Pollen

This review is for lunch at Pollen’s main dining room on the ground floor.
* star Service/​staff –polished as well as professional service. Lots of attention. Always helpful.
* star Location –Amazing Dome location. Free shuttle to restaurant. Free entry/​exit from garden. Amazing views of the city.
* star Food– enjoyed my lunch. Presentation as well as flavor quite superb technically. Not a lot of food but I expected as much.
* star Restaurant décor– uncluttered, sophisticated, airy, quiet. Kind of boring but I suppose the food is to be the star here.
All in all a real yawner. Nothing too interesting or compelling about Pollen. I just cannot see me returning to the main dining room. Ever. Maybe I will try the upstairs café for a more casual experience with more casual prices.

A long wait, and disappointing food selection.
We visited on a public holiday, and I guess everyone, including us, wanted a seat in the beautiful flower dome. We waited. The servers were not very friendly. Rather brusque and kept saying they have no idea how long the wait is, and we can just stand around to wait.
Luckily a table left in 15 minutes, and we took the spot! Ordering is at the cashier, rather weird, for a café/​restaurant looking of certain calibre. A long line of customers were waiting to get their orders taken. We were really excited about beignets and arancini, but sadly the beignets were not available… (AND not indicated on the menu!!)
The arancini came. Small cute cripsy balls, could be more cheesy. And strangely without any tomato sauce. but ok, the flavor was reasonable. The thing I could not BELIEVE, was that there was a strand of hair EMBEDDED In my arancini. NO. I will not accept an arancini of this calibre. eew. it totally turned my appetite off after that.
Sigh. Otherwise, the café is set in a beautiful location! Just need new staff, new management and new kitchen.

Kill two birds with one stone: complimantary entrance to the garden if you get the hightea.

This is a review of the fine dining restaurant (downstairs of the more casual café which serves the high tea). Eight of us dined there today for lunch. The service, as I remembered from a previous visit, was impeccable. There’s attention to every detail and it was almost as if our table had its own dedicated waiter and sommelier.
The restaurant is tucked away inside the back corner of the Flower Dome. When you arrive by taxi or car, a chauffeured buggy will carry you to the back door/​main entrance of Pollen. Inside the restaurant, the ceiling is low and the space is brightly lit with 100% natural lighting and offers views of the Singapore Flyer and Guests making their way around the outdoor gardens. The furnishings are comfortable and the space is bordered by an indoor planted berm. It reminds me of dining on a really nice outdoor patio. (But remember you’re inside the air conditioned flower dome)
All eight of us ordered from the three course set lunch menu ($ 55++) which is considerably cheaper than ordering a la carte. The menu was different than on my first visit, so I suggest visiting the website to see what items you might expect to find. On the set menu, there are three choices for each of the courses (starter, main, dessert). For the main dish, the options were beef, fish or vegetarian. There’s a $ 15 option of adding a glass of wine and a $ 5 option for non alcoholic beverages.
Because the menu changes, I won’t comment on the food. All of us had positive remarks on each of our dishes. Whatever you decide to order, you can bet on 3 things:
1. The plating and presentation will be flawless. Everything is very beautifully arranged and presented on large oversized white plates or bowls.
2. Every morsel will be delicious. (Enough said.)
3. The portions will be small. If you sit down with a ravenous appetite, there’s a good chance you’ll leave a little hungry. No matter the course, when they serve you that enormous oversized white plate with the small beautiful portion of food in the middle, you’ll be met with the bitter sweet realization that it will all be over in just 5 or 6 bites. We assume that if you order the same dish a la carte that the portion size will be larger. I am not sure.
After the meal, you get complimentary entry into the Flower Dome. Leaving the lower level restaurant, we took the elevator up to exit through the upstairs café. The elevator doors opened into the café and we were met with bright sunlight, loud families, and the hectic atmosphere of a theme park patio dining area. I say this to point out the difference between the fine dining lower level restaurant and the upstairs café. I’m sure the upstairs is also nice, but it’s two different experiences.
The Good: The atmosphere, food and service. Complimentary entry into the Flower Dome.
The Bad: Laughably (gourmet sized) small portions. On our first visit we sat at the table next to the entry into the Flower Dome. The massive aircon units for the Flower Dome must be nearby. There was such a cold draft that we were all MISERABLE. Chilled to the bone. They offer shawls for the ladies. My recommendation is to bring a sweater.
The Verdict: I highly recommend Pollen for lunch or dinner. It’s an especially nice place to bring out of town visitors. Make a reservation and arrive a little early to take the chauffeured buggy to the restaurant. Leave yourself some time afterwards to stroll through the Flower Dome.

Horrible service. Extremely blur staff.
My food is placed on the wrong table for a good 10 mins before the staff realised the mistake. And have the cheek to bring the food from the next table to mine. How would I know if the next table have eaten it or touched it? How unprofessional and unhygienic is that?
When I confronted the staff, all she said was,“it was a mistake”. I know it is a mistake. So correct it by giving us a new dish.

