Saveur – Decent food, insanely cheap
PUBLISHED June 5th, 2012 12:57 pm | UPDATED June 2nd, 2016 11:59 am
I’ve recently heard a lot of hype about a great place that’s opened up on Purvis street. Yes, you might also have heard it down the grapevine….Saveur.
So what’s it all about? Why is there always a queue outside? Well the answer is simple – the reason is that you get great French-inspired food at a ridiculously low price. How ridiculous? So ridiculous that we basically decided to order almost everything on the 2-page menu and the total bill still only came to $100…To qualify…I just checked the receipt and we ordered a total of 11 dishes. Yea that’s right, capish?
Anyway, we sat down and eagerly anticipated our meal to be served…and within 5mins the first few dishes arrived….
The Crispy Duck with Mesclun Salad ($3.90) and the Confit of Salmon with Apple and Fennel Salad ($8.90) were the first to arrive. Whilst the duck salad was not so impressive (although a very tasty salad dressing), the confit of salmon was really something. A delicious tender fillet with a beautifully herbaceous and slightly peppery taste. The crunchy apple and fennel also went very nicely to create a good textural balance with the fish. Good start.
Next to arrive was a rather yummy looking plate of Angel hair pasta with tiger prawn and lumpfish caviar ($6.90). I still can’t get over that this was only $6.90. Bargain. The prawn and lumpfish caviar created a savoury taste matched well by the slick (but by no means oily) pasta. I would definitely order this again.
So after came out a small bowl of Pan fried Foie Gras with lentil and pickled onion (35gram, $7.90). I have to admit, I just couldn’t resist the temptation to try a foie gras dish that was less than $10. To my pleasant surprise it was really quite good, although I felt the lentils were a bit out of place and flavoured a bit too strongly for the delicate goose liver. Call me a stickler for tradition but I would have preferred some sweet pickled berries.
And then came the Confit of Duck with Orange and sauteed shitake mushrooms ($8.90). What I will say is that this dish is phenomenally good value. It’s much better than several places I’ve tried before where the dish can run 3-4x as expensive. The meat is tender and the overall flavour is more than palatable. It’s just not mind-blowing.
As for the Chicken Roulade ($9.90), the Beef Bourgignon with root vegetables ($13.90) and the Pan-fried Barramundi ($12.90), all were decent and for the price we paid we were not disappointed at all.
Desserts-wise, we ordered one of each :-). Both my friend I and agreed that the Pave and Hazelnut ($7.90) was the best. Effectively a silky soft and creamy chocolate mouse with dried cranberries and a pair of chocolate ‘bat-wings’ which really tasted like an American ‘Crunch’ bar. Weird. Anyway, good stuff. We polished it off and I would definitely order this again on another visit.
In second and third respectively were the Pistachio Panna Cotta ($6.90) and the Textures of Citrus ($6.90). The Panna Cotta was quite good although the pistachio was a little overpowering in my opinion. As for the Textures of Citrus…well let’s just say I wouldn’t recommend it unless you really love iced sweet and sour flavours.
When we arrived at the beginning of the lunch hour, Saveur was, as expected, packed with a small queue outside. By 2.15pm however most of the patrons had departed and it left us with a good opportunity to snap a photo of the interior.
What I loved about Saveur is its no-frills or pomp mentality. To me, what they seem to be trying to achieve is a friendly non-pretentious dining establishment where people from all walks of life can come and enjoy some quality French style food with friends and family, and for a very reasonable price. I think they succeed. No, the food is not out-of-this-world, but it is tasty – you definitely will leave satisfied, and Saveur won’t detonate a hole in your bank balance.
