Antoinette (Scarlet Hotel)

A friend of mine passed by this place and suggested that we try this new spot for lunch.

This little cafe sits about 15-20 people at the most. The kitchen is small and can be seen through a small window from the cafe. I could smell oil in the air from the kitchen.

The cafe has a nice French style feel to it with beautiful wall paper.

Club Antoinette sandwich

I ordered a club antoinette sandwich which is a sandwich with crab meat and egg omelette.
This was really plain and unimpressive for $18. I felt quite cheated. The bread was plain white bread and the crab meat had dressing that tasted similar to the Delifrance tuna sandwich except that the crab meat is better. The crab meat would have shone better with a simpler dressing. I think what they were trying to achieve here was a high tea style hence the white bread. However, I always think that good bread is the base of a good sandwich. Other elements of a good sandwich are good fresh ingredients that classically go well together. Egg and crab is like a Chinese meal but I won't have considered it a classical combination.

My friend had the blinis with mushroom sauce and a sausage. Hers was about $16.50. I forgot to take a picture of the meal. The menu had a couple of blini dishes which is a good idea as it means that you can cut down on ingredients and do variations of the same dish. The problem with the dish was execution. The blini wasn't too badly done. But the sausage was ordinary (better than the normal Ntuc sort though) and the mushroom sauce was too watery and too milky. The mushroom flavor was not the dominant rich flavour of the sauce and did not meld together with the blini. I think something like a duck sausage would have gone better with mushroom sauce.

I think instead of a sauce, they should have done the mushrooms more like a topping like in this website.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/health/nutrition/22recipehealth.html. I haven't tried the recipe in the website before but it was what i imagined a mushroom blini should be. I think blinis are best used as a base to make it work like a bruschetta.

Nougatine Ice Cream

I had a nougatine for my ice cream. It looked impressive. This was praline ice cream with hazelnut nougatine, salty caramel and caramelized filo pastry. However, it was too sweet for me and also the ice cream was a bit grainy.

Other Cakes

My friend had a mont blanc which she mentioned as well was too sweet and did not have the predominant chestnut flavor. Fortunately we had ordered tea that could wash the sweetness down.

We spent about $40 per pax for lunch, dessert and tea. The setting of the place is quite pretty but for that sort of price, we could have had a weekday set menu at a nice restaurant somewhere in the area.

I was quite surprised to find out behind the menu that this was part of a chain which had 4 outlets in all. I'm not sure why it is so popular.

Website: http://www.antoinette.com.sg/
Location: 33 Erskine Road #01-02/03 The Scarlet Hotel, Tanjong Pagar
Opening Hours: 11am- 9pm
Contact Number: 64386455
Prices: We spent about $40 per pax.