relish what?

after reading about relish on chubby hubby's site, random images of mouth watering burgers kept flashing through my mind every day. (seriously!) relish is a burger restaurant at cluny court, newly opened by the brains behind wild rocket.

when uberburger was still around, boy was i a fan. they had delicious burgers and fat fries in a bucket. imagine my despair when they decided to close shop for good, and imagine further how happy i was to hear that a similar restaurant had opened its doors for business. i was literally dreaming of those burgers so much that i could stand it no longer and finally headed down on new year's eve.

sneaky shot

mike and i arrived at around 1.30pm to find the place bustling with activity. we were told that the place was already packed and to come back again at 2pm. when we returned, we were informed that we had to wait a little longer before the tables were available. i was fine with that, except that i noticed one or two groups who arrived later than us getting a seat before we did. the situation was quite chaotic, with the staff in charge of the reservation list not following the order of reservations. i was getting quite pissed when another couple strode up to the counter and the staff told them that they're next in line. when i checked that guy's name against the list, i found his reservation later than ours! fortunately for us (or rather the waiter), the manager recognised us before i could start displaying my prowess and led us in promptly to sit.

we pretty much knew what we wanted since i was already close to memorising the menu. mike ordered a soup of the day ($7.50), their signature wild rocket burger ($17) and a recommended beer ($13) to go with his burger. i had to try the ram-lee burger ($19) after reading so much about it.

whilst waiting, a series of horrifying events happened. as i observed one of the staff serving beer at another table, he started pouring the beer from the bottle into the glass which was set flat on the table. the glass of beer ended up with about 4cm of foam. then mike's beer came, served with the bottle already opened and the beer already poured! wasn't the number one rule to open a bottled beverage and pour it in front of the customer? at this point in time, we could only pray that the food would be good enough the make up for these boo boos.

green pea soup

mike was courageous enough to take the soup of the day - green pea soup. the taste was too funky for me to go pass one mouthful, but i guess if you're a pea lover you might like it.

silly saison from silly belgium

the beer was light and refreshing, and was supposed to go down well with the wild rocket burger. mike was pretty happy with his booze at noon, though he looked as red as a lobster after.

the burgers finally arrived! this was supposed to be the restaurant's only saving grace after a witnessing a lineup of substandard service. unfortunately, the burgers we ordered had nothing much to be relished about.

my ram-lee burger came with fries which were shaken with salt and sprinkled with a dash of black pepper. tasted normal, unlike those uberburger had which were delicious even on its own. the burger had a huge beef patty which was done pretty well at medium-rare, though i found it lacking in flavour. the omelette, cheese and beef patty tasted good individually, but when placed together, failed to create the oomph! factor i was expecting of this ram-lee burger.

not quite the ram-lee phenomenon

mike's wild rocket fared a bit better, as the pepper cream used went well with the arugula leaves in the burger. again, the patty was done to perfection, but lacked in the taste and flavour. more seasoning please!

wild rocket burger

i gave my burger plenty of chances, but it pretty much fell flat in the end, and i found myself extremely stuffed yet unsatisfied.

if the whole setting was to change into a normal roadside bistro, i would say relish would be a pretty good place for decent burgers. however, with it being a restaurant, the service was horrible and with the price i'm paying for the burgers, i almost felt as if i got cheated of my emotions and money as i walked out of that place.

to top it all off, when mike and i both insisted on treating each other, the staff serving us the bill suggested in absolute sincerity, "or you two can go dutch, you know". we instantly looked at each other wide eyed and burst out laughing.

perhaps it was due to new year's eve and the restaurant couldn't cope with the sudden crowd. perhaps it just happened that their full time service staff were on leave. perhaps you would like to check the place out for yourself and convince me to give it a second chance. perhaps, but for now, i miss uberburger.

the look on his face says it all