Freshapple: The Populus and BingKi Korean Dessert Café

Monday, March 20, 2017

The Populus and BingKi Korean Dessert Café

The Populus Coffee & Food Co

Address: 146 Neil Rd, S'pore 088875
Contact: +65 6635 8420

Opening hours:
Mon & Wed 9am to 7pm
Tues 9am to 4pm
Thurs & Fri 9am to 10.30pm
Sat 9.30am to 10.30pm
Sun 9.30am to 7pm

For more updates:
http://www.thepopuluscafe.com/
https://www.facebook.com/thepopuluscafe/

It's our quarterly meet up again with AJALY~ not AJALYA... because the [A] didn't make it for the gathering again :(

Normally, when there's a dinner gathering, I would try to choose place where all of us have never visited before. So it's not only a catch up session, but also a chance to experience different cuisine, ambience, service. Kill two birds with one stone, no?

This time round, we chose The Populus!

Heard it is normally pretty packed during the weekends.

So, let's check it out!

It was rather easy to locate the café though.

Alight at Outram (Purple line) MRT, Exit at Cantonment and you can easily find your way there.

We reached at around 6pm. Not much crowd yet.

I like the geographical interior~

Looks pretty chic.

Truffle Wagyu Beef Donburi $21.50

(Seared Wagyu Beef, Savoury Onion Soy Sauce, Onsen Egg)

There is a recent trend of having Donburi and so we ordered one to try out.

Pleasant to the eyes with its vibrant colour and healthy with lotsa ingredients like the chargrilled baby corn, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, quinoa, wheat and pearl barley.

As you all know, I don't take beef so according to my friends, they said it looks good and taste as good :)

Seafood Linguine $24

(Linguine braised in homemade Seafood Bisque, Crab meat, Scallops)

Generous with the amount of seafoods~

Al-dente pasta and flavourful dish.

'Chicken Rice' Donburi $18.50

(Signature Fried Chicken Cutlet, Onsen Egg, Ginger & Spring Onion Salsa)

I like the Fried Chicken cutlet, however I felt the whole dish lack a bit of sauce maybe?

$18.50 for a Fried Chicken Rice bowl is a little costly. How youngster managed to survive nowadays with such high food cost ah?

Parents must be earning enough for the new generation of kids! lol... Ok, shall stop nagging. Next dish please.

Spring Pancake & Fried Chicken $21

(Spring Onion & Corn Pancake, Signature Crispy Succulent Fried Chicken Thigh Fillet, Hint of Cumin, House Special Dressing)

I like the Chicken Thigh fillet, it was crispy on the outside, juicy at the inside. The Chicken portion was quite big too. As for the pancake, although it was springy but we don't quite appreciate the taste of Cumin. It was a little overpowering in our opinions although the menu says it's only a hint of cumin.

Crab & Grains Morsels $8.50

This was so good, nicely fried. A must to order!

Eat them while it's hot. Very generous with the amount of crab meat.

Truffle Fries with Parmesan Cheese $12

Smells good :)

Buckwheat Pancakes $19.50

(Soft and fluffy Buckwheat pancake, Berry Fruit Compote, Passion fruit Curd, Cornflake crumb, Thyme infused Maple syrup, Flowers)

Looks very pretty but they served the dessert together with the rest of the main courses.

Forgot to tell them to serve later, but they didn't bother to ask too.

The pancake was soft and fluffy. I like the combination of the pancake with fruits and cornflake crumbs. So, there's like soft n crunchy texture at the same time. It wasn't too sweet too, so it was to our likings. Just nice~

Cake not from the CAFE~

And because it was Yang Rui's Bday celebration~

We weren't sure if there were cakes at the café, so we decided to get a small one for her from some random cake shop.

But the waiter was impolite and asked us if the cake was from their café. Hmmm, you mean you don't recognize your own cakes, so you ask that unnecessary question?

Then he proceed to tell us that we shouldn't bring outside food into their premises.

Quoted by the waiter himself :" You guys can celebrate, but not eat the cake"

So we sing the bday song and keep the cake back? Are you seriously kidding me?

Can't you be slightly more courteous? Or maybe ask if we would like to try your cakes instead?

We even apologize that we are not aware of the "no outside food" rule. Oh well~ but that's not all that we are unhappy about...

We were just about to finish up the food and this waiter kept coming over to clear our dishes. I mean I'm all about efficiency and fast services but he is making us feel panicky like there is a time constraint for having a meal here. There were still empty seats, not like there's a queue of people waiting.

It is like he just can't wait for us to leave! Oh why you! We are not even difficult customers, why treat us like this?

But still, Happy Birthday Yang Rui (Young Ray)...

Single and Available~

Please leave your contact below if you are interested...

wahahahahahaahah.

All in all, the food was great, ambience was still alright, but terrible service even when they are not busy or peak period. I seldom criticise on services but this time round they really made us darn pissed off and having the urge to leave immediately. Total damage around $20-30 per pax.

Rate it a 7/10

BingKi Korean Dessert Café

Address: 7 Tanjong Pagar Plaza, #01-106, S'pore 081007

Opening hours: Mon to Thurs 11am to 1am

Fri & Sat 11am to 4am

Sun 11am to 12am

For more updates: https://www.facebook.com/Bingkibingsu/

Because it was still early and we were sort of being forced to leave the previous place, we walked around to look for café to have some dessert and to chat a while longer.

And we found this Bingsu Café.