the White Rabbit Mac & Cheese because I’ve read so much about it (and it seems to be their signature dish and so much has been written about it in mainstream media) and can I just say it was really a bit of a disaster for me, evidenced by the fact that I could not even bear to finish even half of it. Yes all that black truffle and truffle sauce sounds sexy and fancysmazzy-sounding but the reality is that does nothing for the mac & cheese, which, let’s face it – is a rather plebian dish in the first place (even if they choose to brand it as an “old world classic”). The result was a dish that was too rich and had too much going for what is essentially a very simple dish. I don’t know what it is but I really did not dig the resulting clash of flavours in the dish, with the cheese coming off as rather sharp rather than creamy and homely (as it should be). Simply put, I think this dish is a victim of overhype, and I’d personally advise you not to order it – try something else. We skipped dessert, as nothing on the menu appealed (Mars soufflé? No thanks).

I also had the Bamboozle cocktail – a fruity berry-based cocktail - which was pretty good and very easy to drink - definitely lacks the potency of those served in Klee (as an example).

Service was indeed patchy – service could indeed be improved to do the place more justice. Staff were lifeless (some vivaciousness on their part could not hurt) and service could definitely be more refined, from simple things like how they even serve the plate on the table. It just seemed all rather detached, curt and it would help if the waiter maintained eye contact while taking orders. Thankfully I was spared nightmarish incidences which seemed to have hit a few HGW reviewers. So I notice there was a restaurant hostess to welcome guests – but really I’d rather they did away with that and improved the service of the wait staff.

On a side point, it was a little slightly unnerving dining in what used to be a chapel – from where I was seated there was a little basin/bowl which I imagined used to contain holy water fixed to the wall, adorned with a cross and all. Which made me a little unconscious everytime I said a swear word – “oh work is such a fking pain” – followed by me silently going “sorry sorry” in my head…But don’t get me wrong. The whole restored chapel setting makes for a charming site for a restaurant and I thought the Loof peeps really got location right.

I’m not sure if I’d return to the White Rabbit, and that’s mainly because of the food. Unless there’s a change in menu and I’m reading from reviews here that there’s been a bit of a sea change in their offerings, based on my experience today I don’t feel a compelling need to return – great interiors notwithstanding.

The above title is self explanatory. but we had a good friend coming back from hongkong to celebrate her birthday and we wanted some place nice for a gentle Saturday lunch. So my friend suggested this place (and I still maintain that we all got hoodwinked by some famous persons blog) and we all thought hey why not. Lets all be chi chi and be seen at the supposedly newest coolest place in town (Dempsey) to eat in.

Anyway to cut it short, lunch (okay it wasn’t even lunch, it was BRUNCH and when my other friend made the reservation like 2 freaking weeks ago they just you know, couldn’t bring it to her attention that on Saturday they only serve BRUNCH. Nevermind that it may be the norm in other atas restaurants. Dude, we would have appreciated a reminder because some of us don’t eat out so often as to remember that brunch is the norm on weekends and we wanted to eat featured items on the lunch/dinner menu maybe) was painfully long, marred by clueless (this is a nicer word for incompetent) service and food varying in quality.

Really, for the price we paid per head, I expected a lot more.

Whatever it was, we had:

The White Rabbit Mac and Cheese - the ultimate comfort food, served with spring vegetables and a scrumptious truffle sauce

Wild Mushroom Pasta

Baked Sea Scallops with Truffle Butter and Crispy vegetables

Chicken Kiev (Kids Menu)

Steak Frites (Kids Menu)

Spaghetti Bolognaise (Kids Menu)

Nutella Crepes - served with banana ice cream and caramelized bananas (Kids Menu)

Summer Seafood Marinara

Maine Lobster Cheese Souffle served in a sauce of luscious lobster bisque

Roast of the day - Roast Chicken

Fresh Organic Eggs - done the way you like them and served with baked tomatoes, bacon and sausages

Warm Spinach Salad - with pine nuts, poached eggs and brown butter vinaigrette

Strawberry Romanoff - done our way, served with vanilla ice cream and cointreau

The reason why you see things from the kids menu (of the brunch menu) is because their brunch menu is lacking in choice and I had to satisfy myself with the chicken kiev, steak frites and nutella crepe. I had like all three. So lets just start with what I had - the chicken kiev is basically like this breaded (massively deep fried) hollow chicken roll with some kind of oily filling inside, with what would appear and taste to me like green onion of some sort. It wasn’t half bad actually, just that it was extremely oily. And I personally wouldn’t feed my kids such oily deep fried things - inasmuch as I would eat it myself. The chicken kiev came with fries (if I remember correctly - I could be wrong but it came with something kid friendly on the side). Personally I think this portion is good enough for a small eater.

