CIA Top Table

Went to dine at CIA Top Table with my course mates. Only open for lunch from 28 Aug to 7 Nov, 11.30am to 1pm. Reservation required.

We ordered our food and we were given some breads- bread stick, milk bun and ciabatta. The bread stick was nice as it had some crunch. The milk bun was lovely- soft, fluffy and slightly milky. For the ciabatta it was nice, soft and fluffy on the inside. They asked if we wanted more bread and we did! (so greedy of us)

Pan Fried Stingray Cake ($6)-salad greens, Vietnamese herbs and soy lime dressing. Nicely pan fried stingray cake- a little on the spicy side. The salad with the dressing had the right amount of acidity and it goes well together with the cake as it helped mute the spiciness of the cake. Not sure what the sauce on the side was but it complemented the cake well too.

Seafood Salad ($7)- squid, prawns, green papaya and Thai cashew pesto. The prawns and squid was mixed with a nice acidic dressing which was really tasty and refreshing. Even though there were some chili, it wasn't spicy. The papaya salad on the other hand was really disappointing, the dressing did not have enough acidity and the papaya texture was weird like jelly. Such a huge contrast between the seafood and papaya.

Chili Crab Ravioli ($15)- semolina pasta, greens and fried quail egg. The pasta was al dente. There was crab mixture on the inside. However the dish could use more sauce which would give more taste to it. Greens and egg was good. The thing that was disappointing was that it did not taste like chili crab.

Vegetarian Benedict ($9)- poached egg, greens, cheese, baked sweet potatoes, hash brown and hollandaise. Egg was well poached, yolk was still flow-y. Salad was good, nice dressing and fresh greens. Hash brown was not overcook. I think it's one of the nicer main dish I've taste for the day.

After that we were given the dessert menu and also some cookies- Milo macaroon, passion fruit macaroon, matcha cookie and orange Madeline. The macaroon shells were really crispy and hard- not so nice. Taste wise the Milo one was okay but the passion fruit one was a little weird. Matcha cookie had a nice unsweetened matcha flavor, orange Madeline was lovely(nicest out of the 4).

Kalamansi Meringue Tart ($5)- kalamansi custard, coconut graham crust. Kalamansi is actually a type of lime. The tartness of the kalamansi custard works well with the sweet meringue. Very nice.

Kaya Pain Perdu ($5)- kaya cream, salted gula melaka, white pepper ice cream. Pain Perdu is actually french for 'french toast' or if you want direct translation 'lost bread'. So if you did not understand, you wouldn't have known that there would be french toast. The french toast was really yummy- chewy and tasty(wished there was more even though there's already 3 on the plate). Sauce tasted more like coconut than the usual kaya flavor. Was a little disappointed with the ice cream as I could not taste the white pepper, only coconut flavor. Maybe they could rename it to Coconut Pain Perdu.

Warm Jasmine Rice Pudding ($5)-coffee ice cream, coffee glaze. Wished that the rice was cooked more till it was mushy. Didn't like that you could bite each grain of rice. The cream and coffee was good.

Frozen Landscape ($5)- pandan and coconut ice creams, kalamansi and hibiscus sorbets. The pandan ice cream tasted like real pandan instead of artificial pandan flavor(something you don't usually get). Coconut ice cream was nice, creamy, coconut-y and not too sweet. Kalamansi sorbet was refreshingly acidic. Hibiscus sorbet was flowery at the start and slightly bitter at the end. 

We also tried Moscato ($45/bt) which is a sweet white wine. Really nice and sweet. 

Rate: 
Pan Fried Stingray Cake: 8/10 ☺
Seafood Salad: 6/10 ☺
Chili Crab Ravioli: 6/10 ☺
Vegetarian Benedict: 7.5/10☺
Kalamansi Meringue Tart: 8/10 ☺
Kaya Pain Perdu: 8/10 ☺
Warm Jasmine Rice Pudding: 5/10 ☺
Frozen Landscape: 6.5/10 ☺