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Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Eden Sanctuary Floral Cafe

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Eden Sanctuary Floral Cafe. Singapore unique eatery that Chef Clement Ronald Ng has a keen passion floral and colour cuisine. This is a special invite from

TimeOut
, who are having their first dine-out tasting event soon. Chef Clement created a 5-course meal for us, of which most are best-sellers from his menu. The main concept of is to have all colours in your daily food intake to have a balanced, wholesome dietary consumption.





Clement believes in using as much natural ingredients as possible to bring out the true flavours of the ingredients. He sources out many of his stuff locally or regionally and even grows them in the very cafe! Clement gamely went through most of the plants in the plant window and even let us fiddle and TASTE some of them. He is my idol!! It had always been a fantasy to own my own herb garden and he had given me hope that it is possible in Singapore. Right now, I only have rosemary at my kitchen window. More herbs will come. OK, I digress.


And yes, even peppers are grown here. You will find brinjals and chillis, mints, various basil (they flowered!) and the usual thyme and rosemary.


We started off by eating this little herb OFF THE PLANT. Stevia, is the name of the herb. We were wondering why Clement said "Let's have desserts first." when he handed us the leaves. Whoa...... this bugger tasted sweet and has a nice dainty flavour. What a start to the night!


Eden offers a huge variety of tea which Clement concocts on his own. Each tea serves different purpose, pick your own or ask for suggestions from the friendly staff. We had the Relax Tea made up of Rose, Rosehip and Lemon Verbena. The verbena is the main thing that soothes the mind and muscle of the body.


We were also served the Butterfly Blue Pea. Yes. It's blue. It's like drinking ink! Interestingly there is a subtle taste of peas and the natural sweetness that comes with it. If you are a fan of nonya kuehs, this is where the natural colouring comes from.


The pumpkin soup was a delight. A blended concoction of butternut pumpkin that naturally sweetness shines through. As no cream is used, the soup is rather thin as compared to the usual western style soup that you may expect. Nevertheless even without the creaminess, the taste will still wow you.



The signature rainbow salad. As the name suggests, the dish includes all the main colours. The greens from the lettuce, yellow from the marigold petals, orange from the orange segments, blue from blueberries, red from the rose petals, purple from the purple cabbage and brown from the wholemeal bread. What a sight! And it tasted great too! The simple homemade dressing of calamansi juice and olive oil marries the different ingredients together, providing a delightful and very refreshing starter. The wholemeal bread also gave a nutty taste and different texture.


The leek-ginger and peanut butter paste baked fish is a 'accidental' recipe. Be sure to ask Clement about the story if you do order this dish when you visit. Light, but adequately seasoned the dish brings a very clean taste, totally clear of the butter-laden seafood dishes that you may get somewhere else. The paste was a little bit too ginger-ly for me though. Might have liked it more if the taste of the peanut butter is more intense.

Simple pasta dish. But absolutely mind blowing. This got to be my favourite of the day. A simple mix of sundried tomatoes tossed in al-dente pasta and drizzled with some good extra virgin olive oil and a sprinkle of grated parmesan with a touch of freshly ground black pepper. Woooo... you can imagine the myriad of flavours exploding in your mouth. And the surprise? The thin strips of lemon zest well mixed into the pasta that explodes in your mouth when you bite into them. Superb.


Desserts was a sampler  of a very dense Rose Petal Brownie, Modena mousse cake and Tofu cheesecake. No sour cream or cream is used in the process (which is usually used to fluff up the cakes) which gives a very intense flavour to his cakes. The chocolate brownie was deep in flavour and very rich in the chocolate, some of the bitterness actually coming from the crushed rose petals inside. The modena cake is a lovely incorporation of balsamic vinegar. The mellow, classy balsamic is nicely infused into the cake and gives a nice tart taste, for a dessert. Very special indeed. The tofu cheesecake while scoring high points for the health factor, didn't leave much of an impression on the taste section, maybe because of it's richly flavoured buddies on the same plate. It is light and should be your choice of dessert for a healthy cheesecake. By the way, the 'roses' on the same plate and actually strawberries sculpted to look like flowers.

We heard so much about the hibiscusc cheese filo that we have to order it. Frozen and only baked when ordered. The warm, crispy filo shell coupled with the cold hibiscus in light cream cheese comes together splendidly! The flower filling tasted like summer berries ice cream with real cuts of strawberries. At $9.90 it is a tad pricey but definitely worth the experience that you probably can't get anywhere else.

With compliments from the chef, the new hazelnut praline cake. A very nice hazelnut chocolate mousse with real whole hazelnuts and covered with a very rich chocolate ganache. And a sprinkle of gold dust. Nice, moist and bursting with flavours.


Also compliments from the chef, Clement has a series of snowskin mooncakes which are made from natural ingredients. Even the colours! The yellow colour for the apricot-lemongrass mooncake actually comes from soaking the apricots and using the colour for the skin. The lemongrass is overwhelmed by the apricot center. The trick is to nibble the paste to actually taste the lemongrass flavours. The other one we tasted is the brandy lotus paste. Nice dose of brandy which actually intensifies the flavours. Clement only uses high grade white lotus paste in his mooncakes. And there is a limited order of 200 boxes only.

Eden also caters to customised menu. Just give Clement a call and state your dietary requirements/restrictions and he will design a nice 5-course for you (teas charged separately). The prices for the food are very reasonable considering the preparation and the whole concept of home-made goodness being put into them. And there are no taxes involved! Pay as is listed!

I was looking forward to tasting the Balsamic Ambrosia Blueberry Chicken but we were too well-fed by the end of the tasting. Next time!


We had a delightful evening talking to Clement as he shares with us his passion and philosophy behind his cooking. His creations are all circled on wholesome eating with fresh, natural ingredients, which is the way I adopt for my own home cooking. That is why I started off with fruits and got myself subscribed to Clement's email list a few years back. All natural cooking! That's the way to go!

And yes, his assistant chef/protege helm the kitchen whenever Clement is not around. That's Ronnie Sng, the happy guy in horizontal strips.

Eden Sanctuary Floral Cafe
18 Cross Street #01-16
+65 6224 2298



6 comments:

  1. eh for the salad you meant "calamansi juice" ?
    jj~

    ReplyDelete
  2. haha. you are right! did the change. thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  3. lolz. no worries. been enjoying your reviews.
    jj~

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Huan, thank you so much for the writeup and the photos, it's really lovely and inspiring. Can I just plug the date and venue of our 1st Time Out Dine Out Tasting Event? It's on 29 September at The Fullerton Hotel, featuring 10 restaurants including Eden Sanctuary. $40 only. Tickets can be ordered at 6506 6183 (look for Kerry).

    ReplyDelete
  5. stargirl: you should go. it was an eye-opener. ha. and clement was super interesting to talk to. :)

    ReplyDelete

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