Graze

My girlfriend was back from Melbourne for the Chinese New Year break and we had to catch up before she fly off again! Who knows when is her next trip back as she's already graduated from uni and is currently working there. As we grow older, it's getting harder to stay in contact with groups of friends when some are stationed overseas for school/work. So we make sure that we meet up at least once everytime she's back in Singapore.

Graze at Rochester

It was raining so heavily that day we met for brunch. I was running late and had asked my Dad to drop me off at the brunch place. I ended up being the first to reach, and also, the first customer to reach the place. Probably due to the heavy rain, so perhaps everyone was just lazing at home in their beds? ^^ 

I walked through the whole restaurant cos I went up the flight of stairs, only to be told my table's outside. Downstairs. :/ The place was really nicely done up I like. But it's a little bit hard to get there, just like Dempsey. I had the whole place to myself and was just perusing the menu, and sipping my hot latte which I ordered first cos it was just too cold... 

Complimentary bread plate; Eggs benedict with smoked salmon 

I didn't expect that there was a complimentary bread plate, cos in my experience, normally bread plates (baskets) are like given at mostly Italian/French places, and like before lunch/dinner? It was brunch. So unexpected but nice. And I must say that the breads were quite nice. They serve the mixed breads with some butter, honey and some marmalade of some sort.

Signature cast iron pan

My girlfriend's pan look so mouthwatering, a pity that we met during my 21 days of vegetarian spell, so I opted for a non-meat plate of waffles. The pan had like everything in it! Sausages, bacon, potatoes, mushrooms, grilled tomato and baked beans. If I ever am going back to Graze for brunch, I'm so gonna order myself that pan!

Eggs benedict with spinach and mushrooms

House made orange and vanilla waffles

My waffles turned out really good. They were crispy around the edges, just as I like them, and were served still warm. I hate cold waffles. Meh. There were three little pots - honey, vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce that I could drizzle over the waffles. Delish. Accompanied by the tart strawberries, the sweetness level of the plate was just right. I couldn't taste the orange flavour of the waffles though. But it's okay since the overall texture and taste was pleasant enough for me. 

Dessert tasting platter

We girls had a lot of catching up to do. Our brunch lasted from 11am till around 2plus in the afternoon. After our brunch, we sat and chat, and chat and chat some more. Then we ordered a second round. Of desserts of course. Since there were four of us, we decided that perhaps we could order the dessert tasting platter, which had just a little bit of everything on the dessert page. The dessert platter contained each of these in miniature portions - chocolate fondant, steamed sticky toffee date pudding, pavlova with thick cream and fresh fruits, mini chocolate pot de creme, warm apple pie crumble, blue cheese and honey cheese cake, white chocolate raspberry crème brulee, a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

I think we were debating which one was the blue cheese and honey cheesecake cos there were two unknowns that we couldn't make out. One tasted suspiciously like oreo cheesecake, but that wasn't on the menu, so hmmmmm. Anyway, the pavlova (the biggest) was way too sweet, I think my favourite was the chocolate fondant. Not surprising cos for me, melted chocolate in a cake wins hands down always. It was just a tad too rich though, so luckily it was shared among the four of us.

Just couldn't resist zooming in on the chocolate fondant...

I so love long brunches. Good food, good atmosphere and good company. Ahhhhhh. :)