The Wine & Gourmet Friends - 'Singapore Izakaya' in Keong Saik dining area

The Wine & Gourmet Friends is a restaurant that looks like what you would get when you cross a Singapore zhi char restaurant, a Japanese izakaya and a tapas bar. In other words, a cozy simple place where the chef can whip up a wide range of dishes (including some local favourites) in small sharing plates to go with reasonably priced drinks. It is located on at the start of Bukit Pasoh Road, in the Keong Saik dining area. The Dorsett Singapore Hotel is right next door.

The Wine & Gourmet Friends Restaurant Singapore

The layout of the The Wine & Gourmet Friends restaurants follows the long narrow floor plan of this shophouse. The tables line one length of the place. The wine cellar and open kitchen takes up the other side.

As the name of the restaurant suggests, drinks (and in particular wines) are an important part of dining at The Wine & Gourmet Friends. The good sized cellar holds a good selection of wines from many regions and at various prices. From $30+ lesser-known wines to Super Tuscans Ornellia and Sassicaia.

The Wine & Gourmet Friends Menu

Here are pictures of The Wine & Gourmet Friends menu. The range of food is eclectic – from local favourites like prawn rolls (hae chor) to Spanish tapas classics like Jamon Iberico and fusion items like Otah Hamachi Collar and Bak Kut Teh Risotto. There were so many dishes asking to be sampled. We settled on three dishes – the hae chor (pork and seafood bites, $12), crab wanton and spicy vinagrette ($12) and foie gras lotus leaf rice ($18).

The pork and seafood bites were delicious and probably the best dish of the day. The skin was thin and deep-fried very crisp. The filling was tasty and well balanced. Sometimes hae chor can taste heavy and overly meaty. This was not the case. It is also the type of food that encourages drinking. We tried two housepour wines – a rose and a red wine. The Sorby Adams Rose was average. The Coast 2 Coast Shiraz Cabernet was actually quite good. The fact that they were priced at $6 per glass made them taste even better.

The foie gras lotus leaf rice was an interesting blend of East and West. By itself, the foie gras was light in taste but combined well with the rest of the lotus leaf rice to create a rich tasting dish. It goes particularly well with the red wine.

The crab wanton and spicy vinagrette was very similar to what we get in a dim sum restaurant. Not as unique or memorable as the other two dishes, but nice to have on the menu in a mostly “Western” type of restaurant.

Overall, we had an enjoyable lunch at The Wine & Gourmet Friends. We were impressed by the versatility of the chef who can cook up such a wide variety of dishes and to such a high standard. Service was very friendly and prices of both food and wine were reasonable.