jones the grocer.. that wasn't. or isn't. or could be.

disappointing.  well, not completely. but huh.  ok.  let me start at the beginning. i called jones the grocer for a reservation as i was told it was THE place for brunch in dempsey.  umm.. where have i heard that before.  right. house.  huh.  so dempsey take two. i am determined to find a place in this fab village that i love because i want to spend every sunday wandering around, brunching, visiting, sipping tea  and pretending that i am a fab wealthy expat.  ha! like the rest of the people that parade their posh cars up and down dempsey hill.  riiiiiiight.

so.. i was told they didn't take reservations but the queue started around 10:30 so it was advisable to  show up early. huh. a restaurant in singapore that didn't take reservations. that does not bode well.

and the way it starts sometimes is the way it means to go on.  sunday was a late start.  i meant to meet claire at holland village and go over early to get a table, but then i started late (sunday morning dammnit!) and there was a jam enroute to holland village due to the exhumation of dead bodies in the bukit brown graveyard on the way.  what? yes. apparently, according to my taxi driver  the graveyard is being razzed to make way for a new road, so families have been asked to collect the bodies, if they would like.  most  families, my cabbie explained ask their local temple to exhume them and perform a ceremony for them then cremate them.  the taxi driver knew this as it had happened to his ancestors who were housed in a different plot of land the government had wanted a few years prior and he had to do the same thing.  actually, after i thought about it, i wasn't as shocked as you may think i should have been. i remembered they do the same thing in hong kong.  well actually everyone does it, not just a few plots of lands here and there. grave space is essentially non existence in hong kong proper and so grave sites are leased for 100 years.  after the lease is up, the grave is open, but the graveyard guy, the bones are removed and cremated and returned to the family and new dead person moves in.  actually it is fascinating. i read an article about it once and you know how weird facts just kinda stick in your head. well,  apparently in hong kong they are having a shortage of grave yard guys.  no one seems to want to work in the grave yard anymore.  not because its boring or there are more ghosts around, or they are not paid enough.  actually they are being paid more. the problem is our modern diet. our food and medicines contains more preservatives than they used to.  so what used to take 100 years to decompose takes longer.  so the grave yard guys in hong kong used to be able to open the graves to find clean white bones, now they are opening up the graves to not completely decomposed mush. i knew you wouldn't believe me, so read this article straight from the horse's mouth.. or the exhumer ah hoi's mouth. 

on that note, back to breakfast.  so the seating is odd at jones the grocer.  trying to be hip, i think, they have these gorgeous large tables, where they sit people where ever there is an empty seat.  so at our table, with 6 people (our party) we also had 3 girls on one side and a random man all by himself at the end.  huh. ok the second confusing thing is the menu.  they have a breakfast menu from 9 to 12.  then a brunch menu from 12 -5.  what? but i thought, on sunday, brunch was breakfast. and the lady on the phone specifically told me to come at 10:30 for brunch because it would get busy.  and the brunch menu had things i could eat and eggs benedict for claire.  the breakfast menu had crap.  eggs, spanish eggs, eggs on toast with sausages and toast.  ugh.  ugh. ugh.  i asked the waiter if we could order from the brunch menu. "no cannot".  not really understanding why its entirely possible to make toast with a poached egg on top, but not one with added ham and hollandaise sauce for an eggs benedict.  ugh. and  i was sitting beside claire who only comes to brunch for her eggs benedict, so she was pissed.

and back to singapore signature service. lizzie and frankie ordered the spanish eggs and got them super fast; god knows why. me and claire who had arrived early to get the table, were the last served. me, i think because mine was SUPER COMPLICATED.  because there wasn't anything i could order from the menu and when i asked if there was anything the waiter could recommend for someone who didn't eat eggs or meat.. "no cannot". so i ordered toast and 2 sides.  i asked if the 2 sides to be combined into a kind of mash, but that was also rather difficult, so i got a bowl of roasted tomatoes halves (2) and a bowl of sauteed spinach in garlic.  yep and THAT took an hour.  it took so long, that frankie ordered another order of coconut pancakes being still hungry after her massive frying pan of spanish eggs and side of toast....and she finished BOTH before me.

ok, it was not all negative.  the bread was fackin' delicious.  you can not imagine how good the bread was.  superb.  or was it cause i was starving? i have no idea.  i do know that we were so frustrated with the dumb breakfast/brunch menu and the crazy dumb wait that we didn't even think about dessert.  grr.  fine.  i wasn't really hungry after the giant slabs of soft, fresh french bread with gorgeous crusty crusts and lovely homemade marmalade. and when, i would like to know, did i start liking marmalade? i used to think it was so bitter and sour.. and only stuff that grandmothers ate while watching coronation street.

