Black Sheep - the 'affordable' French restaurant
Strangely enough, I have been staying in Sin Ming Road for 2 years now and have never eaten at this restaurant just around the corner. Previously still in Thomson V plaza in rather strange surrounding of small educational offices in the basement of a mall that looks more like the bottom of a condo, the restaurant has now moved out to Upper Thomson, just opposite the famous Fat Boys burger. It definitely gives more visibility, but the interior space is now very narrow with space just for a two-row and a one-row line of tables, and the design has changed from a rather authentic rustic feel to a simple yellow .... hmmm. i would like to say more to it but that's it: yellow.
In reviews, blacksheep has been praised for its duck confit, and I agree, that was the winner of the evening. It was not even the duck, that got me excited, but the combination of the roesti and a really fresh zesty fruity mango relish did the magic for me. The rest of the dishes, however, was more on mediocre level. So there was the second main dish, the lamb shank in thyme that had very little taste. The herbs and spices have not entered the meat, and the gravy was blend. It says it would come with apricot and mint but none of it was to be found or tasted. We had prawn salad with garlic, which was quite nice but for a French restaurant nothing special really; something you can easily replicate at home. As dessert, we had a chocolate boudini with banana. There is not much you can do wrong on the choco-banana combo, and it was pleasant, but the creme brule had to be rejected. Although the caramel top seemed correct, below it was merely a milky far too liquid vanilla sauce, definitely no creme. The restaurant accepted our rejection with no hesitation and brought us a banana crepe, again something hardly to go wrong.
The 3 course dinner set comes at 42$ and you get a glass of house wine for 10$; the housewine is Australian, not French, though.
All in all, if you want the duck, go, of you hope for finer French food, skip this. It is a shame if the creme brule in a French restaurant is reject ware. There are coffeeshops in Little India and East coast that offer much better French food at same or lower prices.
Strangely enough, I have been staying in Sin Ming Road for 2 years now and have never eaten at this restaurant just around the corner. Previously still in Thomson V plaza in rather strange surrounding of small educational offices in the basement of a mall that looks more like the bottom of a condo, the restaurant has now moved out to Upper Thomson, just opposite the famous Fat Boys burger. It definitely gives more visibility, but the interior space is now very narrow with space just for a two-row and a one-row line of tables, and the design has changed from a rather authentic rustic feel to a simple yellow .... hmmm. i would like to say more to it but that's it: yellow.
In reviews, blacksheep has been praised for its duck confit, and I agree, that was the winner of the evening. It was not even the duck, that got me excited, but the combination of the roesti and a really fresh zesty fruity mango relish did the magic for me. The rest of the dishes, however, was more on mediocre level. So there was the second main dish, the lamb shank in thyme that had very little taste. The herbs and spices have not entered the meat, and the gravy was blend. It says it would come with apricot and mint but none of it was to be found or tasted. We had prawn salad with garlic, which was quite nice but for a French restaurant nothing special really; something you can easily replicate at home. As dessert, we had a chocolate boudini with banana. There is not much you can do wrong on the choco-banana combo, and it was pleasant, but the creme brule had to be rejected. Although the caramel top seemed correct, below it was merely a milky far too liquid vanilla sauce, definitely no creme. The restaurant accepted our rejection with no hesitation and brought us a banana crepe, again something hardly to go wrong.
The 3 course dinner set comes at 42$ and you get a glass of house wine for 10$; the housewine is Australian, not French, though.
All in all, if you want the duck, go, of you hope for finer French food, skip this. It is a shame if the creme brule in a French restaurant is reject ware. There are coffeeshops in Little India and East coast that offer much better French food at same or lower prices.