Dinner at Salt Tapas & Bar

Salt Tapas & Bar is a spinoff from its flagship, more extravagant branch, Salt Grill and Sky Bar. It is Australian Chef Luke Mangan's first tapas dining concept, located at 252 North Bridge Road #01-22A Raffles City Shopping Centre, Singapore 179103 and the number for reservations is 6837 0995.

Salt Tapas & Bar exudes Spanish vibes entwined with the easy ambience of Australian culture providing a fun and vibrant space for friendships to be cultivated and diners to relax.  It also serves a wide variety of unpretentious cuisine and wines. I was glad that *Valerie suggested to dine here.

We started with Oysters Served Natural, Nam Jim. Instead of the usual lemon and Tabasco sauce, they served the fresh oysters with a light, spicy sauce. The oysters were fresh but we thought them to be a little small. Paired with the unique chilli sauce though, it was utterly delicious. 

Next, the Salt and Pepper Squid with Lime Mayo - the squid rings are fried to a lovely golden brown shade, and we loved its crispy texture. The best part was that these tiny calamari-style rings did not come with the thick layer of flour. The squid flesh was tender and tasty. It was a delight to pop these into our mouths.

After that, we were being served the Chicken Liver and Foie Gras Parfait with Pear Chutney and served with Toasted Brioche. We enjoyed the Parfait because it did not come with a heavy / strong odor; in fact the flavor of birds' innards were subtle, and the paste was scrumptious. We spread it over the crunchy bread slices and topped with the slightly-sourish pear chutney. The combination was a flavor heaven.

Our final savoury tapas dish was the Seared Scallops, Lemon Curd topped with Leek, Bacon and Horseradish. We thought that the scallops were slightly too soft and buttery in flavor. In contrast, the crispy bacon slices added an enticing twist to the creamy scallops.

We were full, but being females, always have another gastric for desserts, have we not? We were oscillating between the Churros with Chocolate Sauce or Luke's Liquorice Parfait and so we asked one of the waitresses for recommendation. When introducing the latter, she said it was their "signature dessert", however when we asked her to suggest, she recommended the Churros, and said that no one ordered the Parfait. Was she being confused or what??

It was my first time trying Churros, and I have been meaning to, since I've heard it was a traditional Spanish dessert. While the same waitress abovementioned demonstrated that the Churros were merely fingers' length, the actual Churros placed in front of us were nearly the length of Chinese fritters aka doughstick ("you tiao"). Fortunately, the Churros were crispy, fluffy and light overall, so it wasn't that filling. We slathered the delectable dessert with thick chocolate sauce and some cream, making them look like eclairs. I also loved how the Churros kind of melted in the mouth, so it somehow met expectations.

We spent SGD$128.00 on this interesting and scrumptious dinner. Thank you, *Valerie!