PUBLISHED August 30th, 2013 01:17 pm | UPDATED May 18th, 2020 04:34 pm
If you consider yourself a wine drinker, I have a question: do you know which kind of wines you like? I ask this, because for a little bit too long I ordered wines that other people believed to be ‘good’ brands and most of the time, didn’t really enjoy them. I suppose I found the whole bar and restaurant wine-ordering-experience more intimidating and pompous than it really ought to be. Welcome to Napoleon Food & Wine Bar, home of the friendly wining experience…making wine just as accessible as it should be.
Situated next to the much loved Market Grill on Telok Ayer, I felt a bit like I was cheating! but this is a totally different concept. Napoleon is essentially a rustic-styled bar..but enhanced with its slick enomatic wine dispensers, iPad’s (encased in Napoleon’s famous jacket) to place your order on, 32 European wines to choose from and an on-hand sommelier whose intention is to make drinking wine easy and fun. For those of you who haven’t seen enomatic wine dispensers before, these are essentially machines which minimise wastage, allowing for the wines to stay open for around 2 weeks, as opposed to just a few days, which means you can try some more expensive wines by the glass.
The wines are categorised by taste, e.g ‘smooth’, ‘fruity’, ‘spicy’, ‘rich’, ‘sweet’ etc, which means you can order by the flavours you like, rather than the brand. This is also a great way for discovering new wines you may not have previously tried. If you’re a complete novice then never fear, because Napoleon Food & Wine Bar offers a tasting option (starting at $2) as well as half glass (starting at $4), full glass (starting at $8) and bottle orders too ($36).
Although during the evenings Napoleon is filled with happy drinkers, during lunch hours the Food & Wine Bar offers a variety of scrumptious dishes. Here are my favourite plates:
The Prawn Salad ($16) is simple and clean. I’d recommend this as a part of a lunch set as it isn’t much of a filler, but certainly full of flavour. For something that’s well-balanced, go for the Lamb Shank Parma Tier (tasting portion pictured) at $28. The boozy flavoured meat topped with smooth and buttery horse-radish mash is a great lunchtime pick and goes down far too easily for something that takes 5 or 6 hours to cook. Although it’s a total crime, I kind of saw this as an upmarket version of a Shepherds Pie, at least in terms of texture and consistency.
If you appreciate good chicken, the Coq Au Vin ($20) is an exceptionally soft leg served with a carrot puree. This one needs very little explantation – my favourite dish on the menu.
For desert, opt for the zesty Lemon Tart ($12) served with a dressing of fruit and crumble. A delicious end to a meal. If only they did a crumble dish because this homemade crumble is perfect.
I would recommend some wines, but that would totally ruin the whole concept. Go! Try out some out for yourself and discover what it is you like. For good food and delicious wines, well-explained, in an un-intimidating, friendly environment head to Napoleon Food & Wine Bar.
Written by Superpat
On this occasion, the meal was compliments of Napoleon.