Having visited Absolute Haven before, I shall skip the niceties and move on to the food. Do look at my review during my previous visit to find out more about Absolute Haven (AH). I decided on AH for lunch on that particular day since my cousins have budget concerns, and i happened to remember about AH weekly set lunch promotion. A nice fit.

The previous time i had dinner, but being on the mailing list of AH, they sent me regular updates on their current promotions, and now they are having their weekly lunch promotion, $9.90++ for a 3 course meal, available Tuesday to Sunday.

Soup of the day

The soup of the day was grilled vegetables soup, there were green and red pepper, carrot, potato and some other vegetables. Slightly spicy and sour, the grilled-taste was evident in the soup. I ain’t a big fan of soup, o well.

Oatmeal Crusted chicken breast

There’s two main course available for selection from their set lunch menu, and one of which was the Oatmeal crusted chicken breast with miso braised rooted vegetables and pically sauce.

Thinking back now, i didn’t recall tasting any miso flavour in the root vegetables, and just what exactly was pically sauce, i never found out. I reckon it’s the slightly sweet and sourish red sauce which gave the chicken breast an additional zing.

The chicken breast strike out as dry and hard. But never judge a book by it’s cover, or rather in this case, never judge a chicken by it’s look. We were proven wrong by the first taste of the breast meat. Despite the dry look, the inner portion of the meat retained the soft and moist texture. I always dislike eating chicken breast because i found them to be too hard and dry, but this one’s the complete opposite.

Seafood ragout angel hair pasta

The other main course, was the seafood ragout angel hair pasta with tom yam pesto sauce. I was curious about the angel hair, having saw it but never try it before. Like the name implied, angel hair is a very thin variety of Italian pasta, which beared a resemblance to the Chinese rice vermicelli.

The tom yam pesto sauce did gave the pasta a different twist in flavour. It was spicy, sourish all together as one. I didn’t really fancy tom yam flavour, but if you are a tom yam fan then this should do the trick for you.

Dessert of the day

We rounded off our 3 course lunch with a simple triple chocolate ice cream.

Total bill for 4 set lunch was $46.3 which worked out to be $11.50 per person. I was initially skeptical about AH set lunch because at $9.90 per person it’s totally in a different league with its a la carte pricing. How good can a 3 course meal at $9.90 be, when a normal main course for dinner at AH cost around $20.

But like what i found out, there isn’t anything intriguing about the food at AH set lunch, but it does provides value given you can have a soup, a decent main course and a simple dessert all for $11 per person. With western food at some food courts costing around $6-8 bucks, i say this is really a good option for lunch if you want somewhere with a good ambience, but at the same time not hurting your pocket. And one of their main course option changes every other week. So there’s always variation for you.

Absolute Haven
70 Prinsep Street
Tel: 6333 4358