Halia

Halia

Raffles Hotel near City Hall station

Halia serves modern European cuisine and is another casual bistro dining that serves pretty good European food at a very reasonable price. Its first restaurant started out at botanic gardens and now it has a sister restaurant at Raffles Hotel. Its a pity that it isn’t crowded on a Sunday afternoon as I thought such a wallet friendly and delicious restaurant should be crowded on weekends.

We first started off with the celeraic lasagne. This is vegetarian and is surprisingly delicious to me. Sauce wasn’t too creamy and there were loads of flavoursome and fragrant mushroom bits. There were two kinds of mushrooms in it – cooked moist ones and dried ones. Mushrooms were not soggy and a little springy as well while the lasagne isn’t gooey or sticky at all. Felt like a healthy lasagne that is lighter and more delicious actually than the usual cheesy and creamy ones. $12.

Then the first main was chicken leg with butternut squash. Butternut squash was well cooked and really soft while red pepper were really zesty. Makes this main very refreshing indeed. The chicken leg is very tender and not overcooked at all. Yummy mains.

Chilli crab spaghetti. Think this is the first time that I had chilli crab pasta. I quite like the taste. This pasta is light and not creamy at all, it’s closer to our usual tomato base but then there isn’t tomatoes here but chilli. However, this pasta isn’t spicy at all. There were also quite a lot of chilli crab shredding. I thought this isn’t heavy tasting enough, like what the real chilli crab sauce should be like. Nevertheless, this is still a delicious main. $25.

Then, got the brunch menu for dessert as I was craving for pancakes. This was featured as one of the mains in the brunch menu as it has bacon shreds on this strawberry pancake. Pancake was really fluffy and soft, and together with the strawberry sauce and sprinkles of icing sugar, it is really satisfying. The more savoury bacon doesn’t disrupt or enhance the taste really. Don’t really know why is bacon added but then it still tasted fine. Thought this dish will be better without the bacon. $12.

Then got the dessert plate from the brunch menu again. There’s chocolate cake, green tea tiramisu, passionfruit and chocolate tartlet and a straw or raspberry and chocolate layered cake. Green tea tiramisu was light on green tea but still soft and fluffy while the tartlet was soft and not dry as well. My favourite was the raspberry and chocolate layered cake indeed as I like chocolate and thought it goes really well with the berry taste. The cake was slightly moist, soft yet dense. Chocolate taste was also substantial but doesn’t cover the berry taste. Good plate of dessert. $12.

Halia serves good modern European food with a slight asian twist at a very reasonable price. This restaurant does not aim to serve really exciting or super creative dishes; it really is just a bistro that executes every dish well and accurately. Only spent about $50 per pax and it was really worth it I felt. One of my favourite bistros!

Verdict: An excellent restaurant! (Must go and revisit!)