Dare to dream,Live the dream

PODI: Celebrating the First Anniversary

Wednesday, January 14, 2015 | 10:45 pm | 0 comments

PODI is the latest baby of The Bakery Depot Pte Ltd, the same company that brought us Cedele, Toss & Turns and P.L.T Sandwiches. PODI which stands for Pure, Offbeat, Delicious and Infusions offers all day breakfast and grills on the menu.

It's been a year since PODI opened it's doors to the public at a fantastic location, Raffles City basement, right beside the beautiful fountain. A year ago when the place just opened, they've received mixed feedback about the food. Now, a year later, as they celebrate their 1st anniversary, I've been invited to try out their latest offerings. Thank you Nicole for the invitation!

TRUFFLE FRIES ($12)

This came as a surprise.

I was expecting shoestring fries but what I saw was a pile of glistening golden thick cut fries. The truffle fragrance is overwhelming and very enticing. I took one bite and was convinced, this is not some gimmicky item but the real deal. Many places offer truffle fries but you can barely taste the truffle. The sauce is truffle-infused honey mustard dip and it was an extremely refreshing pairing for the fries. My only gripe was that the fries can feel a tad oily, thick cut fries have the tendency to soak up oil like a sponge so it can feel a bit jelat after awhile. You definitely need the dip to balance out the flavours, and while you're at it, share this dish too. Which led me to think, shouldn't the fries taste great on its own instead of leaning heavily on the dip? I feel that this fries is good, but if I ever need to satisfy that truffle fries craving, I 'll head to Habitat Cafe instead

CRABMEAT KONBU AGLIO OLIO ($18)

with house prawn oil, chilli, cherry tomatoes,

a sprinkle of konbu seaweed, rocket leaves and parmasean cheese

The item caught my eye when I first saw the menu and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that there was a lot of crabmeat hidden in the linguine! Definitely value-for-money in that sense.

The highlights of this dish is that the crabmeat had no fishy smell, some of the places serving crab pasta ended up with certain parts smelling quite fishy, which turns me off.

It's alot mildly spicy and a little sweet, somewhat reminding me of our local delight chilli crab.

The konbu added a nice texture to it, except I kinda got bored of this dish after a while.

This seems to be a recurring problem in Western dining, the dish is stunning and tastes really great, but after awhile it just got kinda boring.

ARBORIO CHICKEN & PORTOBELLO RICE ($23)

with paprika chicken & portobello mushroom.

Their rice dishes are all gluten free and the rice is tossed with konbu seaweed, egg, asparagus, mushroom & diced tomato, and comes with a side salad.

This rice is spectacular. Reminds me of our zi char mui fan, wet rice coated in sauces. albeit salty but I like the very complex taste of this dish. The portobello mushroom was huge and juicy, there's such a wonderful meaty bite to it. The paprika chicken was a little lacking though, it was pretty much tasteless, where did the paprika go? However if you pair the rice, chicken and mushroom all together in a mouthful, then the dish seems to come together nicely. There's a sambal lookalike red paste at the side which tasted mildly sweet, a pretty interesting addition to the rice.

GREEN TEA MATCHA CAKE ($5.80)

The matcha sliced cake is one of their star items but I found it a little lacking...

The cake was light and airy, and the matcha flavour pronounced but...

I really don't like it when my cake loses balance and falls down.
It''s very annoying.

Then my dining partner realized the two layers of cake could barely stick together.
I wonder why.
All in all, an okay cake and really quite overpriced for such a small slice of cake.

Not exactly sure how their brand meaning of Pure, Offbeat, Delicious and Infusions factor into the menu, well okay I can definitely see some infusions and the dishes combination are pretty offbeat, if you interpret offbeat as not mainstream. The food quality is pretty decent but I'm not sure how Pure factors in. To me, it felt like PODI tries to be the Jack of all trades so it's a little eclectic. If they could focus on one thing and do that well, then they will have a winning formula like their sister cafe Cedele.

In a Nutshell

Verdict: 3/5

Price Point: $$$

Thumbs Up: Nice ambience to dine by the fountain, huge servings.
To Improve: The food is good, but none of the dishes are fantastically mind blowing.

Will I return: Maybe.

Why: I'm more of an Asian food kind of person, so if you want to entice me back with Western food, you must be extremely outstanding. The food is good, but they're not amazingly unforgettable. I might just pop in for some fries (I do like that honey dijon dip!) and a cuppa, it's a nice place to chill by the fountain.