Botanico at The Garage, Botanic Gardens

Someone(s) out there spent a lot of time, money, blood and sweat to build this restaurant (Level 2 The Garage, 50 Cluny Park Road, tel : +65 9831 1106). And then they built a website that they thought it deserved to introduce it to the world. Which is why I won't be doing it. Here's a link.

But here's what I think of it. Their ideas are good. Execution is in my not so humble opinion, not so. 

oyster | avocado jalapeño emulsion | smoked salmon roe

Oysters with avocado puree would be what I would call it. Not getting any smoke from those puny portions of roe or the jalapeño. Was hoping for the shellfish to be more chilled. I'm not an expert on oysters so I'll just say they're not bad. 

pork belly | charred pineapple | sherry glaze

Their pork belly was a sweet, savoury and fall apart tender kind of nice. But for what they charged, I was hoping that it would be outstanding rather than just nice.

lamb tartare | capers | mustard ice cream

I liked the idea of lamb tartare because I generally like lamb and I thought this might be on to something. While it was obvious that it's meat, I couldn't identify what meat it was. Too much marination perhaps. Not traditional tartare in terms of spices but the creamy mustard ice cream worked. Not getting the smoked olive oil too. As a dish, it was fine. As lamb tartare, I consider it to be a spectacular failure.

Those cheesy crackers that came with the lamb were nice though.

roasted pigeon | risotto | walnuts

There was a roasted pigeon with risotto made with pigeon jus, onions and mozzarella cheese. The rice had a flavour that reminded me of French onion soup. Which is not surprising considering that the soup was essentially a beef stock, onions and eventually some cheese. I liked this. The bird was nicely roasted to a medium doneness and properly salted. Possibly the only impressive dish we had.

carabinero | saffron mellow rice | pork crackers | pine nuts

Those carabinero prawns were tasty. Crustacean-ily flavoursome as one would expect. The rice was sweet. Loads of sweetness coming from some crustacean stock and from what we were tasting, totally devoided of salt. So only the prawns were nice.

jalapeño ice cream | bacon financier | Sarawak pineapple | coriander

Ice cream was not bad. Getting that jalapeño flavour through the creaminess. Not sure what's the deal with the bacon financier thought. It would seem that Botanico isn't very different from a bunch of other restaurants in town; attempting to slap up some interesting combinations of ingredients and flavours on the menu without any responsibility of having to live up to what they have claimed. 

malt ice cream | 70% dark chocolate | Guinness stout | thyme

Couldn't taste the malt in the ice cream. That's just sad right? They've probably wasted the Guinness as well in whichever item that was suppose to have stout. I'm getting the thyme and chocolate though.

I thought it was a pity that the food didn't quite work out. There was a very pleasant outdoor seating that even had air conditioning which I would have wanted to try if there was a possibility of returning. They even pour a nice moscato that was less overpriced than most others by glass.