Dutch Baby Café

Located at the basement of Paragon, Dutch Baby Café is opened by Japan Foods Holding who also owns Ajisen Ramen and Menya Musashi among other brands. Models of the food and drinks are displayed at its entrance, just like many Japanese restaurants and cafés such as Chabuton and SaintMarc Café. Recess in the wall reminiscent of red bricks, served as display shelves. Together with bench seats against wooden tables and chairs, the place exudes a homely feel. As its name suggests, Dutch Baby Cafe serves Dutch Baby pancakes made with eggs, flour, sugar and milk. Available as either sweet or savoury, they are served on hot cast iron pans straight out from the oven. According to its website, Dutch Baby pancakes originated from Germany and were reintroduced in the United States. The name was a result of the American owner's daughter pronouncing Deutsche as Dutch.

My order of Maple Grapefruit had succulent lemon chicken and crunchy lettuce accentuated by juicy grapefruit and orange – the former with a bitter aftertaste and the latter a tad sour, drizzled with sweet maple syrup. Loved the aroma of egg in the pancake and preferred its crispy sides to the bottom layer which was not pillow-soft as described. The place also offers fruit tarts from Fruit Paradise and omelette combo plates where you get fries and side salad with choice of rice or bread, scrambled egg or sunny side up, and pork cutlet or chicken steak or demi-glace hamburg. I visited on another weekend to try its pork cutlet omurice. Could neither rave about the not-too-oily-or-dry pork cutlet nor fault the perfectly-cooked rice and omelette. Except maybe that the rice should be inside the omelette.