There are not many Swiss cafes/bakeries in Singapore, right? Off the top of my head, I can only think of Swissbake (love their breads!), Swiss Culture (in Suntec Mall), and Swiss Baeckerei, a quiet neighbourhood cafe-bistro founded some 6 years ago. Besides breads and pastries, the menu has a good mix of omelettes, crêpes, quiches, sandwiches and rösti.

The scrambled egg rosti ($10.90) didn’t blow me away. It’s rather thin and not the thick and chuncky type I had in Switzerland before.

Here’s the Sausage Omelette ($12.90). I tried the omelette but can’t remember the taste now so it should be average. Otherwise, I’d remember! =)

You can always tell which cake is the most popular by looking at which cake disappears the fastest from the table. Louve ($4.90) was the cake that day. And what a special cake it was, with a layer of smooth crème brûlée topping a rich dark chocolate mousse.

Unless you really really really want a tiramisu, don’t bother ordering this dry tiramisu ($5.70).

Like the tiramisu, the Palais Royal ($4.90) suffers the same “dry” fate. And the layer of nougat in between the chocolate mousse ain’t as crunchy as I’d like.

Food is not fantastic and location is not exactly accessible so I guess it’ll be quite some time before I make an appearance here again.

The set lunch deal at Gordon Grill is quite excellent: 3 or 4 course for $48++ and $58++ respectively, and you get to choose 3 types of starters and soups, somewhat like a mini tasting menu. With the benefit of hindsight, I’ll just get the 3 course without the soups (the three I tried were very diluted) next time. And my favourite starter is actually the marinated king crab, avocado puree and gazpacho sorbet from the child degustation menu (ask for a change!).

And because it’s the time-honoured truffle season, I had an additional order of soft-poached organic hen egg with melted onions and carbonara foam ($18++, supplement of $24++ for 2 grams of truffles)! I’m not certain the combination works well. Cuz of the onions and carbonara foam, this was more sweet than savoury. I say simplicity works best when it comes to truffles.

A generous slab of pan fried barramundi for my main. Always like a fresh fish cooked well =)

Otto has set the benchmark to beat for the perfect crème brulée. Though I’m partial towards anything chestnut, this chestnut and white truffle version ($16++) was too sweet and not as smooth.

For lunch, any main course comes with a glass of iced tea, soup of the day, 2 choices of sides and dessert. Quite a good deal!

All of us had the tomato soup which was tangy and appetising.

The signature pan-seared salmon with Kung Pao sauce ($17.90+) was decent enough. It’s actually just salmon drizzled with the Chinese Sichuan spicy sauce. Nothing bad, just nothing special~

I was the only one who had fish; the friends chose different versions of chicken! There’s black pepper chicken chop ($9.90+), chicken with mushroom sauce ($12.90+) and grilled chicken with BBQ sauce ($11.90+).

As you can see, portions are generous and it’s great value for money!

Dessert was a scoop of chocolate ice cream, probably from Wall’s or something.

I must admit that I quite like the whole dining experience, primarily cuz service was wonderful, attentive without being intrusive, and always one step ahead (cups were refilled promptly, plates were changed regularly etc). Well done!

Excellent service aside, the food had some hits and misses. I love the gimmicky fruit juice ($3++ per test tube), a refreshing blend of green apple, papaya, lemon and cai xin. And the really outstanding dishes to me are the deep-fried cod fillets coated with salted egg yolk ($28++) and the deep-fried prawns with wasabi-mayo sauce ($28++). Non-oily at all and flavours were spot on!

Here’s the so-so dishes: decent but not ultra smooth braised homemade beancurd with wild fungus and conpoy crisps ($20++); bland sea cucumber stuffed with “lion head” ($16.80++); tough and chewy Shanghai-style wok-fried ‘nian gao’ ($18++); and my must-order of poached vegetables with 3 kinds of eggs ($18++) was disappointingly insipid, nothing like the flavourful version from Pu Tien!

The menu is limited, only 5 types of burgers and I’ve already tried all except one. The burger set comes with a choice of juices (the diluted-by-too-many-ice-cubes wheatgrass spinach tasted anything but that) and crispy seaweed fries that’s (ironically) rather salty.

Besides burgers and fries, there’s some sides like vegan franks, soup and salad too. The potato spinach pops look good, right? But I felt slightly cheated when they were served. Only 5 small balls (expensive at $3.80!) heavily bolstered by lots of lettuce (to give the impression that the portion is not so pathetic) and they were very ordinary, think crispy fried potato balls with minimal seasoning.

The buns are organic (I like the soft rye and wholemeal best) and all the patties contain no gluten, dairy, GMO, preservatives or transfats. That sounds so healthy! Speaking of which, I find that the texture of the patties are somewhat similar to one another. After trying so many, I can safely conclude that what differentiates the burgers from each other is the sauce.

So far, char-grilled satay (below, $6.85 for burger, $10.85 for set) is my favourite! A familiar taste that’s not too overpowering. For a limited period, there’s a Christmas burger (above) that’s pretty awesome too: cracked pepper patty with a tangy sweet cranberry sauce ($7.85 for burger, $11.85 for set)~ Nice, nice.

I also like the wonderfully smokey flavour of the (you guess it) smoky BBQ ($6.85 for burger, $10.85 for set) burger!

Though the classic Hawaiian pineapple burger ($6.85 for burger, $10.85 for set) is their signature, I didn’t quite take to the sweet plum sauce.. Burgers are supposed to be savoury, aren’t they?

Even if you are a hard-core carnivore, give Vegan Burg a try! While it may not turn you into a vegetarian overnight, you may be surprised at how yummy these meatless burgers can be =)