le papillon (aka the butterfly) is no caterpillar...

After racking our brains for a new place to check out for lunch..we were down to a choice between Song of India and Le Papillon. We finally settled on the latter as the restaurant of choice for our 2nd Pabulum Club monthly outing.

We had no problems locating the pretty Red Dot building (reminds me of A famosa in Melaka!) where the restaurant is housed but had to spend a considerable few minutes walking up and down the corridors (passing Pacific Coffee twice) to locate the restaurant. A sign on the walkway would have been helpful. A cute waiter ushered us into our seats and presented us with the set European lunch menu priced at an affordable S$32+++.

Complimentary bread (choice of brown or white) was served. Adel commented that it would have been nicer if the rolls which were cold, were served warm instead. Our appetizers came quickly - we had the proscuitto ham and rock melon salad , cumin carrot soup and warm chicken caesar salad. For appetizers, the servings were a fairly hearty...pretty yummy too. WH liked it that the melon was sweet and ham were sliced thinly.

Mains took some time to appear (the waitress had warned us that appetizers were fast and mains slower), which gave us time to let our eyes explore the chic ambience (love the wall murals!) and we especially enjoyed checking out their cool looking cutlery. Being safe (or rather health conscious), 3 of us ordered the pan-roasted sea bass and Adel ordered the beef heel stew. I found the sea bass a tad too salty and the portions a bit small (or maybe it was the large plate it was served in?). The fish came with sides of carrots, long beans, onions and potatoes..the onions were particularly good! Adel's beef stew stood out with its mushrooms raqout, sweet potato and melt-in-your-mouth beef chunks.

There was only one type of dessert on the menu which was the poached pear tart. I wasn't a big fan - it was tasty but I did wish they had put the valrhona cake on the set lunch list as well *hint hint*.

Overall - the food and ambience made this place a nice weekday lunch outing.. Their service needs a bit more fine tuning - they took forever to refill our drinks but thankfully, the cute waiter always had a ready smile and was very friendly. Their ala-carte menu is something we hope to explore next. This butterfly has definitely taken flight!