Ochre @ Orchard Central

Had Ochre with Jie last week and it was great! We were deciding between Covelli and Ochre as they are both under the Palate Amex Card promotion and since we both tried Covelli previously, we settled for Ochre that night. 

According to Jie, there's a dress code at Ochre, albeit the waitress clarified and said only for men. The service was kinda slow, not sure whether it's only for that night. Thankfully, Ochre had an open kitchen concept which sort of entertained us and distracted us from their uber slow service.

The bread starter was served soon after they took our order and it was good. The rectangular ones were soft and had a layer of butter on it, whereas the round ones were slightly drier. Ochre also served up some black bread sticks which tasted pretty unique. Kudos to Ochre for serving a variety of bread :) Prego used to serve some awesome bread but both their food and service have deteriorated over the years. 

Starter: Bread

I ordered the Granchio which is a white pizza with crab meat, green asparagus, caramelized red onions and sun dried tomatoes, and can I just say... it was delectable! Packed with tons of fresh sweet crab meat this pizza is a real pleaser. The crust was thin and crispy and actually stayed crispy for quite awhile, I have never been a fan of thin crust but I think this pizza just converted me to one.

The Granchio @ $26 before GST

Just look at the amount of crab meat! Yummmsss...

Jie wanted pasta and ordered the Paccheri with slow cooked duck ragout, oven dried ricotta cheese & black pepper. Both Jie and myself didn't realise that Paccheri is a kind of pasta which resemble a garden hose and we were totally stunned when the dish came. In fact, if it wasn't for the duck, we would have returned the dish, thinking that it was sent to the wrong table.


Jie's duck ragout pasta was a way too hard. I'm not sure how a Paccheri is suppose to taste like but the ones we had tasted really doughy and uncooked (the waiter claimed a Paccheri is suppose to be alittle hard). The duck ragout was nice and flavourful but a tad too salty.  Ok lesson learnt: never order a Paccheri unless you are in a mood for some hard and uncooked mee hoon kueh tasting pasta.

Paccheri @ $28 before GST

Greedy me needed dessert and I ordered the Sweet & Salty as the waiter commented the Hot Chocolate Sensation was kinda on the sweet side. The Sweet & Salty was essentially a warm date and caramelized walnut cake served with maldon salted caramel ice cream, brown sugar shortbread & baked capellini. The dessert took ages to arrive and I think that sort of increased my expectation for the dessert. On the whole, this dessert wasn't too bad; it sure beats pique nique's diabetic date cake. I thought the maldon salted caramel ice cream was really good as the balance of both saltiness and sweetness was spot on. The date cake was indeed moist and fluffy and date cake fans would definitely love this! On hindsight, I should have ordered the chocolate dessert instead, as date cakes are just not my kinda dessert (this is after trying 3 different types of date cake from 3 different places: pique nique, marmalade pantry and ochre).

Sweet & Salty @ $18 before GST

I'm extremely happy with the food served at Ochre,  at $38.52 (for the above meal) Ochre is definitely the place to satisfy your italian food cravings :) I think their slow service can be forgiven as they do not charge service charge! :):):)