More Bennys, bloodys and other eats for your brunching pleasure. This month, we hit up Café Sambal, Mr Willis, Dakota, and newcomer Larder. ***
Cafe Sambal
On paper, Café Sambal’s weekend brunch looks to be a winner, with a rotating tasting menu running the gamut of street food morsels, curries red bean paste dessert. With three courses plus coffee, tea or fruit punch for a reasonable 98rmb, it’s an excellent way to sample a range of Malaysian eats. Nevertheless, we have gripes, more of which later, but first, the positives: It's a lot of food: first out of the kitchen was a platter of prawn fritters, spiced meatloaf, turnip cake, and dipping sauce. Most of this stuff isn’t on the a la carte menu – a pity as it's pretty tasty. Thumbs up for those fritters: small, whole crustaceans, set into golden batter and flecked with scallions. Mains comprise curries, roti canai, and nasi lemak: fried rice topped with a fiery sauce, peanuts, prawns and egg all parceled up in a banana leaf, which is, in turn wrapped in a magazine cover. The curries – taster portions of lamb, chicken and veg – are forgettable, and worse, served barely hot enough. Desserts, could use some work too. On our visit, we got a two-tone red bean paste creation – refreshing, but nothing special. The menu changes every fortnight or so, and if you’re partial to sampling a range of tastes and flavors, it’s a great choice.That said, on our recent Sunday afternoon foray, there was a distinct lack of buzz and somewhat lackluster wait staff. Sat-Sun: 11.30am-4pm Full brunch listing here
Dakota
Dakota does a surprisingly wide variety at brunch. Options run the gamut from stick-to-your ribs starters like bacon mac & cheese or spinach artichoke dip to your standard egg-based favorites, pancakes and the like. And in between all of that you'll find dishes like lobster risotto, Fines de Claire oysters, scallop ceviche and a few sandwiches and salads too. With a few exceptions, most of it will set you back anywhere between 45 and 90rmb. Brisket is the brunch specialty here, and they make a point of letting you know that it's smoked in-house. They do a fine job of it. You'll find it peppered about the menu, most notably in their French dip with au jus. It's an option for their Benedict, and they fry it up in a hash with a poached egg on top too. Another point in Dakota's favor is its bloody Mary -- one of the few we've ordered around town where we didn't have to doctor it up ourselves. Then again, there is probably no cocktail more subject to personal taste than a bloody, so don't take our word for it. Brisket and bloodys aside, however, portion sizes seem to be small, considering what you pay. A croque madame with just a few leaves on the side, for instance, is hardly satisfying for 65 kuai. And can you really call something a sandwich when it only has one slice of bread? Another slight demerit: The decor just sucks up all available light. They even light the table lamps so you can read your menu. That's fine at dinner, of course. And if you're still on a rager from the night before and are hiding from the sun, perhaps this is a good thing. But for the rest of us, eating an omelet in the dark just feels weird. So, word to the wise: Ask for a table near the window. Sat-Sun: 10am-5pm Full brunch listing here
Larder
Within the past month or so, Larder's chef/owner Steve Baker started applying his from-scratch ethos to brunch. The pancake, French toast and Benny boxes each get a tick. But they're doing some unique stuff as well, like a corn cake with tomato jam and hot and sour salad or a baked tomato compote with chorizo, goat cheese and a poached egg. It comes to the table in a cocotte alongside a few sticks of toasted ciabatta. They also do a pretty tasty open face omelet that they bring to your table still in the frying pan. Also worth ordering is the terrine plate. 78rmb gets you two types, pork and chicken, along with a variety of house-made breads and pickles. If you're dining later in the day and prefer something more akin to lunch or dinner, they do fish and their signature chunky chips as well as a beef burger. There is also the odd addition of Singaporean laksa. Prices are all surprisingly reasonable too with prices ranging from the upper 20s to the upper 70s. And 45rmb gets you a bloody Mary -- not the best we've tasted, mind you, but that price is a steal. Another bonus: it's kid friendly. Just like when he ran Mesa & Manifesto Baker has set up a cordoned-off kids area complete with toys, a screen showing Tom & Jerry cartoons and an ayi to keep an eye on them. Sat-Sun 10am-5pm Full brunch listing here
Mr Willis
The Mr Willis space is perfect for brunch. It’s light and airy, busy without being hectic, comfortable but not stuffy or soporific. The menu is all a la carte and doesn’t stray wildly from Chef Craig Willis’s highly popular and ever-growing arsenal of Mediterranean peasant food, with rustic dishes such as chicken liver pate, fish soup with roullie, and gorgonzola and fig salad all front and center. But they share space with a few nods to more traditional breakfast plates: pancakes with berry compote or banana, poached eggs with sautéed mushrooms and variations on the eggs Benedict / Florentine theme. The smoked salmon omelet comes buried under a mountain of rocket and studded with ricotta. The smoked salmon Benedict is simple and unfussy, but smothered in lusciously creamy hollandaise. Both hit the center of the target, as does a well-balanced rocket, pear and parmesan salad. Prices all fall in the 60-80rmb range, with more hearty mains such as grilled salmon, prawns, fish and chips, creeping up to around 150rmb as you get further away from breakfast. Brunch here doesn’t try to re-invent the wheel but it doesn’t need to. This is simple, satisfying food served up in a beautiful space. No wonder it’s popular. Book a day in advance. Sat-Sun: 11am-4pm Full brunch listing here
