Botanico at the Garage

 

FAQ on Botanico at the Garage :

1. What attracts you to come to this restaurant?

👉 As part of our Valentine's celebration for year 2021, we made reservation in this fine dining restaurant in Botanical Garden Singapore. This restaurant serves 10 course Omakase chef tasting menu in which the menu is inspired and infused with botanical flavour, which attract us to try out. I am wondering how the chef able to infuse botanical flavour into dishes from appetizer all the way until dessert, let's not forget the beverages as well!

2. What do you expect to dine in this restaurant?

👉 Botanical flavour inspired dishes and beverages. We are visiting purposely for the 10 course Omakase chef tasting menu for Valentine's dinner.

3. What is the recommended time to dine in this restaurant?

👉 I would recommend to come for dinner, as the outdoor seatings are prettier and more romantic in evening dim lighting, together with the candlelit. Outdoor seatings are hot seats, so remember to make reservation prior the visit to avoid dissapointment!

We reserved Botanico at the Garage as part of our early Valentine's celebration this year. It was our 5th Valentine's together, thanks for the company these few years 😘. We celebrated Valentine's one week earlier to avoid the crowds on the day, so we can slowly enjoy our dinner which is 10 course Omakase chef tasting menu. We made our reservation online about 2 weeks ago. I must compliment the service in Botanico at the Garage. They replied us quite fast, arranged an outdoor seating for us, responsive to our meal preference (I am not able to eat beef and lamb and they have already arranged nicely), and lastly not forget the complimentary chocolate cake dessert with the words "Happy V-Day" for us to end the 10 course meal. It was an unexpected yet sweet touch to end the gastronomy journey for the night. 😍

Botanico at the Garage is a 2 storeys house with the ground level houses a cafe called "Bee Knees" which is more to a casual cafe type, and the 2nd level houses this fine dining restaurant called "Botanico" which is more to a formal and romantic type of restaurant. We went up to 2nd floor and reached Botanico restaurant. After being seated and without us mentioning, the manager already knew about the 10 course meal which I have mentioned during reservation, and started to ask the chef to prepare accordingly. All tables here were nicely decorated with some fresh flowers. Just imagine yourself dining in restaurant at Botanical Garden, flowers everywhere! While waiting for our meals, we flipped through the beverages menu. The beverage here was infused with botanical flavours (both alcoholic and non alcoholic drinks) which were special and worth to try. Frankly I had a hard time to choose what drink to order, as all of the drinks were too beautiful haha! 😂Some botanical drinks menu for your reference as below (so you can understand my dilemma).

Botanical Infused Beverages

👉 Mojito No.5 - $19

Ingredient: A mixture of rum, blackberry, lychee, mint, and lime juice. 

Taste Review: A refreshing drink indeed! Botanic inspired cocktail, with the infusion of mint and lime juice which freshen up your taste bud before the dinner.

Rating: ★★★★★

👉 Life Lagoon - $12

Ingredient: A mixture of blue lagoon, fresh cranberry juice, and milk

Taste Review: Cranberry juice with a touch of blue lagoon coloring at the bottom of glass. Nothing much to shout out on this. The color looks nice thou, but abit lacking of the botanical feeling here.

Rating: ★★★

Blue lagoon

Botanical Infused Dinner (10 Course Omakase Chef Tasting Menu)

Price: $98++/pax (minimum 2 pax to order)

Total Damage for 2 pax (include foods, drinks, tax and service charges): ~$270

Note: Since it is Omakase style, the chef will determine the menu that he/she wants for the day. We don't know the exact menu that we are going to eat for the day, and we are not able to pin-point the meal that we would like to eat. It is quite special and have a "surprise" element to us. Remember to mention on your meal allergy and those foods that can't be eaten, then the chef will take care of it.

Note: Food reviews are based on personal opinion, might vary from individual to individual.

