Greenwood Avenue Dining

My colleagues Jacob, Albert and myself decided to make the most of a rare opportunity to leave the office relatively early by going for a nice dinner. We ended up heading for a cluster of lovely little restaurants over at Greenwood Ave just behind Nanyang Girls School off Bukit Timah Road. Jacob had heard that there was a lovely French restaurant there which was an off shoot of Les Amis, one of the most famous, (and expensive) restaurants in Singapore.

After arriving at Greenwood Ave, we found a number of interesting establishments to choose from. What caught the eye were the two French restaurants - Sebastien's and The Grill on Greenwood. For those who fancied something a little more Eastern, which we didn't, Raku, which served high class Japanese, would have been a good choice. The entire area did have a feel of been rather high class, the diners consisted of a large number of Caucasians equally mixed in with white collar professionals.

We ultimately decided on The Grill at Greenwood through some inexplicable three-way decision making process aided and abetted by Albert's desperate need to use the facilities. Overall, the menu for the restaurant was pretty standard, but they did supplement it with daily specials which I found more interesting. I decided on the Seafood Boulabaisse - a broth of various types of seafood such as prawns, scallops, mussels along with potatoes in a think gravy accompanied by bread. It was certainly a simple yet enjoyable dish. I didn't quite enjoy the glass of house white that I ordered to accompany it all that much - it was dry without having much character.

One thing I loved about French restaurants is the freshly baked bread that comes complimentary to every meal. I have never been that big a fan of bread in general (apart from sandwiches which is a UK student survival staple) but there is something about French bread with soft butter that is very homely and appealing.

Aftewards, the three of us repaired to a lovely little pub/bar just a few doors down. It has some interesting decor, in particular a foosball table strung from the ceiling. What really interested me was the fact that the pub had the most amazing list of Belgium beers I had seen in Singapore (or indeed anywhere). This made choosing a drink a mouth-watering and difficult process. I decided to try a beer I had never heard of before (there were many on the list of over 50 beers) the exact name of which escapes me now, instead of going for a Leffe or a Hoegaarden as I normally would have.

Final Verdict: The Grill at Greenwood offers decent French fare and a homely (if rather hard to get to) setting. An enjoyable enough experience if you have the spare cash, but definitely other places with more interesting menus and more charm. I would definitely recommend the bar though with for its amazing, one of a kind in Singapore, selection of Belgium beers.

4 March 2009 - I went back to Greenwood Ave for dinner recently and discovered that both Sebastian's and The Grill on Greenwood had closed down, to be replaced by other establishments. Sebastian's was also very meaningful to me, dining wise, because I had dinner there with Gillian - her treat as per the terms of a bet we made before our PPE final exams. The bet was that whoever got a first would buy the other person dinner at an expensive French restaurant. The person who got a second upper would buy the other person chicken rice. If we both got firsts we would split the bill at the French restaurant to celebrate and if we both got second uppers we would go for chicken rice to commiserate. Needless to say she got a first class degree, and I didn't.