Pollen is located in the Flower Dome but has its own separate entrance. The restaurant is two storeys and its the café upstairs that’s in a corner of the Flower Dome. After a meal or high tea at Pollen, guests can wander into the rest of the Flower Dome and bypass the admissions charge. This is probably the only good thing I have to say about Pollen.
I would liken this place to a F&B rest stop at a tourist attraction. Imagine you’re at the local zoo and you’re looking to sit down for a bit and enjoy and overpriced snack… that’s what Pollen is. I can’t believe this is a Jason Atherton restaurant. You should only come here if you’ve (1) had a long day at Gardens by the Bay, (2) intended to go into the Flower Dome and (3) wanted to have a snack or meal.
I recently came here for their $ 38/​person high tea. Our waiter was brusque & inattentive. Everything was completely meh. The scones are dry and came with a smidgen of strawberry jam. Don’t scones usually come with clotted cream or butter? I asked the waiter if he had clotted cream or butter. At first he looked shocked, and then he said he could get me butter like it was the first time he heard such an outrageous request. The tea came in a tiny teacup, no teapot in sight or any indication that they kept the teapots at the counter to refill your cup for you. What does it say about the service if the place is less than a quarter full and you need to ask if the tea is refillable because your cup is so small and has sat empty for 15 minutes? Of course I never ever give servers a hard time, I just nicely asked if my tea was refillable (because I would not have been surprised if it wasn’t).
Definitely won’t be back.

This is a review of the café, not the restaurant. Loved the high tea!
My mom came to town from nyc and I took her to gardens by the bay so we stopped by here for champagne and high tea. Surprisingly reasonably priced for everything you get. I got 2 glasses of champagne, a flower tea, and the small bites from 1 order of the high tea menu, all of which was more than adequate for my mother and I.
I believe the bill came out to $ 80. Considering booze is expensive and Pollen is normally an expensive restaurant, I didn’t think that was too pricey for 2 people with booze included. Definitely worth a try for the high tea menu!

This is my third time visiting pollen and I always like the ambience there. I feel their Set lunch is more reasonable price and its a way to have a very relaxing day for a weekend. Services are great as usual and this is one of the places you should bring guests where aft meal you can stroll along flower dome. I do hope they’ll tweak their menu a bit though as Im kinda know what I shall eat alrd.

Pollen is Michelin star Chef Jason Atherton’s second venture in Singapore, following Esquina (read review here). It also is the second outlet of his London flagship restaurant, Pollen Street Social. The food here is supposed to be Mediterranean-​inspired modern European cuisine but really, i don’t see or taste the Mediterranean at all.
Dinner started with 3 little amuse bouche, all of which distracted us from the important task of creating our menu for the night.
Choux bun filled with cheese and truffle. Cracklings served with an apple purée and arancini (breaded rice ball with cheese) served with hummus. Adored the arancini with the creamy risotto style rice.
Our starters:
The Mosaic of foie gras and confit duck with cherries and tangy apple purée ($ 40) was quite different from the usual that is served with berries compote.
I highly recommend the Trip to Japan 2012 ($ 38). Stellar succulent and sweet scallop sashimi were served atop marinated daikon in a lemony and saltish broth of sake and mirin. The sea urchin didn’t make a difference to the overall dish. Kinda seemed like it was thrown in just to glorify the dish. More snow in this one (horseradish) but it melted when we were happily snapping away.
The Scottish lobster ($ 55) was an elaborate dish. When it was served, we were wondering if we accidentally ordered extra food. This was a 3 course dish and it consisted of an intense lobster bisque, a lobster ‘burger’ and chilled lobster with fennel cream and sea urchin.
Our favorite was the bisque which was served in a wine glass. Exactly the way it should be savored. Next was the burger was done a la atas lobster roll style but with a buttery brioche bun. These were way better than the tasteless rubbery lobster chunks that were served with fennel cream and sea urchin. Again, the sea urchin was purposeless.
Our mains– Kurobuta pork belly, braised cheek, charred spring onions, butternut squash, Sudachi lime ($ 67). There was a great balance of fat and meat. Take away all the sides and you have pork belly done Asian way. This is really good roast pork with kong ba essentially. The caramelized and smokey leek with sweet pumpkin purée were great accompaniments. The overall dish was delightful with the various textures and flavors.
Halibut ($ 70) was recommended by our server. This is a lightly flavored dish and i’m more a fan of strong flavors. Despite that, the simply pan fried fish held up on its own.
We were stuffed but we had to have desserts to conclude our Pollen experience. We had the Pollen «Tatin» which was made of Verjusm crème fraîche, caramel jelly, red and green apples ($ 20). I’d much rather a pot of tea with their stellar petit fours. For that i had the moist matcha cake, perfect lime macaron, smooth coffee chocolate and a piece of candy to end the meal.
Overall, the Pollen experience was great. Lovely ambience that was comfortable and cosy. Great service as well though they could be a little more attentive. Plus the food was pretty good too. Certainly would recommend Pollen for a special occasion.

