Cellar Door Lunch

I've been wanting to try Cellar Door for pretty long, and finally got down to it one rainy afternoon. (Though, again, this is very outdated - happened before I went on holiday.) Cellar Door is located at the row of shops right after Coronation Plaza. It's a small restaurant serving New Zealand/Australian cuisine. I'm not a great fan of NZ/Aust cuisine, and I think the only other such restaurant I've tried was BROTH.
It was pretty empty when I went, with only 2 other tables occupied. The restaurant is brightly lit, and pretty cosy, and it's great if you want a quiet lunch. The set lunch comes with 3 dishes, and we had 2 lunch sets. Tomato with Bread Soup. I was pretty excited to try this dish cos I was told that the bread comes inside the soup. It's just soggy pieces of bread swimming inside the tomato soup. The tomato soup itself tastes pretty good, not too salty and it has the sweetish sour taste of tomatoes, and it's pretty chunky. They also put in a bit of balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

The other starter we tried was some pasta thing stuffed with ricotta cheese, served with baby spinach and mushrooms. I really didn't like this dish because the pasta thing was super watery, and it made the cream sauce too wet and watery. Other than that, I thought that the mushrooms and spinach went pretty well with the ricotta cheese.

Braised Lamb, which was recommended by the waiter. It's a pretty small portion though, just a few pieces of lamb. The lamb was extremely soft and flavourful. I can't remember what the mashed potatoes taste like, but it can't be that good since I can't remember.

My New Zealand Mussel Spaghetti, with some special cheese (pecorino? not too sure I didn't copy down the menu). The noodles were al dente, just the way I like it. The tomato sauce is the dry-ish kind, and is slightly tangy. It's pretty chunky, and I could see some celery and onion pieces inside, which gave the pasta more bite. The mussels were unremarkable, not too tough but not extremely soft either.

Pana Cotta - this was served wobbling delightfully to our table. I always shake the plate before eating, cos it gives me an idea of how soft the panna cotta is. This one is pretty soft - it wobbles a few times even after you stop shaking the plate. It's served with lots of berry sauce, and its very creamy and delicious.
Fruit Cake (or some fanciful name, but it's actually just raisin cake, no other fruits apart from the raisins, they should just call it raisin cake). On the menu, it states "served with Kapiti ice cream". When I pointed out the "Kapiti ice cream" phrase in the lunch menu, and asked the waiter what it was,(since there isn't any explaination on the menu), he said it was a brand of ice cream. So I asked what flavour it was, and he said chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. When I asked for chocolate, he said the set lunch is only served with vanilla. Seriously, just tell me it's a brand of vanilla ice cream. Why go through such a covoluted useless explaination if there's only vanilla. Cheat my feelings (just like small cars who make carpark lots look unoccupied).

Anyway, the fruit (raisin) cake sucks just tastes like normal fruit cake minus all the other fruits. The ice cream was pretty good - I shall try to hunt down where it's sold and get myself a tub :)

The service here is actually quite annoying. Apart from the Ice Cream issue, They tried to con us into getting tea/coffee, which I remembered wasn't stated in the lunch set. Lucky I asked if it was complimentary - saved myself some money (I know it's a fraction of the cost of my lunch, but no way am I going to pay a few dollars for something I can make easily at home, since I drink my tea plain after lunch).

It's not really value for money, probably cos it's located along Bukit Timah Road (which, to me, is pretty synnonomous with not very value for money), and the lunch set doesn't come with bread or tea. Thankfully, they serve ice water, or I'd have given them 2.5 stars. Anyway, I don't think I'll come back here even though it's pretty nearby. I've found a better, cheaper restaurant which I will blog about later.
The Cellar Door

611 Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 269712 (Right after Coronation Plaza)
Opening Hours: Mon-Fri 12-10pm, Sat-Sun/PH: 10am-10pm

Tel: 64635296