Violet Herbs is a modern European restaurant on Tras Street where there seems to be a lot of nice restaurants that have opened up over the last couple of years including Terra which I dined at earlier this year. They offer great value set lunches on weekdays as well as set dinners or you can opt for their 6 or 8 course degustation menu or order a la carte.
Arriving at 1pm the other day for lunch, the restaurant was fairly busy but my friend and I managed to get a quiet table in the corner. Their weekday set lunch is $35 for 3 courses and you can choose an appetiser, main and dessert in which there were several different options (some options come with a supplement though). I chose to have the Herb Crusted Hokkaido Scallops, Parma Wrapped Chicken Breast and the Chef Special Tiramisu. After ordering we were given a small rosemary and parmesan bread with rosemary butter as well as a small portion of squid with togarashi (Japanese spice) and basil pesto.
The bread was served warm and had a strong rosemary flavour and the squid was nice to start with to whet our appetite. Soon after our starters came out. My herb crusted scallops were quite small and unfortunately slightly overcooked and rubbery. The trout roe, parsnip puree and parsnip tuile that came with it were nice and so was the lobster espuma (foam) except that it was more of a creamy thick soup rather than a foam and was a little bit difficult to eat from the shot glass that it came in as it wasn’t runny enough to drink and the spoon that came with it was a massive soup spoon.
My friend had the Mushroom Cappuccino as a starter and said that the soup part had a good truffle flavour but the foam which was supposed to be a truffle thyme foam didn’t have any truffle flavour at all and she could only taste the thyme.
We were given an apple sorbet with orange slices after our appetiser. The apple sorbet was sweet and refreshing and went well with the slightly sour orange slices – a great palate cleanser before our main.
My Parma Wrapped Chicken Breast main course was nice, the chicken was tender and not dry and it came with roasted pumpkin puree and horseradish veloute which complemented it well. Lovely healthy dish!
My friend’s seafood pasta with white wine garlic, bird eye chilli and basil pesto:
The dessert was definitely the highlight of my meal. The Chef Special Tiramisu was near perfect, it had a good strong coffee liqueur flavour and the baileys ice cream was also very good. Great finish to the meal!
My friend had the Duo Crème Brûlée where she got a small orange crème brûlée and a vanilla crème brûlée with tiny specks of raspberry sauce on the side.
Violet Herbs is a nice restaurant to go to for a meal in a relaxed setting. The interior of the restaurant on their main dining floor is elegantly furnished in a violet colour to go with the name and they also have another floor upstairs and a private room for special events.
Service was very polite and efficient and the waiter that was serving us for the majority of the time clearly explained to us what each dish was. There were however only two waiters serving during lunch so when we first arrived it did take some time for one of them to come and take our drink orders as they seemed pretty busy. But after everyone had cleared out of the restaurant by 2pm we had them at our beck and call 🙂
The food at Violet Herbs didn’t really have that “wow factor” so I’m not sure if I’ll be back but it is a nice place to have lunch or a romantic meal.
Violet Herbs
Address: 81 Tras Street, Singapore 079020 (Nearest MRT: Tanjong Pagar)
Tel: 6221 3988
Opening Hours: Monday – Saturday: 11.30am – 3pm, 6pm – 10pm, Sunday: closed
Hope you’ve enjoyed my Violet Herbs review, please feel free to leave a comment below with your own review or if you have any questions!
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