a bite of brownie

I don’t remember when I last went to Shangri-La Plaza at Shaw Boulevard. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I ever did. One reason that I can think of is I always thought of it as a high end mall that I would really not want to spend time in haha because I won’t be happy afterwards if I splurge on anything I bought from there. LOL gee, was I wrong this entire time. While looking for new restaurants to try (I was on mid-shift for a month then so I was able to pass by this place), Café Dome grabbed the spot. It’s an Australian franchise originally serving world class coffee (which I didn’t really know until I read the menu!) but evolved to something more to catch the Filipino market.

The parking in the mall was a little tricky, I think I got to level 7! Fortunately, when I got off the lift, the restaurant was directly on my right. So I found myself seated in an old European interior, nice, comfy seats, and they even have rooms for large groups. Looking around, there aren’t a lot of diners, whoever was there though, all looked important and all the while busy. The server was quick to hand me the menu and I asked for their Roast Beef Belly and their Café Mocha.

The warm coffee came first on a tall cup with sweetener on the side and a bonus of a small cookie! The coffee was ok but it’s not really out of this world. After a few minutes, my lunch plate arrived. Roast beef belly, check, it was rather a small cut though. Rice, check, but I don’t think this was the best option to accompany the star of the dish. Green salad, check, I wanted more though. I liked the mustard vinaigrette dressing. Gravy, check, nothing spectacular here. So after my meal, I had a lot of leftover fat slices, it hasn’t been rendered enough to my liking, like you’re swallowing oil. The rice was barely touched, maybe they have a better chance of nailing this dish if they replaced the carbs.

Verdict: 1.5/5
Well, this is a coffee shop after all, but it didn’t do it justice. The .5 came from the tiny cookie haha! My food was a little underwhelming too, there’s just too much I didn’t like. Pity because the meaty part was nice and soft. I just wasn’t able to enjoy the entirety of it. So better luck next time? If there is one.