I am giving Pollen 5 stars because while it was not the most mind blowing meal by far, I appreciate the fact that i can have this meal in Singapore at all. If we were closer to the source of the ingredients then i’m sure it will be that smidgen more magical. We had the 8 course menu and everything was tasty, some things weaker than others, but I can’t cook like that, so it’s not an issue to me.
I am still giving it 5 stars despite the fact that the service was polite and blundering at the same time. They gave me extra pork crackling.
I’ve heard bad things from people who have gone for lunch and if your experience of Pollen involves slumming it with the tourists on the upper deck of the restaurant on the frankly, hideous garden furniture, then perhaps there is no chance of redemption. I suspect that restaurants like these make a better effort at dinner time.
So, top tip. Go for dinner, take your time, order the set menu, and if you do think its less than perfect, remember you are slap bang on the equator.

The restaurant compares to any in NYC, SF, Chicago, LA etc.
Very pretty setting, in the flower dome; free admission into the dome.
The service in general was good except for a snooty local manager who all but rolled his eyes every time he talked to us. Honestly.
Otherwise, attentive and top-​notch service.
We were here on Christmas Eve but managed to order from the ala carte menu.
Each dish was meticulously crafted and delicious; it actually really reminded me of meals in SF (perhaps not quite Gary Danko, but certainly Spruce, Foreign Cinema etc.)
Would recommend for a romantic or special occasion. Guaranteed to impress

This is a review of a dinner date at Pollen.
This was a very rainy night. It took me a long time to get a taxi. My dinner date was meeting me at the restaurant. She was on-​time. The staff were very friendly in showing her to the upstairs bar area to await my arrival.
To get to Pollen, you go to the main entrance to Gardens by the Bay. There is a shuttle that will pick you up and take you to the restaurant. In my case, they knew my name and communicated to my date that I was on the shuttle. By the time I arrived, she had come down from the bar area to our table.
Ambiance — I think this is a impressive room. It is not flashy but it is cleissic and modern. The mirrors give it a feel of being larger than it is. This is also accentuated by the large windows. It is also not a restaurant steeped in darkness. I am not sure why so many restaurants in Singapore keep the lighting so dark. But the lighting at Pollen was nearly perfect.
Service — I’ve already mentioned they were very nice and helpful with my dinner date. Overall, the staff was professional and friendly. During the initial set-​up, they were very attentive. The meal flowed at a very even and measured pace. However, mid-​meal there was a lapse in attentiveness. They also seemed to switch to different servers at different times and back again. I prefer to have the same continuous server. This way, I know who specifically to ask questions to.
The food ranged from good to excellent.
Olives and Pork Rinds — To start the meal, they provided olives and pork rinds. I am not the biggest fan of olives. I took a half-​hearted attempt at one. My dinner date did not even do this. We did however both go right for the pork rinds. As a US southern boy, pork rinds hearken to my youth. Mmm, mmm fried pork skin with a dipping sauce.
Fallow deer tartare, pickled and salt-​baked beetroot, smoked vinaigrette — This was her selection for a starter. It was quite good. The flavours came together so well. If there was a weakness it was the pickled flavour was a touch too dominate. The deer was extremely tender. This was a very well presented dish. Plus, I really enjoyed the textural contrasts.
Trip to Japan 2012 (scallop sashimi, baby gem wasabi, sea urchin) — Using US sports metaphors, this was a home-​run. The scallops were perfect. Then there was the urchin set against the sweetness of the scallops and the wallop of the wasabi and horseradish snow.
Cote de boeuf (1kg for two persons to share) — For our main, we shared the cote de boeuf. This was a quality piece of beef. It was relatively tender. It was cooked to what I consider a perfect medium rare. I could really taste the meat itself. There was a slight oiliness though that did minimally detract from the steak.
Duck Fat Fries — We each were provided with our own cup of duck fat fries. Well, it is thick cut fries cooked in duck fat. What is your guess? Yep, they were excellent. Every meal should come with duck fat fries like these.
Greens — We were also provided with a lovely bouquet of greens. I say bouquet because we both treated them as a table decoration. They went untouched. They looked quite fresh but neither of us ventured to try them.
Receipt (Dinner for two — $ 597.92)
Overall — This was a very enjoyable dining experience. The food was consistently well prepared. While there were brief lapses, the service was professional, friendly, and helpful. The room is one of my favourite thus far in Singapore. There is always a fine line and it can be difficult to discern what separates four stars from five. I truly like Pollen but I thought via a smidgen here and a smidgen there, that it fell just short of five stars. I would certainly have no issue in returning to or recommending Pollen.

