Fridays are for brunches and our brunch of choice last Friday (thanks to a warm tasting invitation), was the newly opened Collective at the Grand Hyatt. As you pull into the Grand Hyatt, you feel less like you’re in Dubai and more in Singapore. Greenery, fake rockery and small manmade waterfalls welcome you to what feels like a different world altogether.

Situated in the lower lobby level, The Collective appears to be a restaurant in the middle of a rainforest. The concept basically brings together three different restaurants/kitchens and allows you to enjoy three extremely different cuisines at once. One of the restaurants serves up some very American food, focusing on grills and roasts, be it any kind of meat or seafood. Another serves up Parsi cuisine from Bombay, which has a heavily Iranian influence on the flavors. And the last but not the least, is the Levant kitchen offering favorites from Greece, Morocco and Turkey. Here, you can expect to indulge in a wide array of hot and cold mezze, mixed grills, stews and Manakeesh.

There is also a juice station serving up the freshest Barakat juices, and a boutique bakery dessert station that had an array of colorful cakes, homemade icecream, was popping out oven fresh cookies every 15 minutes, and making crepes to order.

Here’s what we tried:

• Carrot, green apple and ginger juice, but ended up with just carrot and green apple juice that had some ribbons of ginger floating on the top that I had to chew on, haha.
• Baked salmon : excellent, especially paired with some salsa verde.
• Lamb chops: excellent
• Parmesan crab leg: good
• Tawa Machi: Average
• Grilled Lobster: Average
• Grilled Prawns: Terrible. Too dry, and no flavor.
• Passion fruit Lassi: Terrible.
• Turkish pizzas: Excellent, especially the one with Kashkaval and pomegranate.
• Lamb shank tagine: Terrible. Easily the worst tagine we have ever had.
• Cheesy Meaty Burger: Beyond excellent. Arguably the best burger I’ve had anywhere. Super juicy and flavorsome patty, and I loved the grill marks on the sourdough bread which was a much better alternative to standard brioche.  The burger had chipotle and harissa sauce in just the right amounts and this was the most memorable item at the brunch. 3 days later I am still salivating thinking about it.
• Coconut cake: I assume this was excellent because it finished before I even started lunch 🙁
• Pistachio cake topped with fresh berries: Very good
• Fruit Tartlets: Excellent. Had a puff pastry base instead of standard tart shell. Delicious.
• Raisin cookie: I was disappointed that only this was left by the time I went for one, as I wanted a chocolate chip one, but it was SO very good. One of the best raisin cookies I’ve had till date.
• Date Pudding: Very good. Made to order in a tiny skillet, we paired this with some of the homemade coffee flavored soft serve and enjoyed it a great deal.
• Green tea: Jing. Wish everyone served TWG 🙁
• Service: Very good
• Overall rating: Some hits and some misses. 3.5/5

 

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