Salt Tapas and Bar

There are a few café and restaurants outside the air-conditioned Raffles City Shopping Centre – Costa Coffee faces St Andrew's Cathedral, Brotzeit German Bier Bar and Restaurant and Marché Mövenpick are nearer to Chjimes while Salt Tapas and Bar by Luke Mangan overlooks Raffles Hotel which is currently undergoing renovations. The latter, a slightly more casual extension to Salt Grill and Sky Bar on the 55th floor of Ion Orchard, is a quaint odd-shaped place with red bricks that offers $19 lunch sets (choose from seven main courses and it comes with coffee, tea or soft drinks) and 5 tapas for $50. You can add $3 for sides and $8 for dessert of the day. These are good deals, considering how much the same item costs on the à la carte menu. Visited for lunch on a weekday and sat indoor at one of the 120 seats as the weather was not cooling enough for alfresco dining.

While pork ribs with miso and honey-soy glaze was tender, had to intersperse it with the accompanying pickled cucumber, apple and wasabi slaw. Roasted barramundi – served with mussels, caper berries and fregula in "crazy water", had a crisp skin and was neither mushy nor fishy. Found the Westholme Wagyu brisket sliders with aged cheddar, pickled beetroot and horseradish aioli too gamely for my liking though the fries was good. It was my first time trying lamb kofta with couscous, golden raisins, almonds, yogurt, cucumber, lime and mint. A tad spicy and exotic, not something I would order again. Decided against paying $8 for two scoops of strawberry sorbet and instead went for the churros with dark chocolate sauce, raspberry rose jam and cream. We had better ones before but this was not too bad either.