The steak frites was a small thin slab of beef (steak) served with extremely salted French fries. Like dude, there was so much salt my partner nearly fainted. Okay, that was an exaggeration but he was wiping each french fry on the side of his plate. I eat a lot of salty things but this was way past the limit. You could see the salt granules on the fries. The fries were otherwise good. Not overfried or hard or what. Good enough for a serotonin fix. The steak was also tasty enough. Again, the portion would be good enough for a small eater.

My other friend had the spaghetti bolognaise (so that she could order a nutella crepe after) and portion size it really was meant for a kid. She said it wasnt al dente but the beef was good. Personally I really don’t think you could go too far off with spaghetti bolognaise.

3 of us actually had the nutella crepes, which was okay, save that the crepe was too small and the caramelized banana exploding out of the crepe. Like, the crepe was child sized, but the portion of caramelized banana adult size. My partner thought that the caramelized bananas were abit much for him - too sweet too concentrated, so I ate pretty much the whole thing myself. I think my friends thought the crepe was decent enough, and i was actually pleasantly surprised that it came with banana ice cream because you don’t get banana ice cream in most places. The banana ice cream was just okay though. Not anything to scream about.

Two of my friends had the mac and cheese. (I nearly had that myself but the menu description did not particularly appeal and I need meat at most meals) When they first started on it, they were going on about how good it was. But halfway towards the end, they started saying that they were getting abit sick of it. I guess it was kinda heavy, but I thought portion size it looked okay. Not terribly big you know. I tried some and thought that while it was decently tasty enough it wasn’t anything to scream about. Its just macaroni and cheese! Which is probably very cheap to make!

My partner had the wild mushroom pasta - I think it was linguini. Portion size rather dismal. Hes always eating fried rice or mushroom pastas so hes had quite a few in his time. He thought it was okay. Like again, nothing to scream about. I had a tiny bit. I thought the sauce was not too bad. Tasty enough. But it was a tiny bit and I didn’t have any more.

One of my friends had the baked sea scallop and it was served quite beautifully I must say. Like a shell (think ariel from little mermaid) with a scallop on top, and multiply it by like 5 (or so) shells. I did not have any (it wasn’t like there was a lot to share) but my friend thought it was pretty good.

One of my friend’s boyfriends had the summer seafood marinara, and he thought it was okay. I didn’t have any so I cant quite comment. It did look nice and red though. Very good if youre a tomato based pasta fan. But then again I don’t eat any kind of shellfish so I would personally never order this unless they can replace all clams and mussels and whatnot (like if I go back to Borgo).

The birthday girl’s boyfriend had, inter alia, the roast of the day. Now this is something that quite irritated me. When we first arrived and were seated, we asked the (clueless) waitress what the roast of the day was. It was lamb. But when the birthday girl and her boyfriend came later, like 40 or so minutes thereafter (and we all ordered together), the boyfriend thought of getting the roast of the day and asked the same waitress what it was. And it had amazingly morphed from lamb to chicken. I would have appreciated it if she had told us that it had changed, and not wait till only when someone later inquired. Any one of us could have wanted to have roast chicken - we would liked to have known our options. Especially if they could randomly change. In any case the roast chicken was the worst looking dish served. Imagine some puny half starved chicken’s leg with random garnishing. Yes, that was how it looked. And the birthday girl’s boyfriend also said that it was a rather bad roast. He probably meant that it sucked. From the way it looked, i wouldn’t be surprised.

The birthday girl’s boyfriend also had the fresh Organic Eggs and he thought it made for a better meal than the roast chicken.

I think the birthday girl had the maine lobster cheese soufflé - but I forgot to ask her what exactly she thought of it. No comments, so it was probably okay. The birthday girl was also the only one who ordered a dish that fell under what the white rabbit staff would consider an appetizer - the warm spinach salad. Which was actually pretty good, especially so if you like spinach. It was very interesting, how it was served warm and all.

