Western

The Prawn Aglio Olio ($18.90) features al dente spaghetti and tiger prawns in olive oil, garlic and chilli flakes. This is fragrant and tasty.

The Hainanese Pork Chop ($16.90) is another classic. The breaded pork loin is crispy and firm without being tough. The tomato sauce has just the right balance of sweet and sour notes and the fries are great.

The star of the day would have to be the Traditional Hainanese Oxtail Stew ($32.90). The oxtail is fall apart tender and it literally melts in your mouth. The rich sauce is throughly infused with the flavour of the oxtail and the carrots, potato and bread go really well with delicious sauce. So good!

Bravery Chicken Ragu ($18) features a piece of herbed chicken thigh on top of al dente spaghetti tossed with mushroom and roasted vegetables in creamy ragout sauce. The chicken is tender and moist, while the sauce is creamy but not too heavy. Cream pasta is not usually my first choice of pasta but this was enjoyable. The portion is very generous as well. Yums!

Talk about making a dramatic entrance! We literally walked into a hidden shelf in a TCM hall, down a neon-lit alleyway, before reaching Synthesis, a restaurant serving local inspired fusion cuisine. We ordered the daily Lunch Set ($38 per pax) which came with starter, bread, main, dessert and drink.

For starters, we had a trio of Chicken Rice Sushi, Smoked Duck Tartlet and Fried Dumpling with Truffle Aioli. The Chicken Rice Sushi was quite interesting - the combination of chicken roulade, smoked carrot puree, chilli ginger purée and Japanese rice was familiar and refreshing at the same time.

Next, we had Traditional Milk Bun with Kopi Compound Butter. The coffee butter was quite hard to spread and this tasted pretty normal to me.

For mains, there was a choice of Pan Seared Chicken Breast, Pan Seared Barramundi and Australian Wagyu Striploin (+$8). My favourite would have to be the Wagyu steak served with pumpkin purée and Kerisik Rendang - while it might not the best steak I have had, it was pretty juicy and tasty. The chicken breast was very tender as well.

Dessert was a Pandan-Gula Melaka cake and it was surprisingly good! The sponge cake was pillowy and the flavour profiles complemented one another very well.

Overall, the food is not bad and this is actually very good value for money - glad to try this!

Recently, I tried the O.G Salmon ($14.90) from Poke Theory and I love it! As I am not the biggest fan of my greens, I am glad that apart from crunchy greens, there is a choice of sushi rice, brown rice, lemon herb quinoa and sesame soba for the base👏🏻

The poke bowl comes with salmon, corn salsa, wakame seaweed, cherry tomatoes, carrot, pickled onions, ramen egg and 2 toppings of your choice (I chose Tobiko and garlic granules). The raw salmon cubes are fresh and tossed in a delicious shoyu sauce. The other ingredients complemented the salmon and the portion was just nice. Glad to find a nice poke place near office!

I didn’t quite like the Chilli Crab Linguine ($26) because even though it was pretty spicy, the sweet undertone was too strong for me (reminds me of sweet chilli sauce😅). Having said that, I like that they were very generous with the amount of crab meat and Tobiko in this.

Melbourne’s Avo Toast ($26) came with avocado mash, whipped ricotta, Vegemite emulsion, marinated tomatoes and greens on top of sourdough bread. The avocado mash was creamy and tasty, and the double scrambled egg was soooo smooth. Though this is quite overpriced, I enjoyed this more than I expected.

This is my first visit to Gather and the galettes (savoury crepes) are delicious!

We had:
▪️Salami & Potato ($19) - Salami, sautéed russet and red pontiac potatoes, melted Brie and egg
▪️Mushroom ($18) - Sautéed portobello, white button and king oyster mushroom, rocket, mixed cheddar and egg
▪️Parma Ham ($19) - Italian Parma ham, mixed cheddar and egg

The combination of the ingredients worked well and the runny egg tied everything together. The crepe is thin and the generous filling is a delightful burst of flavours. Enjoyed this thoroughly!

The Crabmeat Linguine ($22.80) features al dente linguine, blue swimmer crabmeat and cherry tomatoes in a creamy pomodoro sauce - this is tasty and satisfying!

I completed my meal with the Gula Melaka Latte ($8 + $1 for iced) which is smooth and aromatic - love the addition of Gula Melaka, toasted coconut and cream.

It’s hard for tater tots to go wrong and the Uni Mayo Tater Tots ($7 for half) is one level up. The crispy tater tots are drizzled in uni mayo and torched, and topped with Japanese sprinkles, bonito flakes and seaweed. This is as yummy as it sounds.