Sunday, 25 January 2015

Seasons Bistro: North American Food Adventure [MEDIA INVITE] - [CLOSED]

Seasons Bistro

Seasons Bistro ('SB'), a modern North American inspired bistro located at 111 Somerset Road. While most of us will probably remember this building as the SP Power building, it had a makeover and transformed into a place for dining and groceries near Orchard Shopping belt. Seasons Bistro present a diversified menu that changes to draw out the best taste from the seasonal freshest ingredients and maintain an affordable price for its customers.

Dining Area
Part of Dining Area

During the day, the bistro are well lit with natural lights that come through the huge pane of glasses. While in the evening, a slightly traditional theme lighting are used. With the American influences, the dining area are decorated with Americans influences, traditional style wooden chairs, wooden tables, and 1970s record. There is also a bar and drinking area for those who enjoys one or two after-work drinks.


Bar Section

Outdoor Seating

We begin our tasting session with Pan Seared Foie Gras ($19) and Cajun Blacken Fish Taco ($16). The Foie Gras is nicely pan fried, crisp on the outside and served on a thick slice of French Toast brioche. The combination of chocolate ganache and bacon jam provide a complementary flavours to the Foie Gras.

Pan Seared Foie Gras

The Cajun Blacken Fish Taco is unique and new to me. Using haddock white fish, the texture is lean and firm, but with a mild flavour which made it flexible to combine with other flavours for the taco. For the flavours, it tasted sweet and creamy from the pickled onions and avocado mayonnaise, while for the texture, it has crispy and juicy texture. If you never had taco before, imagine you are eating Kueh Pie Tee with cheese. Watch out for the Jalapeno though, it is fiery.

Cajun Blacken Fish Taco

For salads, we have two choices of Superfood Salad ($18) and Baja Cobb's Salad ($19). Superfood salad is a super healthy salad, which consist of quinoa, chick peas, blueberries, avocado, pomegranate, pumpkin seed and citrus vinaigrette. It tasted fresh, but it can be slightly raw or very earthy to some. Meanwhile the Baja Cobb's Salad is my kind of salad, especially with cajun spiced chicken, eggs, bacon blue cheese and red wine vinaigrette. It is very tasty and the dressing binds all the ingredients well. Warning, Cobb salad has a reputation for being the unhealthy salad, but it just taste so good!!

Superfood Salad 

 Baja Cobb's Salad

Mains portrays more on the theme of the restaurant, AMERICAN. SFC Seasons Fried Chicken ($25), Jerk Spiced Pork Meatloaf ($29), Seasons Cheese Burger ($25) and Roasted Lamb Rack ($32). For the fried chicken, it uses buttermilk as part of the seasoning to help maintain the moisture in the chicken so it is tender and succulent. That can be said about the fried chicken here, however it is not very flavourful. They expect the succotash and deviled ranch dressing and homemade catchup to add the taste to the fried chicken. I personally like my fried chicken without any sauce, so I think it is so so only.

SFC Seasons Fried Chicken
Jerk Spiced Pork Meatloaf 

The meatloaf is seasoned using jerk spiced, which originated from Caribbean / West Indies communities. It has a very earthy and strong flavour and normally they dry rub it into the meat. In this case, the meatloaf has a unique flavour to it. Either you like it or your don't. I personally like this, especially with the smooth and creamy mash potatoes. For the lamb rack, I find it cooked unevenly, some part of the meat is juicy and succulent, while the other part can be chewy. The potato is nice though, combination of half potato, filled with mash potatoes and baked again. Unfortunately the gravy was just overpowering.

Roasted Lamb Rack

Burger is a must try dish here. We had two burgers, one cooked to medium rare and the other to medium. Both burger are nicely done, tasty and juicy. According to SB, the brioche buns are baked fresh by Imperial Treasure bakery next door, based on the chef's requirement. If anything that can be improve from this burger, it will be the fries. Midway through the burger, the fries become soggy already.

Seasons Cheese Burger 

Seasons Cheese Burger - Medium Rare

While Southend Pasta ($22) looks like a comforting dish with the sausage and tomato based sauce, it was a total disappointment. The pasta was overcooked to the point of soggy and the sauce is very lacklustre. More chorizo, more cheese and less cooking time for the pasta might do the trick to improve this dish.

Southend Pasta

Coming to the end, we had two desserts to try. Maple Pumpkin Cheesecake ($12) and Miss D's Pecan Pie ($12). The cheesecake has a dense and solid texture. It is tasty, creamy and goes well with the cranberry cream. For the Pecan Pie, the fillings was very sweet and it does not hold well together. It breaks before we even touch it, and the ice cream was just too sweet. Rather than using vanilla ice cream, probably a fruit sorbet will be a better option.

Miss D's Pecan Pie

Maple Pumpkin Cheesecake

Overall, SB allowed me to have a taste of some North American dish such as their Fish Taco, Cobb Salad and the Jerk Spiced Meat Loaf. As SB continue to change their menu seasonally, the chef has an opportunity to fine tune the menu. So if you are in Orchard Area, give Seasons Bistro a try. Cheers!!

Thank you very much for OpenRice and Seasons Bistro team for the tasting invitation.

Food & Drink: 7.25/10
Value: 6.5/10
Service: n/a
Ambiance: 7.75/10
Budget per Person: $26 - $50

Seasons Bistro
111 Somerset Road
#01-11/12. TripleOne Somerset
Singapore 238164

T: +65 6836 5841
I: http://instagram.com/seasonsbistro
OH:
Sun– Thu: 11.00 – Midnight
Fri: 11.00 – 02.00
Sat: 11.00 – 01.00

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