Welcome to the newly revamped menu of Wholesome Savour, a more casual dining cafe of its sister Frunatic. Similar to Frunatic, the food served at Wholesome Savour serves vegan food that contains no gluten, no dairy, no peanuts, no eggs and no preservatives. All their ingredients are also washed with alkaline ionised water to remove pesticides!
They don't like to sell themselves as vegan though. That's because they're more about promoting eating well nutritionally and they believe that you only need to go meatless once a week to nourish your body and ensure that your natural detoxification occurs at an efficient rate.
We were first served with their "champagne" which is essentially fermented fruits and that's where the brew is full of digestive enzymes and probiotics. Naturally fizzy too, like my kombucha. The 'champagne' tasted very strongly of ginger before it went into the undertones of pineapple and a hint of apple. Call me biased, but being a kombucha brewer, I think I much prefer my blends where my ginger booch tastes like ginger ale and is a lot less sour.
I love their dehydrated veggie chips (S$16++) which contains kale, beetroot, carrots and courgette (aka zucchini) which have been in the dehydrator for 3 days at 40oC. Some of the veggies have nutritional yeast on them or flavoured lightly with miso, enhancing the natural flavours of the veggies. My favourite out of the bunch has to be the kale chips. I've made them before and they're super easy to make. I just realised that I've not posted my recipe...so...ok, will do that soon!
(Above and below) ABJ Pancakes (S$16++)
One of the most impressive dish that we tasted had to be their ABJ Pancakes. These tiny pancakes are made with buckwheat, which is a complex carb so you need not worry about getting a sugar high while really filling you up with fibre. Instead of PBJ (Peanut Butter Jelly), it's Almond Butter...hence the A. They don't use peanuts because there are quite a few people who have peanut allergies. Moreover, those who study nutrition would also tell you that tree nuts contain more nutrients simply due to how to fruit and seeds grow.
The ABJ Pancakes are served up with bananas, berries, coconut whip and drizzled with chocolate. I would think that it's quite value-for-money at S$16++.
Another breakfast dish that got a Wholesome Savour twist is your Eggs Benedict, which has been renamed to be the Negg's Benedict (S$15++). When I first heard the name of this dish, my immediate thought was, "How is the Hollandaise sauce made?" All of the usual recipes (including mine), contain eggs and butter. Instead of eggs, they use cashew and nope, they didn't reveal ALL their secrets but I did find the recipe here.
The 'eggs' were also mimicked by piling up the baby spinach on avocado and all of that rested on almond zucchini muffins. Verdict? Gimme my real Eggs Benedict thank you very much. Let's just stick to the ABJ Pancakes.
Poké bowls are now all the rage and Wholesome Savour does theirs with ancient grains such as wild rice, quinoa, millet and brown rice. Above is the Forbidden Poké (S$16++) that has heirloom forbidden rice (I don't know what this is either), marinated asparagus, avocado, edamame, wakame, beetroot, pickled shallot and drizzled with wasabi tahini.
I ate this with caution as I do have an adverse reaction to wasabi but I had to say that the wasabi was very very mild. I liked the tropical nod in this dish with the mango and lotus root chips but I couldn't help but feel like wanting a piece of fish in there since the acids were all there and raring to go as a nice pairing.
Now, here's the dish that wowed everyone. The Zucchini Noodles (S$16++) can be served with a choice of cashew carbonara or marinara sauce; served with beet balls, coconut bacon, truffled nut parmesan and fresh herbs. Our carbonara had mushrooms too. What we loved about it is that it was hearty, like what a main course should be, but light because there was no cream involved so the cashew milk sauce gave the slight creaminess without the jerlat-ness as we Singaporeans would call it. The coconut bacon still tasted like coconut in my opinion. I liked how the noodles were still firm but not too crunchy, mimicking al dente spaghetti. Yum!
Another favourite main course that I liked was the Portobello Burger (S$20++). What at first glance looks like a burger made with charcoal buns is actually a burger made with 2 portobello 'buns'! In between the shrooms is a beetroot patty, arugula, tomato, pineapple pickle, dairy-free cultured Swiss cheese and caramelised onions chipotle aioli. Served with the dehydrated veggie chips.
If you love burgers and you love mushrooms, you will love this dish and ignore the fact that there's no beef in this. Portobello is often called the steak of veggies because it lends a meaty flavour (although I can still recall my ex-colleague accusing me of trying to poison him with a portobello mushroom sandwich), which also helps to lend a bit of that meaty texture in this dish. I would definitely come back for this dish again.
Like sushi but you're vegan? Wholesome Savour has recently come up with their "Rockin' Rolls" and this Yu Sheng (yes...a play on our Singaporean love of raw fish) is a roll of shredded vegetables, pickled ginger, sweet plum sauce wrapped with nori and topped with papaya 'sashimi'.
While it was refreshing, I found this a tad too sweet for my liking and technically speaking, there's a ponzu dip which would add a tad of sour to balance. Perhaps I was expecting too much. I was hoping that the papaya was smoked, to lend a bit of a savoury element to it. I guess the ingredients reminded me too much of a Vietnamese Spring Roll and that to me, is an appetiser and not a main.
Finally, we go onto dessert! These are raw cakes, meaning that they've not been baked and starting from the left to right, we have the Mango Macamania, Dark Chocolate Raspberry and Strawberry Turkish Delight. You can choose 3 for S$12++ but subject to availability. They do have other flavours such as Avocuddle Lime, Cream Banana Alvis and Goji Lemon Swirl.
I can honestly say that my favourite is the Cream Banana Alvis, which I ate on a separate occasion. I do like my desserts and I think it's incredible to come up with such raw cakes but I found the Strawberry Turkish Delight lacking in strawberry flavour and a tad too strong in the Turkish part - where the crust just had that spice to it. Was it cardamon? Not sure. You can't go wrong with the chocolate one and the mango was ok.
Nonetheless, these cakes are nutrient dense due to the ingredients used so you need not feel guilty while soothing your sweet tooth. This might actually be the one filling you up considering how light the mains are.
(Above) Wholesome Savour's Vegan Chef with the actors from Ah Boys to Men who turned up for the launch.
(Below) Frunatic and Wholesome Savour founder, Jason, giving us a speech.
I do like how Wholesome Savour is an accessible café for those who would like to eat something healthy at affordable prices while in town. They do have smoothies (from S$11 to S$13), herbal teas, cold pressed juices and organic teas as well as coffees. If you're a salad-to-go type of person, they do have that option too but again, subject to availability as they don't prepare large quantities.
One thing that I appreciate about Wholesome Savour's menu is that I need not worry about complex carbs (they all are) or portion sizing of carbs vs proteins etc (they've done it for you already). Just sit back, relax and order whatever fancies your palette!
Wholesome Savour
390 Orchard Road
Palais Renaissance #B1-06A
Singapore 238871
Tel: +65 6736 0288
Website: www.wsavour.com
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