We decided to visit the Olio Café @ Suntec Fountain. Nice and swanky looking bistro/restaurant/cafe located at the circular belt of eateries surrounding the Suntec Fountain.
Somehow I have a feeling that the place suffers from an identity crisis, it attempts to create a posh restaurant look but yet wants to retain the cafe name. A place like this would carve out a better niche if it was marketed simply as a elegant and contemporary restaurant. Olio Cafe claims to be a cafe but when you look at the food and decor, it comes off as confused. Regular cafe patrons would get turned off by the uninviting look of the place, they would have the impression that it looks far too extravagant to dine here and the cozy 'cafe feeling' is definitely absent as well.
Nevertheless, the food was presently neatly and relatively well cooked, kudos to that. Dear liked the flavorsome Capellini Miso Salmon Fillet, whereas the Portofino Pizza I ordered was dry, the crust was too hard and they were far too stingy with the pizza sauce in my opinion.
For desserts we had Mango Sorbet and Vanilla Gelato. Mango sorbet was not bad, refreshing and tangy. Unfortunately the vanilla gelato didn't fair as well, although it was made with vanilla pods, sadly it lacked the distinct burst of vanilla flavor when it hit my tastebuds, sad sad sad....
One interesting thing we noticed in the restaurant, glass panels surrounding the place has a unique feature, it prevents people outside to peer in if you were directly perpendicular to the glass panel and are looking straight in(the glass would look frosted) but if you take a few steps away and look at it from an angle, the interiors would become visible! Same goes for the patron inside the restaurant. I guess it is for the privacy of the customers. But sadly this unnecessary feature only adds to the 'unwelcome feeling' you get when you pass by this confused little eatery...
