Graze @ Rochester Park

Graze
4 Rochester Park
Tel: 6775 9000

To celebrate the last day of jac's internship, we decided to patronize this place knowing rochester park is my desire hangout place. Always like those colonial building which makes me feel nostalgic.

I took the first 3 photos from a review blog. So it is not taken by me.
The weather was chilling nice, a perfect time for al fresco dining.

The only thing I love about this restaurant gotta be this screen. They screen black & white classic hollywood movies like my favourite "Breakfast at Tiffany". You could sit and chill out with a glass of wine while enjoying the movie in the arm of ur loved one. Perfect romantic date. (hahahaha....im giving u guys ideas eh) The only shortcoming will be the movie is silent. hahaha...

Cos it was raining cats & dogs earlier, my dear jac reserved a table inside. The decor is armani style of white, black & grey. I prefer the outdoor dining. The ambience inside wasnt up to my expectation for a rochester park restaurant. Definitely not very fine dining either when the people turn up in all sorts of funny clothes. I am not being discriminating but I feel that people should respect by dressing up alittle and not come in berms & jeans like as though they are going to the market. GOSH! If i open a restaurant, i will have a dresscode.

We also made a strange discovery. There is a huge difference in customers profile of those who dine inside and outside. The one inside has really no class. First they have no basic dining etiquette. Second they have no table manner. Third they just have no manner. This family next to us stare at us from head to toe with those demeaning eyes throughout the entire meal. Damn annoying! Then the table behind us really looked like a bunch of people from China cos they eat in such uncouth manner like those Chinese nationals. Stuffing the entire meat into his mouth instead of cutting them into bite sizes and dropping all the food from his mouth all over the place. EEKS! Just make me lose appetite really. Gross! So it was a bad bad experience. I guess the fact that the menu is at affordable range invites really funny customer segment.

While customers dining outdoor are all dressed up in nice dresses and suits. Totally different ambience I am talking about here.

For a wine lover, I heard they have very extensive wine list.

For ambience, it fails terribly maybe except the movie screen. Now for the food. The entree of crispy pork belly is really well done. I have never eaten such delicious pork belly before. However, the fried skin could have been less salty and less hard.

Spagetti of clams. HUGE disappointment. They actually compromise on the freshness of clams which I am utterly shocked. For a plate they are charging at $36, I could have been drowned with fresh clams in Borgo. Here in Graze, they mix 6 fresh clams with a whole cans of canned clams. The lack of freshness makes me sick and my impression of it instantly went negative. The worst spagetti vongole I have ever eaten!

However, jac's prawns were rather fresh and succulent. Her pasta tastes pretty well but not the most fantastic one I have tried. So much for fusion food. I should never have faith in fusion food. Always sucky!


Time for my dessert. Of the variety it offers, none pleases me. & I have to eat a dessert to at least make myself pleased after such disappointing meal. That moment I realized that it is no use to offer variety if the food is bad. I rather have restricted choice but shiok food. Guessing that I cant go so wrong with strawberry ice-cream so thats what I ordered. So-so but made me happy at least cos I get to eat happy food.

Did I mention their customer service sucks too?! We have to ask them to refill our water EVERYtime. & they took a really long time to clear our plates after we have finished our meal. The only person who is quite nice was the malay fat gay that served us towards the end. He was nice so we were very nice to him too.

Even though the whole experience aint great, nonetheless I am just as happy cos of the great company I had. Thanks for your company!

Okay! We werent dress up either. But at least we dont have bad table manner nor dining etiquette. BAH~!

This is one reason why I love you so dearly cos you always make me laugh with all your funny poses for my camera that are just amusingly hilarious. (I know you are going to kill me for posting this pic up but well....good things must share right?)

In conclusion, never patronize this restaurant where you could fetch much better quality food elsewhere with this price range. There aint much ambience to talk about too. However, if your wine knowledge is good, then maybe you can consider just coming here for a drink to chill out while watching classic hollywood movie outdoor under the stars. Definitely up your romantic factor by your date.