By now everyone must know the new fancy burger joint in town: &Made. Opened by a Chef Bruno Menard and his partners, it is located on the ground floor of Pacific Plaza along Scotts Road. Bruno Menard was the chef at L'Osier where we had our best ever non-Japanese meal in Tokyo, and we felt really sad when L'Osier closed down when the building it was in, the Shiseido Building, closed down for major renovations. Fortunately for us and other foodies in Singapore, Chef Bruno decided to take his sabbatical in Singapore, and ended up opening a burger joint here, and is rumoured to be setting out a few more casual eateries in Singapore.
&Made is a play on the words "hand made" which are how its burgers are done here (the French and people in some parts of England cannot pronounce the letter "H"). It is a bright, quirky and fun diner which has a menu consisting of burgers, shakes, toasted sandwiches (called toastees) and desserts. The waiters genuinely looked happy to be working there and were very friendly, although during peak hours they were short-staffed and the food took a while to get to us.
No burger meal is ever complete without a milkshake and the chocolate shake here was classic. We also tried the banana and honey shake but we much preferred the chocolate one as the banana shake was not milky enough and tasted a bit thin.
Our favourite was the classic aged beef burger and comte cheese. The beef was aged to perfection and the exotic comte cheese was a sophisticated twist to the usual cheese found in other burgers. Add to that, the buns were light and fluffy. This was the kind of burger which you had to eat with your hands, and would cause all kinds of mess as the juices and sauce would ooze out when you chomp on it. It was probably the best burger we'd had in Singapore. The fries were ordinary and slightly anaemic (we preferred the fries at DeBurg).
We also tried the 'three little pigs' which was essentially a pork burger. It was not bad but we felt that it would be waste to come here and have anything other than the beef burger.
The 'healthy' option was the toast of whole wheat bread and a side of salad, which to be honest wasn't all that good. But then why bother to go to a burger joint if you want to eat healthily?
This applies to the salad as well. It wasn't too bad but in hindsight we didn't really see the point in it (we should have saved space for another beef burger or more dessert).
One of the highlights was the dessert. This was no ordinary burger joint where dessert consisted of a scoop of ice cream or if you were lucky, a waffle with a scoop of ice cream (though they did have a few flavours of ice cream in the menu). The caramel lava cake here was really to die for.
Chef Bruno is rumoured to be opening up another eatery in the Central Business District, within walking distance from my office. We'll be looking forward to his new place when it opens.
&Made
Ground Floor, Pacific Plaza
Tel: +65 6732 9808 (no reservations taken)
www.andmade.sg
