Saturdays should be like this

first, a late start after sleeping the morning in - 1030 this morning to be exact. next, then potter around while watching serials on tudou.com. and then come lunch time, when you're driven out of the house to find food for your noisy breadbasket, you meet your best friend/girlfriend/boyfriend/friend/not friend/family down at velocity to check out what's on offer.

by the time you reach, you're so hungry that almost anything will do really and so you end up in Harry's@Velocity. not your typical place for lunch but hey, its been a while since you've had pub grub (ok, its been a while since I had pub grub). and so down you sit in a little corner of the quiet pub, ignoring that annoying sizzling sound coming from Pepper Lunch that's across the corridor, and peruse the menu. and then you both order:

bratwurst with sauerkraut
glazed pork fillet with herb mash
a martini with a mixer bianco 7-up (i obviously didn't order this because i can't even remember what it was still wasn't me)
a gunner

and while you're waiting for your food to come, you get just that little bit trigger happy with your camera and camera phone. except after a while, the waiter comes to tell you that there ain't no pork fillet today (what? why!) and so you order the black pepper beef tenderloin with sweet potato mash instead.

and lo and behold, you both get served with these:


ok as pub grub comes and goes, i'd say Harry's@Velocity does it pretty well. although i can't say for sure that it'll be the best you've ever tasted, it probably will come as one of the most reasonable pub lunches around. $12.90 for each main course and all drinks at happy hour prices.

the beef tenderloin was pretty good and did well to satisfy this ongoing craving for meat of late. the sweet potato mash provided an interesting contrast to the taste of the fresh black pepper studded on the meat. the brown sauce was pretty all right and is certainly not the canteen-style slosh you get in buckets (*cough - biz canteen - cough*) and the roasted onions were just nicely done. i would have wanted more of the beans though, they were good but i only got 5 short stalks at best.

jasmi's bratwurst with sauerkraut topped with a dollop of sour cream and the oddest antler-looking garnish (i think it was sweet potato) was actually not bad as well. of course, the first thing you do notice about her food isn't exactly the garnish but how much the overall presentation reminds you of something else. in any case, spoiled as we are (she is) by Brotzeit down at Vivocity, this one came across, in her words, as really good ole pub grub. a little unpolished in presentation (understatement about her bratwurst) but still big on taste. yes, the sausages you get at Brotzeit's technically pub grub as well but somehow food at Brotzeit's got that more polished look and feel of a restaurant. any hows, i rather liked the spiciness of her bratwurst.

and of course our drinks. i had my usual gunner mocktail. it was just too early in the day for me. jasmi's ladylike drink - again her words not mine - looked really pretty but i didn't take a sip. mostly because anything after my gunner will still taste like my gunner anyways. ginger beer and dry ginger ale does that to you. generally though, i do find Harry's drinks not bad, even despite the differences from branch to branch. the one at robertson quay serves up noticeably less potent drinks while the one at the Esplanade's not bad. so there you go.

that is of course, not the end of lunch. after polishing up our food and drink, we adjourned to Bakerzin at United Square to satisfy jasmi's sudden craving for strawberry shortcake. so of course, being the good friend that i am, ordered an Ambrosia as well so that she wouldn't feel so lonely being the only one eating.


can i just say that the ambrosia was the complete antithesis to the light and fluffy strawberry shortcake? it tasted like a power-packed version of a kitkat complete with caramelized banana, crunchy nut bits and at least three different layers of chocolate. really, really rich stuff for you chocoholics out there, unfortunately i'm not really one of you. the strawberry shortcake is of course, far and away one of the best around. 'nuff said.

and what afternoon's complete without having a coffee to top it all off? so we did just that at the starbucks outside. and finally, that's as far as the eating went for the afternoon. we went after that back to down, heading obstentiously for the orchard library but was of course waylaid numerous times along the way. needless to say, my pocket does not thank me now.


Harry's@Velocity
238 Thomson Road
#01-59/60 Novena Square

Bakerzin
101 Thomson Road
#01-07/60 United Square