Poulet @ Great World City

As I reblogged all “the lost files”, I realised the main reason of my weight problem – too much good food.

Poulet serves amazing french roast chicken with tender juicy meat at a generally acceptable price – half a chicken costs less than $16 and when they are doing lunch specials,  they even throw in a complete meal.

Escargot de bourgogne

Half dozen burgundy snails served with tomato fondue and almond garlic butter

The French has a common thing with the Chinese – we both will eat anything that walk, swim, fly and crawl. The snails were cooked in a delicious garlicky butter sauce topped with tomato sauce and cheese as a crust. You will reach for the baguette to whop up the sauce.

Salad de paris

Chopped garden salad, dried cranberry, tomato, avocado, black olive and roasted pine nut served with french dressing

Not sure if Paris was swept by the avocado craze of California, but the Salad de Paris was underwhelming.

Country side mushroom soup

Cream of wild mushroom and idaho potato

The soup was thicken with potato whipped into the creamy mushroom stock like a chowder. But it has a smoother consistency than chowder. However it can do with more mushrooms or a stronger tasting fungi.

French onion soup

Caramelised french onion and fond de beau served with cheese croutons

The fond de veau is the cook’s best friend and the building block of many great French dishes. The fond, or foundation sauce, takes the veal stock and reduces it to intensify its power. Add that to caramelised yellow onions to make the French onion soup – sounds simple but it’s all in the stock.  Add a quenelle of whipped heavy cream and some fresh croutons to complete the dish.

French fries

This was before the truffle fries craze that swept all of Singapore. Rough cut fries with a simple ketchup. I am sure the French would not approve these.

Baguette

Now, this is the carbs of choice. The spongy inside with the crusty outside, the baguette was perfect for all the saucy dishes like escargots and oxtail stew.

Poulét roti

Roast chicken with mushroom chardonnay sauce

You can choose from one of three sauces, the classic mushroom chardonnay (shown here), Diane sauce which is savoury and satisfying (I prefer that) and cranberry sauce (sweet and very American, not my preference). The chicken used is around 1.2~1.5kg in size before roasting, and so you get very little after roasting. But the chicken is really tender and juicy as advertised. Not sure about the secret recipe, this is quite standard roast chicken.

Oxtail de bourguignon

Pressure-cooke oxtail in red wine sauce with carrot and onion

The flesh fell off the oxtail without effort and the sauce was so robust we wiped them off the plate so that the cleaners do not even need to wash the plate.

Banana bread pudding

Banana and warm bread pudding served with vanilla ice cream

The French believes that all balanced meal must end with a dessert as the sweetness will tell your brains that you have enough and not overeat. I can buy that argument, but I cannot stomach the sugar. Hence you seldom see desserts in my posts. But because Princess wants some, we ordered the most healthy sounding one on the menu (the one with banana).

When we went to Poulet in 2014, it was still a novelty to have affordable French bistro food in Singapore. Poulet, managed by the Minor Food Group, was fast expanding into its 10th outlet, and definitely doing some right from all the long queues; not only is it affordable, it is easily accessible across Singapore. Its affordability enables us to enjoy typically expensive French food, with less guilt on both the wallet and the tummy.

Since then, Poulet at Great World City is closed, but there are still outlets in Raffles City, Kallang Wave, VivoCity, Ion Orchard and Bugis+ 

Date Visited : Apr 2014