Birthday Brunch at BoCHINche

Ade and I celebrated Puey’s 28th birthday by having brunch at BoCHINche early this March. BoCHINche is an Argentinian restaurant located a little out of the way at 22 Martin Road, though my walk from the nearest bus stop took me across the Singapore River, which was nice. Ade and Puey both cabbed down, so I guess that’s also a possibility.

Ade and I planned to get a surprise birthday cake for Puey from Cloud9 Bakery. Since I happened to be most active on Facebook among us (which is saying a lot since I’m not that active), I was appointed Cake Person. Ade also had church the morning of, so really I was the only one capable of performing its duties in the ordering and collection of the cake.. Anyway, since Cloud9 closed at 12pm, I ended up at BoCHINche more than an hour early for our reservation after collecting the cake. It was pretty much an adventure getting to these two places via public transport hur hur.

My pot of Maté and view of the verandah. The helpful waiter seated me on the verandah when I first got there, and brought me to our reserved table (early) later on. I was really excited to see that Maté was on the menu! Couldn’t resist getting myself some memories while waiting. It doesn’t feel the same though, since the Maté here came in a cup instead of the social way it’s being drunk in Argentina. The taste, however, was spot on. As I described to Ade, Maté basically tastes like you’re drinking tobacco. Now that I think about it, the sharing culture of drinking Maté is kind of similar to smoking too.

The bottom of every coaster sports some trivia about Argentina.

Puey with organic poached eggs on toast, braised ossobuco & chives hollandaise.
Ade with house-made pappardelle, ossobucco ragu, walnuts & smoked ricotta.
Me with house-made chorizo sausage, braised ox cheeks & caramelised onions.
The braised ox cheeks were so good, I was even able to cut them without the use of a knife.

Puey with her Red Velvet cake of deliciousness. We even got the ladies behind Cloud9 to write a free message for Puey Puey! Everything looked so beautiful. The candles denoting that Puey was 25 was a mistake, but hey, nobody’s complaining about shaving off 3 years of Old. :P

We got one of the waiters to take a picture of us, oblivious to the funny chefs photobombing in the background! Love the silliness.

I couldn’t resist cutting myself a second slice of the yummy Red Velvet cake, which affronted Ade. “Why are you still so thin?!” she exclaimed in indignation, as I showed off the conquered Red Velvet in my mouth. Anyway, since the smallest size of cakes Cloud9 offered was still a whooping 7″, we decided to give the rest of the cake to the staff at BoCHINche after serving ourselves. The cake was too good to waste, and really, the wait staff were exceptional in helping us to store the cake, preparing the candles, and singing a birthday song that we thought they deserved to partake in the noms.

The staff at BoCHINche responded by treating us to a glass of champagne! Mucho gracias! Salud!

Nothing like a selfie to cap off our day of indulgence.

^{All photos (except for the first which was from my phone) were taken by Ade and edited by me.}