Le Habit

La Cuisine is becoming a hard habit to break.

Not that it’s going to be any time soon that Naomi and I attempt to do that. It has become our refuge of sorts, and we rave about it to our friends, urging them to give the little bistro a go.

(Two of them tried to give the bistro a go, in fact, and only managed to go as far as through the front door of that tiny little establishment, to be turned away by the amazingly French-like maitre d’, who told them that a reservation was necessary if one wanted to dine there, whether or not the place looked empty, as it always seems to be)

I am raving about the place again because it really is the kind of place you’d want to go take refuge in after a hard week’s work. And though the food and ambience is not fabulously fancy – it is food that you’d enjoy a lot more if you ate it a lot slower, as I imagine the slow food convivium people would know and do.

Recently I’ve been making excuses and making up occasions to have a meal there – anniversary, birthday, monthiversary, justfeellikeitversary – mostly because even though it serves home-styled french cuisine, it isn’t cheap.

But really, despite the price (about $150 for the two of us), you don’t really need an excuse to dine there. I mean, you don’t even have to dress up – I went in my t-shirt, jeans and slippers.

Naomi and I went there again last Friday, and we felt that the hitherto surly and amazingly French-like maitre d’ wasn’t as surly anymore, having seen us dine there three times previously already. He even managed a smile when he took our order, something which really, he didn’t have to do, because for the fourth time in succession, we ordered the same things:

Foie gras;
Prawn ravioli;
Sirloin medium rare;
Rack of lamb.

But of course he didn’t offer much else by way of conversation after we chuckled at ourselves and said to him, ‘you didn’t have to take our order, really, because we are ordering the same things’. But I think, in his own way, he’s tickled, and he sorta likes us.

Oh, and before I forget again (because I didn’t mention it the last time I wrote about it), the potato gratin is the bestest I’ve had bar none. And according to the chefs (there were two of them who came out of the tiny kitchen to greet us bonsoir and bon appetit several times, maybe hoping that we’d think the kitchen is staffed by more than two of them), there is no cheese in the gratin even though it tastes as if there is.

So, if you were to give our habit a go, thank us if you get hooked, and order the other stuff on the plain-looking menu too, they’re really not bad, um, looking.

La Cuisine
Cluny Court
Corner, Cluny Park Road, Bukit Timah Road
Tel: 6468 8850

iTunes is playing an illegal copy of Tomber de toi by Isabelle Boulay & France D’amour of which I have the original CD.

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