Singapore 360 - Day 25: Marché At 313 Somerset

A few months ago I posted an entry on Marché Restaurant in Vivo City. It really has been one of my favorite places to dine since a friend took me to its original branch in Orchard Road back in 2005.

Last December, I heard from another friend that there was a new Marché in 313 Somerset as we made plans of treating to dinner one of our mutual friends who came here to participate in the Standard Chartered Marathon. Everything was set but when we came on the actual day to eat, we found out much to our dismay that there was a private function being held and the restaurant was closed to the public. We ended up dining in another of our favorites — Din Tai Fung.

This January, we didn't pass up the chance to visit Marché at 313 Somerset for the first time. We had a bit of trouble finding it because it was listed in the mall directory under B1. We searched the entire basement 1 but couldn't find it. Luckily we found the information counter on the ground level, which pointed us to the right direction.

At first glance, the place seemed a bit too small. But we soon realized that we weren't seeing the entire picture. Apparently, what we were looking at was just the bakery and the people who had gathered there were queuing to buy — if that's any indication of how good their breads and pastries are.

The restaurant is actually situated one level below, no wonder it was listed under B1! (I disagree however, because there is no entrance at this level.) The staircase leading to it was decorated to depict the typical Swiss farm life. The lamb sucking milk from its mother almost looked too real.

Pretty soon we concluded that the ambiance was really nice, way cooler than that of their Vivo City branch.

We ordered, among others, an entire pan of Paella and was a bit disappointed when the server told us we had to wait for 50 minutes. He said he didn't want to keep other customers who would order smaller portions from waiting too long. I thought it should have been done on a first come, first served basis. And yes, there were no pending orders that time. We came to a mutual agreement that he'll do his best to cut it down to 25 minutes.

We ended up waiting for an hour. Also, the guy ended up serving other customers in the midst of giving our orders. He looked like he could have used some help. Oh well, we didn't let that dampen our mood and had ordered enough other food to keep us calm until the paella was fully served. I remember we had fried chicken, oysters, mushroom, salad and rosti. I'm surprised we even had room left for coffee and desert!

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