pimp my salad, pasarbella suntec.
pasarbella suntec is proving to be quite interesting after all, what with porsena deli, grillo (whose truffle short rib bowl i've yet to try) and now pimp my salad. pimp my salad is by the people behind sarnies, and having had a couple of meals at sarnies (think roast beef sandwich) as well as club meatballs, i had quite a lot of confidence in their new salad concept.it reminded me of grain traders, actually, but with much more flexibility. instead of plain sides at most salad bars, pimp my salad offers sides with a twist. think roasted carrots with cumin, baby corn with paprika, japanese cucumber with black sesame. you get the idea. even its layout was similar to grain traders', in which everything is laid out in huge ceramic bowls behind a glass counter. fill up an order chit, hand it to the staff, wait for them to ladle the stuff onto a plate (and hope that they give more, please, because i'm a growing girl) and pay at the cashier. pretty fuss free.
it does give a bit too much flexibility in terms of choice, though, forcing me, a rather poor decision maker even on my best days, to have to really think about what i want. no rules, no preselected base or limit to the number of toppings- everything had its price.
in the end, even though i was there for salad, i passed on the greens, because $2 for a salad base? really? comparing that with the sides, which were also mostly $2, i figured that i'd get a better deal with the sides. so in the end i chose smashed sweet potato ($2), grilled thai asparagus ($2), a mix of shimeji and button mushrooms ($2), lamb shoulder ($6) and roast beef ($4) for a total of $16. (extra protein for $4, so i made C who was ordering the roast beef anyway, add on onto her plate before i stole it off.)
i was shocked at the portion of smashed sweet potato they ladled onto my plate. i was expecting perhaps one scoop, but no, they gave at least two heaping scoops. the rest of the sides were less generous in portion- would've liked more of the yummy mushrooms especially. still, even though everything was lukewarm (i'm used to not having hot food, but i can see that some people would mind ie. C) it was pretty awesome. C even commented that she could eat clean, if all clean eating meals entailed such food. that, i think, is the highest compliment anyone could pay.
i loved the lamb shoulder. in fact, i liked it more than the roast beef. it was tender and full of flavour, with just enough fat to not be off-putting. and even though it was a salad, they did put effort into plating it, making it a really pretty dish- we eat with our eyes, too, after all.
it's not cheap, but it's good. i would happily come back here again. i just wish it was easier to get a seat. we were there on a saturday night, not expecting much of a crowd because it was so empty the previous time we went, but were taken aback by the crowd. had to move fast to get a table- and not even a good one at that. it was right at the entrance, on high stools. (but
pimp my salad
pasarbella suntec
#01-455
