Located along Winstedt Road behind an old school, District 10 Bistro was located awy from the bustling areas of Novena and Orchard Road. In the day, it can be a relaxing garden like haven with rustic furniture, old school décor. At night, it turns into a night garden party scene in the with colourful lanterns.
On the heritage side, District 10 bistro used to be the school canteen of the old Monks’ Hill Campus. Monks’ Hill Secondary was closed in 22nd November 2006 and it merged with Balestier Hill Secondary School in January 2007. The school got its name from an old monastery that used to exist before the school was build or from the temple on a hill rock just before the Old Monk’s Hill building. Both said structures no longer exist though.
You can find some interesting reads about Monks’ Hill here and here.
Winstedt Road might be named after a prolific British scholar and writer named Sir Richard Olaf Winstedt who was an English Orientalist and colonial administrator with expertise in British Malaya. Sir Richard Olaf Winstedt, better known as R.O Winstedt was the first President of the Raffles College in Singapore from 1921-1931. His works, including the History of Malay (1935) was one of the most comprehensive works done that covers the histories of Malaya, Selangor, and Riau etc. On top of that, he translated the Malay Annals in 1938 and a book of Malay Proverbs in 1950.
You can read more about him here.
My previous visit to District was just after I ORDed with two of my friends, Andre and Catheleen. I like the ambience of the place and I like the Crème Brulee.
It was about 9 am in the morning. I received a call from Vinleon, “Good Morning! Lets’ have lunch today!” Not wanting to waste a $10 voucher and keen to introduce Vinleon to this place. We decided to have lunch at District 10, not too far from my workplace like Bugis and easy for Vinleon to travel.
We had the 3-Course Set Lunch which seemed to change once in a while. The Set Lunch cost $18.00++ per head with an appetizer, main course and for the 3rd course, a drink (coffee or tea). You can upgrade your main to the Beer-Battered Fish and Chips ($21) for $7 and another $5 for a Dessert of the Day which was a Passionfruit Sundae when we visited the place.
There were two choices for the appetizer. We took both and three choices for the main course. Tea served was a Twinnings English Breakfast Tea.
The meal started off nicely with generous portions, something both Vinleon and I did not expect.
Smocked Chicken and White Asparagus Salad with Mixed Leafs Almonds and Lemon and Parmesan Dressing was what Vinleon had. If you suspect there is a spelling error, I copied this from the menu. The salad was fresh without doubt and the serving can feed two actually if you are not a big eater. Both of us were fine with the salad the only issue was that there wasn’t enough dressing and the bitterness of the rocket leaves became very obvious. The dressing was slightly sweet.
Cream Pumpkin Leek and Butternut Squash was my starter. I love this soup a lot. Finally a good cream soup! I liked this more than the French Onion Soup I had during my previous visit. The pumpkin flavour is not too strong and yet it is flavourful enough. I enjoyed this soup very much.
Chicken Cordon Blue – Breaded Chicken Breast with ham and cheese served with mash potatoes and creamy mustard sauce. (According to menu) The chicken is quite tough and not as tender as I would like it (but it is the breast meat after all). The portion of cheese and ham is very little and it falls off easily, in fact I could hardly taste the cheese. The mustard sauce was sweet and slightly spicy (like wasabi kind of spicy). The portion I must say is quite big, once again exceeding my expectation. However, overall this is one of the weaker dishes of the day. Comparing this to the Chicken Corden Bleu I had at Bistro@Changi, this is much more weaker but the portions here was much bigger.
French Cassoulet – Duck Leg, Pork Sausage, and White Beans in a Red Wine Tomato Sauce was good, it came with a serving of thin toast like bread to go with the cassoulet. Both Vinleon and I thought that the whole dish reminds us of a good deconstructed pizza. We enjoyed this dish and like the Chicken Cordon Blue, the serving was rather big. Vinleon’s feedback for this dish would be more flavour because the taste gets a little monotonous half-way through the dish (probably with more herbs).
Both main courses are quite big in portions. The weakness of both was that it does not have what it takes to make you follow through the whole meal. Half way through the main course, one might get tired by the same taste. Just imagine eating a giant Chicken Cutlet in Taipei.
We ended the meal with an ala carte order of the dessert because the UOB Return Voucher does not apply to Set Meals. The Traditional Crème Brule with Bourbon Vanilla and Rum ($10.00) did not disappoint us. It was like the previous visit, an excellent dessert. Both of us enjoyed this dessert a lot. Not too sweet, nicely caramelized crust, specks of vanilla beans, fragrant and an added bonus of having a nice biscuit to go with the crème brulee.
For the meal, we are very satisfied. Taking the portions into account, the set lunch was reasonably priced. Vinleon was saying he might come back again especially on Monday Nights to chill out. 1-for-1 house pours with free flow of pizzas!
The service however needs a lot more touching up. There was an instance Vinleon enquired about the Champagne promotion, the waitress promised to get back to him but failed to. Dessert was not served with dessert spoons (happened to a nearby table as well) and the wait for the crème brulee was rather long despite making the order early and the most astonishing thing that happened was that a chair gave way (lucky no one was hurt).
Overall, a little give and take, the meal was still an enjoyable one, the ambience itself was worth coming back for. Some items that I would still came back for are the Crème Brulee and the Pumpkin Soup if they serve it.
Other points:
- Lunch crowd starts to pick up around 1300 hours, so it gets a little noisy.
- You can see the chef in action if you are sitting at the rear dining area.
- They have wines going from $39 - $99++, quite a big collection of wines.
- The interior was quite dim, not friendly for photo-taking.
- Set Lunch only valid on Weekdays.
Receipt:
Set Lunch - $18
Crème Brulee - $10
+ GST and Service Charge
=about $54
District 10 Bistro Wine Bar
10 Winstedt Road
#01-17 Singapore 227977
Monday through Thursday,
Sunday and Public Holiday: 10.00am to 11.00pm
Friday, Saturday, Eve of Public Holiday: 10.00am to 2.00am
Tel: +65 6738 4788
Fax: +65 6738 5378
"smacked chicken"= ayam penyet (:
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHave you been there for dinner?
ReplyDeleteI'm planning a dinner there next week, thinking of what to order then, and most importantly what equipment to bring as I heard the lighting outdoor is quite a challenge.
to Stargirl:
ReplyDeletelol i know they got rendeng pizza but i don't think they introduced ayam penyet for that dish heh.
to Amasou-Umasou:
hmmm a small tripod for long exposure?
Daylight is abit tough, i tried night before even harder unless you get the tables with light directly above might be abit better.
Or you might even consider bringing your own light heh.
Haha. I guess my ISO 3.2k will come in handy then. It will be quite a 'noisy' post though.
ReplyDelete