Having opened its door to the public on 29 June, 2012; this much anticipated restaurant — Pollen, is here to wow it’s esteemed guests. The second restuarant in Singapore; Chef Jason Atherton of one Michelin-​starred — Pollen Street Social, replicates its collection of modern European fare with a Mediterranean twist for diners to enjoy in a casual way. Some of the dish takes after his London resto; the popular ones are seen injected into the new Mediterranean eatery. I liked how the name integrate with its location, mimics a perfect match in heaven — Pollen @Flower Dome of Gardens By The Bay, some kind of a tailored business opportunity. Or was it a karma or faith to bring together?
The 140-​seater restaurant comes with 2 decks — the lower floor which is the dining area & dessert bar sits 80 diners while the upper level which serves as a bar area can accommodate another 60 guests exposed to the green foliage. I entered the restaurant via the Flower Dome as I have gotten a pair of tickets to both conservatories. In fact, you needn’t buy the Flower Dome conservatory ticket to visit Pollen, just pop in by its ground level entrance which is accessible via the Gardens, free of charge. The best part, you still get to walk the Flower Dome after your meals, absolutely free paying — saving your $ 10 (Singaporean) — more bang for your buck! The furnishing and décor of the 2 decks were not identical. Very awe-​inspiring and I get to enjoy both in a single dining.
We started off with Salad of buttered lobster, pasta, seaweed (of which I opted out), maple dressing. A very refreshing salad with unpretentious sweet tangy seasoning, less of a maple flavour. The homemade pasta has an unusual texture of its own — flabby and soft noodles not the regular al dente that one would expect, nonetheless very gratifying. Then comes the sweet & succulent lobster meat, so fresh that you could smell the ocean breeze. Fighting against it, the baby Romanine was crisp to the core, served in total freshness.
Scallop carpaccio, cucumber, apple, horseradish snow — much-​hyped dish @London’s Pollen street Social. What makes it such a hit? The modern culinary technique employed to make it stunning and pleasurable looking, along with the lingering taste it brought about. At one point, I’d thought that I am eating it alive — the raw scallop slices were meaty and tasted sweet which further accentuated by the vinaigrette dressing. Floral-​inpired; the teaser was dressed up in colorful petals and dills, accompanied with the semi-​frozen cucumber slices — as beautiful as its name sounds. I am so captivated by the horseradish ‘snow’ — using new culinary technique; where the buttermilk was added to horseradish juice & thickened with cornstarch, thereafter frozen and pacotized, and later grated microscopically when served. This dish is as pleasing to the palate as to the eyes, I am hoping for some headphones to come along soon. A total bliss out.
«PB&J» — Peanut butter and cherry yuzu sorbet; topped the dessert list in London’s flagship which I certainly wouldn’t want to pass it up. Dreamy as it looked but serious in its taste! Sounds like a big diversion between the sweet peanut butter parfait & sour yuzu cherry sorbet, they duo did harmonize when eaten together. The after taste of yuzu has always been unique which I don’t know what to make of it. Lara has been very creative when comes to plating — pomegranates, black raspberry & floral petals, everything looks so whimsical.

This place just opened 2 weeks ago at Garden By The Bay. It’s really something. The location can be a bit far in, but looking out, you can see the Singapore Flyer, the Singapore River, and the City — it really is pretty romantic and all. There’s a buggy service to get there and back — to the Bayfront MRT station, etc. I thought that was a fantastic idea. NOTE: Please make reservation!
What I Love: The service. It was impeccable. The staff were very, very intuitive and sensitive. They came with olives and bread — as a starter. Then, the drinks list (omg, this list is somethin’ else), as the cocktails are brewed are made in the restaurant. I started the night with 2 (and yes, no judgement please) and they were fab. Fresh, decorated very nicely — the attention to detail was amazing. In every drink, there was a little flower — keeping with the theme of Gardens By The Bay and the Pollen-​concept. I had one which had carrot juice in it — the other one a passion fruit blend.
The cutlery and furniture were sleek and cool.
Okay, now to the main part of this review, the food! The starters and mains were to die for. Apart from 3 – 4 types of bread, olives and cod purée as a general starter, we also had Crispy Baby Squid and the Slow-​cooked-​egg-​chorizo-​patatas bravas. For our mains, I had the Pork Belly (OMG) and my date had the Sea-​bass. All the options were yummy.
All the other stuff in the menu looked good too — but I didn’t wanna overeat.
The restaurant also has a direct, private access to the Gardens By The Bay exhibit.
What I Don’t Love: Price? But I do think for the quality of the ambiance, food and service, this place is okay. It will set you back at least $ 80-​$ 100 per person. I know. (I’m just glad I didn’t pay for that meal. Haha!)