Our 10 course Omakase chef tasting menu as below, according to sequential order:

👉 1st course (appetizer): Bread of the Day

Ingredient: 2 pcs of breads served with house-smoked butter and condiments

Taste Review: Crispy texture of breads with a fragrant and smooth butter with some pre-mixed condiments to increase the flavours when tasting. We joked about the rice decoration as well! (should take the rice back home to cook, don't waste it haha! 😅)

Rating: ★★★★★

 

👉 2nd course (nibbles): Seasonal Oysters

Ingredient: Oysters served with chilli-coriander granita

Taste Review: Cooling nibbles to wash your palette. The oysters were not bad, but not as fresh as what we could imagine of. Still not a bad quality of what we could get here in Singapore, don't worry, there was no bad odours of oysters. Freshness was still there, but not the top notch one.

Rating: ★★★

👉 3rd course (nibbles): Cauliflower

Ingredient: Cauliflower which is shallow-fried, tossed in Canarejal fondue, finished with kaffir lime zest and spiced almonds

Taste Review: Canarejal (sheep's milk cheese) increased the buttery flavours of cauliflower, and kaffir lime zest boosted citrusy flavours. Topped up with some spiced almonds which were nice and crunchy when eat with cauliflower.

Rating: ★★★★★

👉 4th course (nibbles): Asparagus Tempura

Ingredient: Deep fried asparagus served on miso hollandaise and topped with scallions and sesame powder

Taste Review: Asparagus was deep fried but not oily, and served with miso hollandaise which was an egg yolk sauce made from rice vinegar and miso paste mixture. A twist to the ordinary fried asparagus.

Rating: ★★★★

👉 5th course (nibbles): Corn Panipuri

Ingredient: Puff little pillows of Puri encasing curried Japanese corn espuma and spiced baby corn

Taste Review: Puri bread that was so crispy and tasty with the infusion of curried corn foam. The foam was so smooth and creamy, and bursted inside your tongue when you ate the corn panipuri in one shot. At the bottom of corn panipuri, there were some crispy cornflakes which you can eat together with. Definitely a nice nibble for us. 

Rating: ★★★★★

👉 6th course (appetizer): Wing Bean Salad

Ingredient: Fresh winged beans, onions, and eggs, with fish sauce, palm sugar, birds eye chilli, lime aioli and chickpea tofu

Taste Review: Winged beans and anchovies were quite raw to our opinion, although they were spiced with some sauce, chilli pepper and some lime aioli (lime juice, egg mayonnaise, garlic).

Rating: ★★

👉 7th course (soup and "lattes"): Foie Gras "Latte"

Ingredient: Rich soup of foie gras blended with cream and chicken stock, topped with milk foam and paired with a brioche

Taste Review: Luxury and creamy foie gras which was very thick and creamy, as it was already well blended and flavoured with chicken stock. The milk foam was very smooth and foamy, so it was like drinking a thick foie gras with chicken stock "latte". A brioche bread was given at the side of the cup where you can dip into the "latte", much like dipping garlic bread into mushroom soup feeling. It was good when we drank it at first, but the smell of chicken stock was quite overwhelming which made it a bit too "cheesy". However, overall still a nice and special "latte".

Rating: ★★★★

👉 8th course (from the Inka): 65° Kurobuta Pork Belly

Ingredient: Slow-cooked Kurobuta pork belly served with textures of sunchoke, leek flowers and house-made soy-vinegar infused with Szechuan peppercorns

Taste Review: Kurobuta is a black Berkshire pig. It is like a wagyu of pork world. Kurobuta is well known for their flavourful and tender pork compared to other pork types. The chef used the kurobuta pork belly to make the texture even more tender. The fatty pork belly was slow-cooked and well flavoured with sunchoke. Mixed up the pork belly with the soy-vinegar sauce and Szechuan black pepper to spice up the flavour.

