Sugar N Spice, ARC
Sugar N' Spice is the offshoot of notable Vietnamese chain The Orange Lantern. Based on its distinguished parentage, we thought we'd have ourselves some comforting pho. How very wrong our assumptions were. In hindsight, we should have heeded our gut, when we saw that the restaurant was hardly occupied despite a mall teeming with traffic.
The trouble with Sugar N' Spice is that there's no real direction in the curating of the menu, resulting in a confusing mish-mesh of cuisines offered. Here at Sugar N' Spice, Mexican tortillas are served alongside Italian pastas, American sandwiches, and Vietnamese pho. And when you try to be a jack of all trades, you end up being a master of none.
We got the set lunch option: a choice of 7 mains, an "Imperial Roll" (i.e. cha gio) for starters, and a dessert (i.e. lemongrass jelly at top right corner below) for $11.90. The lone passable thing in the abysmal Chicken Noodle Soup was the noodles. The broth was riddled with MSG, the chicken dry and chewy, making this the worst pho I've ever had, by far. The lemongrass jelly, while mildly fragrant, was insipid. At least the cha gio passed muster, it was crisp on the outside, moist and meaty on the inside.
The Beef Noodle Soup was no better. The beef was tough and gamey, and soup stock cloying.
Save for the lackluster beef, the Grilled Beef with Rice Vermicelli was actually halfway decent. Served chilled with a sweet chilli dipping sauce, the noodles were quite refreshing.
Sugar N' Spice
460 Alexandra Road
Alexandra Retail Centre #02-19
Tel: 6276 0367
Open Mondays to Saturdays form 11am to 9pm
The trouble with Sugar N' Spice is that there's no real direction in the curating of the menu, resulting in a confusing mish-mesh of cuisines offered. Here at Sugar N' Spice, Mexican tortillas are served alongside Italian pastas, American sandwiches, and Vietnamese pho. And when you try to be a jack of all trades, you end up being a master of none.
We got the set lunch option: a choice of 7 mains, an "Imperial Roll" (i.e. cha gio) for starters, and a dessert (i.e. lemongrass jelly at top right corner below) for $11.90. The lone passable thing in the abysmal Chicken Noodle Soup was the noodles. The broth was riddled with MSG, the chicken dry and chewy, making this the worst pho I've ever had, by far. The lemongrass jelly, while mildly fragrant, was insipid. At least the cha gio passed muster, it was crisp on the outside, moist and meaty on the inside.
The Beef Noodle Soup was no better. The beef was tough and gamey, and soup stock cloying.
Save for the lackluster beef, the Grilled Beef with Rice Vermicelli was actually halfway decent. Served chilled with a sweet chilli dipping sauce, the noodles were quite refreshing.
Sugar N' Spice
460 Alexandra Road
Alexandra Retail Centre #02-19
Tel: 6276 0367
Open Mondays to Saturdays form 11am to 9pm
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