Dinner on 31 Dec 2007

Dinner today was simple for a New Year celebration. The name of the place we went to, Cafe 211, did little to betray what was in store for us.

Tucked up on the 4th floor of Holland Village Shopping Centre, it will be missed if one was not actively seeking it out. It had some indoor seating but the highlight would have been on the terrace outside overlooking the streets below and under the night sky. The only outdoor seats left were, according to the waiter, quite 'low' and seeing how Fran, in her advanced state of pregnancy, would have been quite tortured in that kind of seating arrangement, we opted to sit indoors.

We had the a cream of mushroom soup and a Waldorf salad to share. She, as usual, picked the spaghetti vongole depriving me of my first choice again :) I finally settled for a linguini scampi and to wash it all down, a fresh orange juice for Fran and a rambutan ice blend for me.

The food was excellent, in my opinion. The soup was creamy with mushroom bits to the last drop. Even the bread that came with it was warm and so soft. The salad was interesting enough for me to even hazard a taste of it. However, the highlight had to be the pasta. The portions were very generous. The 'al dente' spaghetti being coated with a very tasty olive oil base sauce laced with a hint of white wine. The red chillis added both colour and a spicy tang to the tongue. The linguine was not to the outdone, also done with an olive oil base sauce noticeably different without the wine. The generous serving of prawns were so perfectly done, they had a crunch and bite to it, when bitten into.


Linguine Scampi

Any place that tops of the meal with FRESH orange juice, cements its place as a place to come back to. The rambutan ice blend was surprisingly good, very pleasant taste and the blend of ice was so smooth.

The service was good with the soup, starters and mains served at appropriate intervals. There was not the rushed feeling one tends to get at other restaurants on a busy night. I may have already said this but the portions were much more than one would have expected.

So all in all, a more than pleasant meal. A real surprise find for me to have found such good food to accompany such a pleasant location. Some place to really try out!

Address:
211 Holland Avenue
#04-01 Holland Road Shopping Centre

Tel: 6462 6194