Brunch & Co welcomed Chris, owner of a fitness gym called Selective Fitness, and a bunch of his lovely members for a "Healthy yet Decadent" Brunch today. The gym, in Tanjong Pagar, has been going for about one year and today's brunch was to mark this special occasion. Decorating the table for each guest we had homemade toffee apples to kick off the healthy yet decadent theme - an apple a day keeps the doctor away so they say! Here's a pre-toffee healthy photo:
...and a photo of the decadence being prepared:
A motivated sub-group of Brunchers even met poolside at 8:30am to kick off a pre-Brunch mini biathlon to enable a guilt free session of indulging. A swim & a run up Mount Faber would surely get the tummies rumbling!
I had heard from Chris during the week that a couple of the members were a little worried that the brunch menu sounded "too healthy" so to ensure that no Bruncher left unsatisfied in the indulgence and decadence department we kicked off proceedings with an amuse bouche of Spanish hot chocolate shots served with mini homemade donuts coated in sugar and injected with raspberry jam.
The Spanish Hot Chocolate called "Valor" was a gift from our friends Eu Hui & Santi who have recently launched a very cool travel guide business specializing in travel guides especially for foodies - the first three launched are for cities in Spain (Valencia, Madrid & Seville) which is where Santi is from. [www.blacksheepguides.com] My rushed photos really don't do this justice - the hot chocolate was so creamy & tasty and the warm, crispy, sweet donut really hit the spot - there was quite a bit of taste testing required for those, all in the name of research of course!
With mouths sufficiently "amused", we served our starter of homemade granola, made from a recipe by the Queen of Decadence herself - Nigella Lawson, served with creamy yoghurt and tropical fruits of Thai mangos, pineapple, lychees, kiwi fruit & passionfruit.
Our main course consisted of fluffy "green" pancakes (made green by spinach, spring onions & green chillies) served with lime butter, grilled haloumi, roasted vine cherry tomatoes & smoked salmon - "healthy" never tasted so good!
After our obligatory seat swap and tummy stretch, we served our palate cleanser of lychee & coconut sorbet.
For our finale course, we served a special dessert by Heston Blumenthal called Tiramisu plant pots - Tiramisu served in "pots" topped with edible "soil" (crystalized chocolate).
It certainly had our guests oohing and aahing! It was fun watching their faces as they dug their spoons into the "soil" to find the tiramisu treasure hidden underneath.
Decadence factor 10 out of 10!
Thanks to the lovely members of Selective Fitness for coming along to today's brunch - it was a real pleasure to have you all over at our place - here's to another successful year ahead!
Cheers,
Louise & Mark
PS. Thanks again to our baker extraordinaire, Hwee Yin, for all her help and of course, her yummy mini scones. Anybody needing delicious baked cupcakes, muffins, scones etc please get in touch so I can pass on Hwee Yin's contact details - she supplies to some of the best cafes in town!
