While I’m hardly a food blogger, here’s someone who is!

Anyway, I had a good meal last night, and I just thought I’d record it for posterity. I’m normally not a spice person, for reasons I will explain later, but dinner was an experience so I’m glad I went for it.

Ambrosia is located at two places (one Halal and one non-Halal) along Bussorah Street (off Arab Street) and serves Middle Eastern and Southern European cuisine. Their current promotion, the all-day a-la-carte buffet at $12.10 is essentially a tapas extravaganza. I use “tapas” - the Spanish word for “appetiser” - simply because the Spaniards have made full meals out of their appetisers due to the range. Ambrosia takes this concept to a whole new level.

We started with the Royal Dip Platter, essentially four Middle Eastern dips served with pita bread. These included the all-important hummus (a chickpea puree), el pan ajo (garlic and sesame), tzatziki (cucumber, yogurt and lemon) and mint sauce. This was followed by Briwattes, which was essentially fried spring rolls with a Moroccan chilli dip.

For our next couple of dishes, we went with the awesome Marrakesh Wings (arguably the best chicken wings I’ve ever had) and Beef Kebab (one of several non-tapas main courses). This was, unfortunately, the high point of the meal. The food that followed just couldn’t meet our now-high expectations. The Minted Chicken was a poor shadow for the Marrakesh Wings and the Kofta (spiced lamb sausage) was charred just enough to NOT be enjoyable.

We then went South European and tried the Parmigiana di Melanzane (slices of eggplant topped with salsa and cheese) which wasn’t too bad, but not my kinda thing. By this time, I was the only one not quite feeling full, so I ordered the Lamb Khoresh (a Persian stew) which was way too spicy for me to really enjoy and finished off with the Patatas Bravas (potato wedges) - which was a poor choice to end the meal, on hindsight.

We complemented the meal with a glass of their signature drink, Ambrosia Divine, which was essentially a mix of mango, lime, honey and probably a dash of apple or orange, as far as I could tell. Whatever it was, it was an excellent choice, but unfortunately was counted over and above the buffet price.

Despite the little issues I had with the food here and there, the meal on the whole was definitely a lot more enjoyable than most dining experiences, and cost a little less than $20 per person. This morning was another story though. Without making you lose whatever food you currently may have in YOUR stomach while reading this… lets just say that I could win a chemical war with the gas my body was producing. I’ll definitely head back and give Ambrosia another try if their buffet promotion still exists, but not till I’ve totally detox-ed my body.

You can check out their website and menu at http://www.ambrosiacafesingapore.com/