Established in 1889 in Lille, France, PAUL is known around the world with 500 boulangeries in 31 countries. PAUL's Singapore flagship store is located in Takashimaya Shopping Centre and opened in January 2012. There are further plans to expand and a 7th PAUL dining experience will be opening soon.
PAUL is known around the world for its traditional cooking and artisanal
breads. We're quite excited that they're refreshing their menu with 26 new dishes to mark their 125th anniversary this year, and we got
to sample 6 of them.
Whilst we were waiting for other bloggers to arrive, we were served bread with butter which is imported from France.
It was then onto the tasting menu! We'll start with the description that Paul gave and move onto our own interpretation.
The prawns were firm and crispy, avocados were just ripe enough, and the grapefruit and the vinaigrette dressing complimented the seafood. A refreshing way to start the tasting. It was great to see the Prawns and Octopus weren't overcooked as well otherwise they get very chewy. The Grapefruit gave that nice sweetness to the dish overall and took away the edge of the dressing. Overall a great assortment of flavours and a good blend of cold and warm ingredients.
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| Salade de la mer (S$20.90) |
Tartine boeuf. Seared sirloin steak on a bed of herb cream cheese, caramelised onions, topped with a dash of balsamic glazing. Served warm.
The steak was seared to rare-medium and was tender, the caramelised onions were sweet, and the glazing and cream cheese complimented each other very well. These were gone in two bites.
The steak is meant to be cooked rare-medium, so if you are wanting your steak well-done, this is probably not a dish for you.
We really loved the quality of the beef; it had some good fat, which also helped to keep it moist and tender. The crispy bits of fat were beautifully sinful :) The caramelised onion was a highlight as well as it gave a nice sweetness to each bite; very much like a gourmet Onion Chutney.
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| Tartine boeuf (S$19.90) |
Longe de thon. Seared tuna loin, served with roasted vegetables and seasonal cranberry sauce.
The tuna was moist and tender and the vegetables nicely roasted. The pink of the Tuna was very eye catching. A squeeze of Lemon added some acidity and made the seared flavour more alive. However, we are not quite sure about the cranberry sauce as we usually associate it with Turkey and a bit more sear on the Tuna would've been perfect.
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| Longe de thon (S$29.90) |
Confit de canard (duck confit). From the Perigord region of France, this is one of PAUL's favourite indulgences. Slow roasted herb marinated duck leg, served with roasted vegetables and seasonal cranberry sauce.
This dish requires two days of preparation and four hours of cooking. To judge a good duck confit, the meat falls off the bone with a slight touch of a fork. The skin was nice and salty and probably needed to be a touch more crispy. We love crispy Duck skin. It was served with roasted Vegetables and Cranberry sauce again. The sauce added a nice sweetness and reminded us of Chinese Duck dishes that have a Plum sauce. Overall this was a good Duck confit. A worthy addition to this new menu.
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| Confit de canard (S$28.90) |
Now onto drinks:
Top left - Sage camomile iced tea (S$7.50)
Top right - Lemongrass iced tea (S$7.50)
Bottom left - Mint iced tea (S$7.50)
Bottom right - Rosemary lime iced tea (S$7.50)
We think that the range of iced teas are fantastic and all have their characteristic flavour as per their names. The new range of iced teas is executed very well. If you don't like like them sweet, remember to let the serving staff know and they'd be happy to accommodate by not adding any sugar.
We also had a caffeine drink known as a Shakerato. This is a double espresso shot shaken with ice and then strained. Available flavours included original, vanilla, butterscotch, hazelnut and caramel. We ordered the butterscotch and vanilla. The Shakerato is very pleasing on the taste buds; translation, yum!
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| Shakerato (S$7.50) |
Now onto the desserts; by this time, it was turning into a feast rather than a tasting.
Eclair Paris-Brest. Traditional choux pastry with hazelnut cream.
We bit into this and was sent straight to heaven. The hazelnuts were nice and crunchy! It was so good that we wanted another one! The cream was amazing as well and across the entire table, this Eclair was a hit.
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| Eclair Paris-Brest (S$7.50) |
Gaufre avec glace. Waffle with fresh berries, vanilla ice-cream and a drizzle of homemade chocolate sauce.
The waffles were nice and crispy and the ice-cream and fresh berries complimented each other very well. The waffles went exceptionally well with the Vanilla ice cream. You could see the characteristic specks of vanilla pod in the ice cream and you knew that this was going to be yummy from the start.
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| Gaufre avec glace (S$13.90) |
We were invited to PAUL's Marina Bay Link Mall branch. The closest MRT station being the Downton (on the Downtown line), otherwise the other station is Raffles Place (on the North-South line). For other PAUL branches, please see their website.
This blog resulted from an invitation and represents the thoughts and opinions of Expat Kiwis. All information on this blog is provided "as is", with no guarantee of completeness, accuracy or timeliness and the writer will not be liable for any losses, injuries or damages from the display or use of this information. All text and photos on this blog are the original works of the writer unless stated otherwise.
Thank you to PAUL's Marina Bay Link Mall Branch and Ninemer PR for the kind invitation. It was a pleasure to be part of your tasting session and you guys were very welcoming. Love the friendly smiles too!
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