Buyan Russian Haute Cuisine & Caviar Bar

Location: 9 Duxton Hill, +65 62237008

Don’t let the name of this restaurant scare you off, as Buyan Russian Haute Cuisine & Caviar Bar offers casual dining as well, in a really nice setting on the third storey of a Duxton Hill shophouse:

I really liked the candelabra and pseudo stained glass windows.

While my phone camera does little justice to the place, believe me when I say that the place was pretty. The glasses for cold water attest to that too, and warm water is served in a little pot. Unlike Nandos which insisted on charging for hot water, our warm water was topped up throughout the evening, even though we had to request for water refill, warm and cold alike:

The menus here come in the form of iPads. I’m not sure if iPads in the long run are more cost-effective compared to hardcopy menus that have to be reprinted, but it was a new experience to have a touchscreen menu. A picture of each item pops up when you touch the icon next to the price:

First up was some complimentary bread accompanied by little mounds of butter. There were 2 types of bread served – one was a type of brown bread with a grainy taste, while the other was a fragrant white bread with herbs and reminiscent of focaccia.

Next came the Khachapuri, which was Georgian flat bread with hard goats cheese ($10). The flat bread reminded us of roti prata, and the cheese was thick and delicious. This was my favourite dish of the evening as it just tasted so amazingly good. It’s incredibly value for money too, as the cheese was filling – what you see below is mostly cheese as the bread was very thin. It’s best shared among 3 – 4 people:

We also ordered Mushroom Stew ($9). It’s an average portion best eaten with bread. While the sauce was a little salty, the mushrooms were extremely tasty – I loved the robust fragrance of herbs:

One of us is vegetarian and ordered the Pirozhki ($12) – Russian pastry stuffed with potato and cabbage. Each of these below had a different stuffing, but I didn’t try them. Buyan has a page of vegetarian mains, which makes it a suitable place for vege diners:

The other 3 of us shared a Shkmeruli, or Garlic Oven Roasted Chicken ($45). The chicken turned out to be even bigger than it appeared on the menu and can easily feed 4 people.  It certainly would be too much to be shared between two ladies, and that’s coming from a big eater! The combination of garlic and other herbs and spices gave the chicken a great flavour, while the meat was tender and juicy.

We had to wait a while for dessert, as we ordered a Baked Apple which required some preparation time. The service at Buyan is polished, although the staff got less attentive as the restaurant filled up a bit more later in the evening.

Dessert when it arrived was worth the wait. The Baked Apple ($8) was a whole apple, filled with a slightly sweet, thin, cream sauce and a hint of cinnamon. I’m not sure what they did to the skin of the apple, but it tasted good and got mopped up pretty quickly:

The Blinis dessert ($12) was a kind of soft, slightly sweet crepe accompanied by sour cream, condensed milk and preserved berries. The berries went extremely well with the condensed milk and was a light, delicious conclusion to our meal.

Our bill, when it came, was a surprise at only $26.40 per person. After eating so much till we were stuffed! It was a steal in our case, although the price of food items at Buyan vary quite greatly. While the fish and chicken on the menu below are affordable enough (all except the chicken are single serving I believe), the beef and lamb are a lot pricier. One of us had heard that the lamb-baked with mash potatoes is quite a small serving, so the final bill at Buyan can vary a lot depending on the items ordered!

The food is good though, and I’ll be happy to return there. If you do visit, don’t forget to visit the washroom on the second floor, which this interesting washbasin!

 

Afternote: I visited Buyan again in June 2012 and ordered the Pirozhki, Georgian flat bread and some Borsch soup. Unfortunately, something had changed and the pastries for the pirozhki and flat bread were drier, more buttery and a little flaky. I have to admit that I was rather disappointed by the change in texture, as the butter taste was a bit too powering and the food ended up quite dry – thank goodness for the soup.