Western

This is supposedly for 3-4 persons, but it can easily feed 5-6. It comes with 3 slabs of ribs in a choice of 5 flavours. We chose hickory BBQ, Kansas sweet BBQ and garlic BBQ. All are slightly sweet, and I personally liked the hickory BBQ the most. There are sides of sausages, buttered corn, salad, fries and cornbread (which are essentially muffins with corn in them). Well worth the price and great for a family meal.

Two huge slabs of chicken breast in tomato sauce, with a layer of melted cheese on top, accompanied by potato wedges and cauliflower. This was better than expected. The chicken was tender, and this was the first time I’ve seen purple and green cauliflowers in Singapore.

We ordered this meaning for it to be a healthy salad dish but it was the unhealthiest of everything we ordered. It’s overly salty and cheesy to the point of being dense and heavy.

My favourite dish of the ones we ordered. The octopus, broccolini and hummus combined beautifully. This may be listed under the small plates section but it was filling and a meal in itself.

A slab of grilled fish, accompanied by lemon and salsa verde, with a choice of salad or side (I had the kale tabbouleh salad). The fish was a tad dry, but that’s a tiny complaint. It was otherwise smooth, firm and salted just right. I liked the salad which was fresh and had a light and tasty dressing.

Snapper, mushrooms, leek and grilled pressed potato in a frothy matcha-lemongrass gravy. I liked this dish, each of the individual ingredients were well-cooked and tasty and everything went well together. The gravy was a bit too salty and I couldn’t taste the matcha, but it’s a minor complaint in an otherwise good dish.

Ask them for how many meatballs they can give you. The menu only listed 16 and 20 meatballs, but they managed to give me a plate with just 12. The meatballs and covered in gravy, with lingonberry jam, mashed potatoes and broccoli on the side. The meatballs are meaty and soft. Quite fatty to be honest, I prefer leaner, firmer meatballs, so might try the plant balls next time!

Plain Vanilla offers a variety of savoury tarts. I chose pumpkin, pine nut and sage as I saw good reviews of it online. It's more of a pie or quiche, 4" in diameter, baked in a thick crust with an egg custard filling. I was surprised that the tart was served cold. The crust was too thick and hard and the egg custard filling was extremely jelak and gave me a headache. The only part of this I enjoyed was the pumpkin layer in the filling. Overall didn't really like the tart much.

The salad fared much better. It was a mix of cous cous, brown rice, cauliflower, chickpeas, pine nuts and raisins, and was very tasty, though I would have appreciated more veg and less grains.

And more! We had:
- 16 meatballs ($9.90): comes with mashed potato and broccoli. Meatballs look unexciting but taste much better than they look.
- salmon lasagna: comes with chunks of salmon in lovely cheesiness. Fairly oily though.
- 2 vegetable medallions: made of broccoli, potato, onions, leeks and cheese. Really delicious.
- blueberry cheesecake: not the best
- refillable drinks: hot tea/coffee is 50c, cold drinks are $1.50
Overall the food was good at very affordable prices. Enjoyed it a lot!