The first time I ever saw Dean & Deluca was in Tokyo many years back when I was on a business trip; there was an outlet at the train station that was near my hotel which I’d walk past every morning on my way to the station to work. But I never got a chance to step inside because there are just too many other places to check out when in Tokyo, especially since being in Japan, I’d definitely prefer checking out local food although the occasional distraction is good too.
I didn’t know then where D&D hailed from or bothered to find out about it, until I came across it last November when I was in New York. Jade wanted to check out the store to get some cookies and we did buy some even though they didn’t have what she wanted. I cannot recall what I bought but they were really good and the store was extremely crowded! Maybe it was because that was a wet and cold evening so everyone wanted to get some shelter for warmth.
I read about the opening of D&D in Singapore at Orchard Central, and suggested it as a meet-up place with two girlfriends one Friday evening. The cafe has an “inside” as well as “outside” seating area. It’s all located indoors, on the 4th level of Orchard Central, but part of the seats are within the cafe area whereas there are also additional tables and chairs that spill over to the outside. We got a seat on the “outside” and then went to place our orders at the counter. I read from someone’s blog that you had to take the number on the table to place your order, but I don’t remember that we had any number then. Maybe there was but I don’t remember. I only knew that after ordering and paying, we’d have a number tag that we’d bring back to our table and wait for the food to be served. There are sandwiches, all-day breakfasts, as well as salads and breads/pastries but we decided to order something to share.
We got a mac & cheese, a salad and an All-American Breakfast (I think) to share, but skipped on the drinks totally because we wanted to take our caffeine-dosing elsewhere.
The mac & cheese was pretty interesting because it came in a block, and it didn’t have the overwhelming cheesy flavour that I expected, although my friends expected cheese to be oozing out from the block at least, or that it shouldn’t be blockish like that.
The breakfast set we ordered had a hash brown, scrambled eggs, a sausage, mushrooms, tomato and bacon. It was pretty normal to me, like what we usually see in pictures of breakfasts that people post online, and taste-wise it was not spectacular that I could remember its awesomeness. I couldn’t even recall now what greens we ordered, but it was a really small portion that they plated together with the mac & cheese in the above picture. Well, the food was not bad but it was not fantastic either. But I liked the place because it retained its general utilitarian kitchen kind of look yet infused with a touch of chic-ness in its use of a monochrome palette and stainless steel. There is also a grocery area that sells pasta sauces, and many other food stuff that you can buy home but the prices were rather steep, according to my friends.
This is a place I would revisit, because I really want to try their pastries and coffee!
Beautiful days 