Well Dressed Salad Bar is an all vegetarian, mostly vegan cafe on South Bridge Street, down near Kreta Ayer end. It specialises in salads, of which I've had zero. It is, however, about half an hour walk from where I'm based, so I've been going there a bit.
On my first visit, I was all by myself. I chose the curry with rice and 'chips'. The curry was spicy and excellent. The rice was fine (I smushed it all into that bowl of curry). The chips are nori strips coated in what I think is besan, and then fried. I must eat them all, immediately, and plan on making them ASAP (ie, as soon as I get to my kitchen in Australia). I had with this a fresh watermelon juice, and I took home a slice of chocolate brownie cake. They have a window of cakes at the entry, and it's full of terrible temptations that I can never move past.
On my second visit I brought a friend. I was feeling under nourished, mostly due to the large amount of stir fried noodles I tend to eat for breakfast and lunch (more on that in a subsequent post about my love of hawker centres and the fact that Singaporeans don't use their kitchens), so I had the udon noodle bowl. This was a really simple bowl of udon noodles with fresh soy beans, purple cabbage, carrot, lettuce and shredded nori. To go with this I had a juice that contained beetroot. Long time friends (and new friends, in fact), will note that I loathe beetroot, but I talked myself into this juice and it was actually really beautiful, a combination of apple, beetroot, carrot and something else that I can't quite recall at the moment.I finished the meal off with this AMAZING avocado, brownie and choc chip ice cream cake, which was served with a chocolate sauce and a few small pieces of fruit. When this ice cream was described to me, I was expecting more of a chocolate thing, and so when it came out I was very worried about it. Whenever I hear about ice cream with avocado in it, I think about that time Cindy and Michael made avocado ice cream and I didn't enjoy it as much as I'd hoped to . So I was concerned! However it turns out I needn't have worried, as this was delicious and I would DEFINITELY eat it again. My only wish is that there'd been more fruit to go with it.
On this occasion I took home a slice of passionfruit cake, which was light and lovely with a tart passionfruit syrup on the top. A++ would eat again.On my third visit it was specifically to pick up a box of donuts. Once a month Zenna takes orders (over instagram) for donuts. They're six to a box, minimum six for an order, $2 per donut. The flavours vary every month. I went for 2 x dark chocolate almond, 2 x oreo, 1 x blueberry and 1 x dark chocolate cranberry. Every mouthful was a delight! I hope I'm here still for my final order. Because they're mini donuts, it was no trouble for me to polish them all off, and they made up slightly for missing World Vegan Day in Melbourne over the weekend.
Since I was there anyway, and I'd been tortured by two hours of family time with no actual food I can eat (My Auntie told another vego the popiah were vegetarian; spoilers, he spat it into the bin cos there was prawns IN POPIAH), I paused for dinner. The all day breakfast comes with coconut waffles, housemade sausages (containing rosemary), housemade vegan feta, avocado, tomatoes, AMAZING mushrooms, and totally unnecessary alfalfa. It's accompanied by a juice or soup. Obviously I went with juice, because it's the best, and obviously I chose watermelon, because watermelon juice, freshly squeezed, in Southeast Asia, is one of life's true joys. The waffles were savoury, the feta was pleasantly salty, and the mushrooms were juicy, pan-fried portabellos, and oh how I have missed them. So that was very nice, too.
Well Dressed is a little pricy by Singapore standards, but the service is fast, everyone is friendly, and there's lots of vegetables served in raw and interesting ways, which is not necessarily how you get vegetables in Singapore. I probably shouldn't eat there twice a week, but it is very nice.
Well Dressed Salad Bar
282 South Bridge Road
Chinatown (South of Sri Mariamman Temple)
There are a variety of buses that stop on North Bridge Road and Eu Tong Sen Street, or the Chinatown MRT is about a 7 minute walk. There's a step to enter the shop. The unisex toilet is down the back of the shop but from memory it's accessible. Takes credit card yay.