conversation was stilted in between discussions of the lame table arrangements (with odd people at the end), menu issues (why no eggs benedict?), and constant refrains of  "where the hell is our food?"  but laura did brave the mean girls (that was us) and brought her adorable bali boy.  he was  visiting still (much to lizzies' great pleasure) and he was cute, even though he doesn't speak much (any) english and is 23 years  old!  whatever, girl's got to have her fun.  better to talk about that than our lame jobs and our lame habit of overworking, over analyzing and over complaining about said jobs. 

did i mention the bread was good?  and we could pay in separate bills which saves us addition confusion.. good in this case as it was crazy expensive.. i had thought it was also a food store and i might want to buy some food stuffs (or that bread) to take home.. but cookies were $18 each... huh..but..it was in dempsey, so kudos for after brunch wanderings, of  which we didn't do this time because everyone was pissed off and still hungry, expect frankie, who was full.   2.5 stars (mainly for the bread).

Jones the Grocer
12 Dempsey Rd  Singapore 247697
Tel: 6476 1512

in the pantry....where the marmalade is sweet.

now that, is what i call a damn fine brunch.  the marmalade pantry at the stables was suggested by claire.  a damn fine good call. ok, if we are being honest, yes, at first we were skeptical.  since we had no idea where in the hell the stables were.  we: kathy, lizzie, laura and isabella are from the east end of singapore.  claire is from the west.  she had heard from a friend of a friend.  and we all know how good her last friend's angelic suggestion was.  anyhoo....

we: kathy, lizzie, laura and isabella met at the botanical garden mrt and shared a taxi to 'the stables' on the edge of the reservoir.  our cabbie was sufficiently confused by us. he had no idea why anyone would want to head out to the stables, especially on a damp sunday morning. but then we were ang mo (foreigners), so maybe we'd like to see the horses. he drove us along fairways green drive very slowly, pointing at all the happy grazing horses we passed on the way (3).  there were lessons to we could take, just for foreigners to learn how to ride all the old retired horses.  yay! our lucky day.  yeah we weren't taking lessons.

the restaurant was nestled right beside the stables. i had made reservations for inside, but when we got there we decided to sit outside under the fanned canopy.  it was a brilliant decision. during our 3 hour brunch, it was sunny, it was windy, it rained, and it was not once, hot.  a totally delightful day! you know really nothing can compare to sitting outside in the middle of a city surrounded by lush tropical greenery, overlooking empty lush fields, listening to the rain pitter patter on the canopy over your head.  at one time, it rained so hard, we couldn't see anything, just a grey mist. we could have been in scotland overlooking the moors and not even known it.  so refreshing!

i ordered a falfael wrap, again, a delightful surprise being able to order something from the menu.  it was bland.  but whatev's. there was ketchup.  i am not sure i will ever find a good 'vegan' dish here in singapore.  at least it was edible. the tea was delightful, served with its very own tea pot (love that!)  my fellow brunchers however, looked to have made much better choices.  clair got her beloved eggs benedict, which she said was divine. kathy and isabella got the breakfast: eggs, bacon and toast and of course laura got the pancakes.  and then we all got the cupcakes. yay!  really, how could you not.  they were set up inside on a giant table just daring you to order them.  ok. mine was a fail.  it was called chocolate extreme and i just couldn't pass it up.  i didn't see it on the table but i thought.. if they looked that good.. just imagine!  i had visions of a mountain of chocolate icing, with a warm melted lava center, maybe a few chocolate chips to add crunch and then a drizzle of chocolate syrup over the whole thing. yup. imagine disappointment.  dry and flaky and not that chocolately.. and no icing.  isabella got the red velvet with gorgeous cream cheese icing and i almost cried in jealously. (i'm not joking. it looked fackin' awesome)

but whatever.. i had two packets of raw sugar in my tea. who needs chocolate anyways? this brunch our conversation was rather interesting. we spent alot of time talking about how sometimes it can be rather unfair (in a fantastically good way) to be blonde in a foreign country. isabella has a phd in esl education.  she also has short brown hair and could barely get a job in japan, so i cannot begrudge her a good cupcake now and then, especially since i have only a uni diploma, long blonde hair and have been hired way too many times, in all parts of asia solely based on my photo (hair colour/skin colour). 

there is a marmalade pantry in orchard ion.  and we almost went there instead, but since then i have walked past said restaurant. and to be honest, ugh. its in the middle of a mall. with people (like me) walking by and looking at you.  its not that the marmalade pantry has that good food, the food was ok.  but what makes it such a freakin' delight (and what justifies the rather expensive prices) is the ambiance.  when one lives and works everyday in the saturated, crowded, noisy, chaotic concrete jungle that is singapore, a moment (or 3 hours) in a green horse stable-y heaven is divine.  DIVINE!   4 1/2 stars.

The Marmalade Pantry at the Stables
55 Fairways Dr  Singapore 286846

Tel: 6467 7748