Krish Restaurant

I was contemplating if I should blog about this because I do not want to end up being complained by anyone. I will try to be as objective as possible in this review.

Being a brunch person, I was very excited when I knew that Delished has launched a Let’s Brunch Singapore Festival from 3 December 2011 till 1 January 2012. Four leading restaurants offer brunch, over a set price of $15 (up to $25) per person including coffee or tea.

So, I made my reservation at Krish last Sunday. The menu includes 2-course brunch (soup and main) with a cup of coffee or tea per person. I have to say that the two male staff on duty that day were very friendly and we were warmly greeted when we arrived. We were led to a table in the al-fresco green house area. The area was full of lush greenery but the long walk from MRT station makes us very sweaty. Even though there were huge fans blowing, the weather was too humid and we were sweating.

Soon after, we called one of the female staff to order but she doesn’t seem to be well trained. She was walking around in daze and she didn’t have paper and pen to take our orders. When we talked to her, it seemed like she did’t really understand. Then, one of the male staff came and took over.

We each had a 2-course brunch set and in addition, we ordered an extra plate of Cardamom Buttermilk Pancakes from the ala-carte menu for sharing. We had to repeat our orders twice as he didn’t really understand what we mean (what’s so difficult to understand?). He DID NOT ask us for our choice of drink but 5 minutes later, a waitress came with 2 cups of coffee.

Then, a female staff came and placed a large oval spoon (which is meant for main course) on our table. Soon, the male manager came and changed our spoon to a soup spoon. I think there needs to be some training on the basic dining etiquette. And the wait for our first dish (soup) was 20 minutes! We reached the restaurant at 11.15am and there were only 4 other tables. The other diners had already start eating, so I don’t understand why did the kitchen take so long to get the soup ready.

Anyway, here is my Smoked Tomato Soup (vegetarian, $8). It is made of hickory smoked roma tomatoes, mozazrella, basil and served with toasted baguette. The soup itself had deep and rich flavor, with a hint of spices. But I wasn’t very happy with the soaked bread lying on top of the soup.

My partner had Truffle Mushroom Soup ($10). The thick soup was supposed to be filled with black truffles, button mushroom and shiitake mushroom, served with toasted baguette. As seen, this is a toasted piece of baguette and by the look, it was very crispy as compared to my tomato soup. I wasn’t trying to find fault but it was only drizzled with a few drops of truffle oil and we couldn’t really taste the truffle flavor.

However, we enjoyed the Crab Cake Benedict ($16) thoroughly. Most crab cakes have hardly any crabmeat and is made from breadcumbs and eggs but Krish’ crab cakes are full of crabmeat with light seasoning. Instead of coating with the usual hollandaise sauce, it was coated with coconut curry hollandaise which gives an added twist to the dish. Poached eggs are well done too.

The Duck Confit Crepe Wrap ($18) was a wrap of caramelized onions, smoked cheddar cheese, fried egg with mushroom gravy. The duck confit was a tad tough and dry and we couldn’t taste the amazing flavor of duck.

The above two dishes are from the 2-course brunch menu. I was craving for some pancakes so we ordered Cardamom Buttermilk Pancakes ($14) from the ala-carte menu to share. It turned out the best dish we had. The pancake was light and fluffy and the addition of black cardamom for this pancake dish would be an incredible offering for the palate. Just dip it in maple syrup or cinnamon infused butter and it was marvellous.

Now comes the interesting part. We had THREE bills in total because there was mistakes one after another.

The first bill took 15 minutes to arrive and we were shocked by the amount. Apparently, they charged $50 for the brunch set and all the individual dishes all over again. So when we told them about it, the male staff apologised and printed another recipt again. His reason was, this bill was meant for the kitchen to use.

So the second bill came and most of them were correct except that, they charged us separately for the 2 cups of coffee which was supposed to be in the brunch set. When we questioned about the bill again, one of the male staff said coffee was supposed to be charged separately. But hey, it printed in the brunch menu and in the first place, it was served to us WITHOUT asking what drinks do we want. Each cup of coffee costs $4! Since the male staff insisted that coffee is not in the brunch menu, we paid for the bill.

But my partner wasn’t very happy about it (and he doesn’t drink coffee) so after he paid, we went to ask the restaurant manager. Then the restaurant manager apologised and said it was included in the brunch set. So he offered us to either 1) wait for refund, or 2) receive a Krish voucher. And of course we waited for refund.

Food wise, I think it was okay. As for service, yes, they were warm and friendly initially. But the service staff didn’t seem to know what was going on which made the dining experience very unpleasant. I also suggest that they gave us a choice to sit indoor or outdoor, or add more fans for our very humid weather.