Indulge your palate at CALI with the delights of modern Southwestern cuisine. A series of dishes presenting fresh, vivid, and bold tasting flavors to tickle your taste buds. Cali Ascott Raffles Place offers elegance for guests who appreciate fine dining, the perfect restaurant to meet for a small event or discuss business over your meal. At Cali, the natural herbs and spices in each recipe brings out the best in every dish prepared. Take a pick at USDA Grain-fed Prime Ribeye Steak and end your meal with the in-house Lava Tart. Chocolate lover or not, you will find yourself enjoying this dessert as it strikes a balance with elements of chocolate cake and souffle, topped with summer berries compote and vanilla ice-cream.
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Tucked away in the Ascott @ Raffles Place is one of Cali’s 3 restaurants. I wondered how I could have missed it all these years having driven past so many times. Set in the best location to serve patrons of the business district, Cali has a lovely privacy about it.
Stepping in to the foyer, a lovely bar presented itself. Open at night I could imagine a relaxing tete-a-tete with a few friends and a glass of bubbly!
Progressing up the stylish curved staircase I was pleasantly surprised to see the restaurant, brightly lit with views to the buzzy outside world. A private room for up to 25 pax (in Covid times) lay to the left.
I thought it would be a great spot for a training event or private group celebrating a special something. Nice! Parked in a corner of my brain for some time in the future, I ventured to my table.
Cali offers a 5-course set lunch for $48 hence the full capacity crowd who were happily dining. My guess from the way they were dressed was that they were mostly office workers on their lunch break.
I noticed the Cali slogan – Everything Easy for Everyone Everyday! It looked like they had captured a captive market, making it an affordable consideration.
I decided against my usual “no alcohol at lunch” philosophy as it was the eve of a public holiday and I wasn’t going back to work! Voila! If that sounded like an excuse it was.
“I’ll have a chardonnay thanks” for Cali have priced their Pierre Jean Chardonnay and Merlot at a very reasonable $8/glass. It was fair dinkum, paired with a baby spinach & US asparagus and Jalapeno poppers with tostadas (deep friend jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese).
I reminisced about the Southwestern / TexMex food I’d binge on in the U.S. and felt I should dig deeper into my memory recall with some Santa Fe jumbo crab cakes.
Feeling that Cali had a good value proposition, with starters priced at $10 to $14, I couldn’t help but imagine that this establishment would be very attractive to corporate people seeking a special lunch.
For residents of the Ascott this would also be a highly convenient spot for daily breakfast and a glass of wine at the bar, on return from a sightseeing day out. Cali’s location being so central is certainly well placed for constant patronage.
Moving on to mains I had to have the fajitas. Wanting to be different, I ordered the Kurobuta pork loin which came in a sizzling hot plate with tortilla wraps and dips. Made my own fajita wrap and gobbled it down with a few sips of wine. Delicious!
Portions at Cali are pretty generous so I was definitely not going to have dinner. The braised beef cheeks arrived. Served on a bed of mash and spinach on the side, this fell off the bone.
Slow cooked and braised in a red wine sauce, this was a melt-in-your-mouth experience. Hard to do something like this at home as it requires long hours of braising and oven baking attention.
Cali’s menu also extends to pizza, pasta and burgers priced at about $20. The Cali’s I-Want-Meat-Zza Pizza was something new and worth a try. Emulating a 4 cheese pizza, there were 4 different toppings in each quarter – parma ham, chicken tikka, pepperoni and mozzarella.
This was a good thin crust pizza and one I would recommend as there would be something for everyone, just as the Cali slogan suggests.
Reaching the end of my meal I was recommended to have the Molten Lava Luxurious Bomb. With chocolate oozing out of the perfectly baked chocolate cake, I dug into a dollop of vanilla ice-cream.
The fusion of cold and warm textures in my mouth was nothing short of magnificent. Priced at only $10 I would not rule out the possibility of popping in to Cali for a dessert and coffee.
If you are reading this and feeling full don’t worry. At Cali you have options of a 2, 3 or 4-course meal as part of your set lunch.
Having enjoyed a lovely lunch I felt the essence of Cali was about value meals.
No need to wait for a special occasion, just rock on down for an everyday hearty meal with a few friends which will undoubtedly leave you satiated.
