ORD Lunch @ Black Sheep Cafe

26th November 2011. Written by Xin Li.
“ORD” means a lot for Singaporean males who had to serve a compulsory national service. After about 2 years of serving the army, that “ORD” moment is the climax, the moment we are all waiting for.

Mine ended abruptly, too fast, too soon and left a cliffhanger kind of situation for me that bugged for more than a year. This time round, it is Mu Yao’s turn so besides throwing a bash in celebration of his ORD, we hope this will give a nice ending to his army life and as a way to thank him for supporting this blog all this while.

In the morning, we had an ORD photoshoot with Mu Yao, Calvin, Wei Xiang and I taken on the Pinnacle at Duxton, the following images are some of the behind the scenes shots. The M16 rifle (not the kinds we use in army) is just a toy gun that has a childish “Go,Go,Go!” sound upon pressing the trigger (accompanied by rainbow lights). Visually still, it looked real so we had to inform the security guard beforehand that it was toy gun before it sets off alarms and the police on us.

We were also trying out this portable flash gadget that Mu Yao just got. They called this kind of photography “strobist”. I have no idea what that means. However, the effects looked great.

The Pinnacle is a cheaper alternative to the Sky Gardens. With a 5 SGD entrance fee, it is not surprisingly to find a fair number of tourists visiting the Pinnacle roof top gardens. I even met my university tutor brought some foreign visitors and accidently blurt out his full name in surprise (my apologies!).

For the meal, we picked Black Sheep Café, where theMoose had its first gathering for this occasion and Chef Ratha has kindly prepared a special menu for the ORD lunch:

P.S The muruku and cookies were our contributions.

Muruku and Chips More brought back fond memories of our army days especially for Vinleon, Jia Yao, Yew Ann and I. During Deepavali celebrations, we sneaked back huge jars of muruku which became addictive alternatives for breakfasts, lunch, nightsnack and day snacks. The Chips More was one of our top choices for an overnight Guard Duty snack.

Bread with sesame seeds embed to it was being served with butter, something new in Black Sheep Café. Love the fragrant, fluffy and warm bread.

The first item is Chili Cheese “Rice”, Mu Yao’s favourite combat ration except this is Chef Ratha’s rendition of it. While the Risotto was a little too soggy as we were late for the meal I found the overall taste quite delicious and I enjoyed it. However, on retrospective Chef Ratha and we felt that a little bit more of that spicy punch would make this a really good dish.

For the mains, we had one of the signature dishes of Black Sheep Café.

The Crispy Pork Cheeks received endless omphs and ahs from my fellow dinners. One of them exclaimed that he won’t mind coming back to Black Sheep Café just for this. The meat of the Crispy Pork Cheeks is very tender.

My choice of the Kurau or Threadfin pales in comparison to the Crispy Pork Cheeks or the Duck Confit, I found the meat a little too dry and bland, hence it did not blow me away like the Snapper Filet did. Sad to say, I think this is one dish that failed me in Black Sheep Café so far. Nonetheless, nice try.

Dessert is a communal affair, we shared two Banana-Almond Crumble served warm with Vanilla Ice Cream. This is ambrosial, there is the right amount of crumble (not soggy) with the crunchy almonds and nicely, sweet caramelized bananas. To top this awesome dessert, pair with Latte e Miele’s (that’s right, they provide the ice cream for Black Sheep Café) quality vanilla ice cream which was so smooth.

Lastly we rounded off our meal with a choice of tea or coffee which we had together with Da Paolo’s Indulgi Cookies which tasted like crumbly brownies. Yummy.

Hope Mu Yao had a memorable ORD meal and to all who have just ORDed this month and last month, Happy ORD!

Black Sheep Cafe

35 Mayo Street



Opening Times:

Monday closed (Large groups may be entertained; Please enquire)

Tuesday to Saturday
Lunch : 11.30 to 03.00
Dinner : 06.30 to 11.00 (last order 10.00)

Sunday * : No Lunch
Dinner : 06.30 to 10.30 (last order 9.15)

92721842 or 62925772
blacksheepcafe@gmail.com