Barracks Cafe, revisited

A couple of months back (yes, am really late on my postings), I had an enjoyable solitary lunch at Barracks Cafe, since I was in the area to buy a massage voucher from Spa-Esprit for a friend.

Strangely, while Barracks Cafe still offers their extremely value-for-money set lunch deal at $30, it seemed that practically none of their customers went for this or seemed to know about it. Perhaps it is only offered to regular customers who ask?

I started with the Ahi-Taki Salad - a beautifully tasty combination of flavours and textures - perky arugula greens with seared ahi tuna chunks, port-wine soaked raisins (picked these out), pistachios, avocado, and tomatoes, all tossed with a squeeze of lemon. Totally refreshing and healthful to boot.

My main of Fish and Chips with Truffle Fries arrived piping hot and wafting deliciously tempting fragrances, although the cod did taste a little fishy (in any case, cod is not my favourite fish). I actually ordered this for the truffle fries but somehow they didn't taste as good as I remembered...the scent of the truffle oil was rather muted and the fries were a tad undersalted - perhaps pregnancy playing tricks on my tastebuds? Since I was already rather stuffed from eating up the entire Ahi-Taki salad, I ended up leaving half of this dish untouched!

But there's a separate compartment for desserts and the perennial favourite dessert at Barracks Cafe has got to be its strawberry shortcake. Just imagine soft layers of sponge interspersed with chunky and slightly tart strawberry jam, the entire concoction drowning in a pool of rich, luscious vanilla cream. Nuff said.