Rating: ★★★★

👉 9th course (main plates): Crab rissoni

Ingredient: Rissoni cooked with nori, served with a mixture of Japanese deep-sea red crab and blue swimmer crab's meat, complemented with octopus bottarga and comte

Taste Review: Finally it is the main course of the day! Remember to mix up all the crab meats, sauce and rissoni together before you eat the meal. The crab meat was succulent, juicy and quite fresh, but have a little bit of "fishy" smell, maybe it was to retain the original flavour of the crab. The rissoni was not very succulent and not as "well soaked" as I would imagine of. Would be better if the rissoni was "soaked" into the seafood soup at a longer time, so that when you bite the rissoni, it will be bursting into a mouthful of seafood flavour. Overall still a nice main course, just a bit lacking in the elements above.

Rating: ★★★★

👉 10th course (desserts): Ondeh ondeh

Ingredient: Chef's interpretation of the local ondeh ondeh, consisting of coconut foam, kaya ice cream, pandan glutinous rice cake and gula melaka

Taste Review: The last course of the day with some nice desserts to end the culinary journey! The glutinous rice cake was pre-mixed with pandan flavours which made it more fragrant, topped with some gula melaka to sweeten up the rice cake. Kaya ice cream was quite special and felt a bit like "vanilla" texture. The coconut foam at the bottom of kaya ice cream was well decorated and complement the whole ondeh ondeh dessert dish.

Rating: ★★★★

👉 Complimentary Valentine's treat (desserts): Chocolate merlot cake

Ingredient: Dark chocolate mousse infused with red wine, layered with crunchy feuilletine and chocolate biscuit base

Taste Review: A sweet nice treat from Botanico, as part of the Valentine's cake for us! They served with Ondeh ondeh dessert together, and we were so surprised to get both sets of desserts! Really appreciate all the amazing touches from Botanico! 👏😍😇 We felt the chocolate cake was so nice, not because it was complimentary haha, but we really prefered this over Ondeh ondeh. Ondeh ondeh was fresh dessert, chocolate merlot cake was like a sparkle to end the 10 course journey for us! The dark chocolate was heavenly and had a thick solid "chocolate-ty" texture. When ate together with feuilletine (thin and sweetened crepes) layers and chocolate biscuit as the base of the cake, the whole things complemented well with each other. It was truly a must for chocolate lovers!

Rating: ★★★★★

Total Damage for 2 pax (include foods, drinks, tax and service charges): ~$270

So that's the end of our 10 course Omakase chef tasting menu in Botanico at the Garage. Although few of the courses were not up to our liking, overall we were satisfied with the foods and left the restaurant with a happy stomach. We liked the Omakase surprise, while waiting for your food orders to arrive, we are flipping the menu and starting to guess what we will have it for the day. The price of 10 course came at $98/pax (exclude tax and service charge) was quite worth to our opinions. Moreover, we were getting some good services together with the complimentary dessert to end our culinary journey of the day. A nice gesture definitely liven up the Valentine's mood!

We were seated at the corner end of the restaurant. Took some photos while waiting for foods.

Red dress for Valentine's / Chinese New Year celebration. Selfie while I am still young..?

Having a hard time to choose our drink menu. They already served nibbles for us haha.

Slowly more customers coming in.

Photo as our 2021 Valentine's memory.
Happy V-day chocolate merlot cake and Ondeh ondeh on the table.

Last photo of the day. Everyone will take photo here before leaving, is like a photo spot.

A Little Info. on Botanico at the Garage
Official Website: https://www.thegarage.sg/ (hover to Botanico tab and refer there for the latest menu)
Facebook Webpage: Botanico

Location/ How to Go: 50 Cluny Park Rd, Level 2 Singapore Botanic Gardens, 257488 Singapore

Opening Hours: Closed on Monday. 11am-3pm (only on Friday, Saturday and Sunday), 6pm-10pm (everyday except Monday)

 

Personal Rating: 
Taste ➪ 7/10 (1-3: Below average, 4-6: Average, 7-10: Above average)
Price➪  3/10 (1-3: Expensive, 4-6: Average, 7-10: Budget-friendly)
Ambiance ➪ 6/10  (1-3: Below average, 4-6: Average, 7-10: Above average)



💗 Author: Ng Mei Lian/ Adrian Yeoh Aun Hong
👉 Date of Visit: 7 February 2021

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