This brings me to how clueless the service was. So what happens is that our clueless waitress figured that the birthday girl was the only one ordering an appetizer (this is disregarding the fact that some of us actually ordered two mains) so she asked the birthday girl would you like this to be served first? And my friend say yes serve that first (because she was having a main). So this waitress interpreted to be just serve the appetizer first, and no one else’s food gets cooked until my friend finishes the salad. It was ridiculous. Because 1 hour after ordering nothing had arrived except the salad and we asked the waitress who then told us she thought we meant only serve the appetizer first and only when my friend was done would she tell the kitchen to start on the mains. Hello dude. we really don’t expect lunch to take like close to three hours man (which was what it eventually took). And this is even more ridiculous because after she screwed up, she started serving EVERYTHING together including the freaking nutella crepe while my other friend was still eating the spaghetti so the crepe and ice cream just sat there waiting and melting until she could deal with it. Our two more orders for the crepe were made only after the first crepe was served, so there was abit of a buffer for me while I continued with my chicken kiev.

The birthday girl and boyfriend also shared a strawberry romanov, which just appeared to me to be cut strawberries on a bed of whipped cream. (i think i could do that!) But they enjoyed it. So that’s good with me. One thing that irritated me further was that the strawberry romanov was not a feature on the brunch menu. It was in their main dining menu. Which is why I thought I could only order a nutella crepe if I wanted dessert. And then the birthday girl’s boyfriend, after finishing his two mains (which after our orders for the nutella crepe was served) asked the clueless waitress what about dessert. And she wordlessly gets the freaking main dining menu for him. And im like what the hell. I would have wanted to order something from the dessert section if you had told me it was available, as opposed to letting me assume that I was confined to the nutella crepe in the brunch menu. This is especially so because at the start we did ask them whether they only serve brunch on Saturday and they said yes. It would follow that everything that is not in their brunch menu is not available. And because there is overlap between the brunch and main dining menu so all the more whatever is not in the brunch menu is not available, yes? Well apparently not.

In order to get a reservation at the white rabbit, my friend had to get it done like two weeks in advance. This was done through and confirmed via email and they managed to get the reservation time wrong even though it was in writing. And they did emphasise the fact that were quite booked. but when we went there - it wasn’t exactly full. I mean, it wasn’t crowded, and the rows in the middle and some tables at the sides were not filled. So I mean if its some kind of weird tactic to make the place more exclusive, I think it has backfired.

Of course it is a nicely done up place. But please, we really don’t want to deal with incompetence. And for the prices we did expect better food, or at least a consistent quality.

With all new outfits, I often find one thing or other lacking - usually the food isn't quite up to par (you can see the potential but it's not quite there), the service is uncoordinated, or the ambience is totally off the mark awful (think euro trash), so it was quite a pleasant surprise that none of these roadblocks came up during my maiden visit to White Rabbit.

Having heard a plethora of reviews, good and bad, about the place, a friend and I decided to see what the hype was all about.

THE FOOD
For starters we shared the tantalizing beef tartare along with a side of pan fried foie gras (the latter is heaven, don't bother sharing!). Followed by Rack of Lamb and the much-talked about Truffle Mac & Cheese for our mains. I often feel that meat is the true test of whether a kitchen has really got its act together or not - and the lamb was seared to medium-rare perfection, a great foil for the slightly jelat Truffle Mac & Cheese. The latter main course MUST be shared, for fear of getting a nose bleed, it's so rich, but very well done for a baked pasta dish. Sort of brings back memories of college comfort food! For dessert we had the Baked Alaska (by this time I was ready to give up and go straight to coffee and tea, I was so full!). I'm a fan of anything that's sweet and incorporates ice-cream somehow, so it was definitely worth the over indulgence.

THE SERVICE
Servers here were polite and on the ball, refilling water glasses, offering bread, basically updating us when they thought there was a slight wait with our food. (We didn't think so, being smokers we figured we had extra time on the deck for an in-between break!) No complaints here!

THE AMBIENCE
Anyone who gives this place less than a 10 for effort would be blind. The space is breathtaking, ever so slightly quirky, with round banquette seats alongside larger tables to accommodate big crowds. We also discovered a row of slightly more intimate two seaters nestled between the main dining room and the al fresco patio.

And of course, our favorite - the al fresco bar. Which comes with its very own DJ. :)

Even the bathrooms are cute! What can I say, I'm a girl, and these things matter to me.

Definitely headed back to try out brunch again soon!