Best-known for serving some of the best coffee and all-day brunches in town, Strangers’ Reunion is set to redefine and elevate café dining with their new menu. The café aims to bring the idea of café dining up a notch, by presenting more conscious and refined dishes while maintaining the affordability and comfort associated with brunch food.
One of the highlights in the menu is the use of upcycled ingredients in their dishes that would otherwise be discarded and reimagining them as part of a dish. Some of the dishes made with upcycled ingredients include Salmon Skin Chips, as well as Pork and Broccoli.
Here are some of the dishes diners can expect in the new brunch menu:
Salmon Skin Chips
This starter sees crisp deep-fried salmon skin studded with sesame aioli, served with avocado coulis and coffee-smoked salmon purée. The Salmon Skin Chips upcycles salmon offcuts, as well as trimmings from the café homemade coffee smoked salmon. The salmon chips were a delightful combination of crunchy, sweet and sour; and tastes best when eaten with the salmon purée.
Snapper Ceviche
A refreshing palate of tangy flavours, the Snapper Ceviche is a combination of firm and juicy chunks of snapper cured in lime juice, creamy avocado, aromatic cilantro, as well as red onions and shaved fennel for sweetness and bite. This light and scrumptious starter goes perfect with a cuppa, and is an ideal refreshing dish on a hot day out.
Roasted Cauliflower Salad
The Roasted Cauliflower Salad sees cauliflower prepared two ways — expertly-charred to yield caramelised florets with deep hazelnut notes, and pickled in rice wine vinegar infused with black pepper and bay leaves. Both renditions are then matched with a luscious and rich homemade pine nut labneh, pickled sweet and sour grapes, juicy pomegranate, toasted pine nuts, mint leaves and homemade honey mustard.
Vegetables never tasted so good – I was done with my portion before I realized it! I especially enjoyed the charred cauliflower bits and the pickled grapes, which added a burst of flavour when eaten together with the pickled cauliflower.
Pan Roasted Chicken Breast
The Pan Roasted Chicken Breast comprises a succulent pan-roasted chicken breast cloaked in a house-made jerk sauce paired with a succotash of sweet corn, red peppers and baked sweet potatoes accentuated with fresh mint and thyme. Charred lime is served at the side for those who would like an extra tangy twist.
Pork and Broccoli
The Pork and Broccoli is the epitome of upcycled ingredients in a dish. The main dish
uses typically under-used pork collar ends – sous vide till tender then roasted – as well as broccoli stems that are first softened by steaming and then slow roasted to enhance their natural sweetness. The dish is then served with a broccoli purée and burnt onion jus, which lends extra sweetness and depth of flavour.
This well-orchestrated dish perfectly pairs the sweetness of the broccoli stems with the slightly-tough pork; and the burnt onion jus is the cherry on top.
Strangers Coffee Smoked Salmon On Toast
Yet another dish that incorporates upcycled ingredients, the Strangers Coffee Smoked Salmon on Toast features a Strangers’ Reunion signature – coffee. House-cured salmon is cold-smoked with spent coffee grounds and hickory wood to render the café’s savoury and aromatic coffee-smoked salmon; while an espresso-infused crème fraîche is slathered on toasted sourdough bread.
While I enjoyed the smoked salmon on toast, I found the crust of the toast to be rather stiff – I had to cut off the crust and eat it separately afterwards. Nonetheless, it is a must-try dish on the menu as it features the café’s two main aspects – brunch and coffee.
If you can’t wait to dig in into these upcycled yet delectable dishes, head on down to Strangers Reunion for brunch and a well-made cuppa.
Strangers’ Reunion
Venue: 35 Kampong Bahru Rd, Singapore 169356
Opening Hours: 9am-6pm
For more information, visit https://www.strangersreunion.com
Photos by Goh Jing Wen of the DANAMIC team.
