US Southern Barbecue Grill Masters at Swensen’s

I took a night off earlier this month and arranged for a girly dinner with a girlfriend. We are both greedy, gluttony people, so when I got invited to try Swensen’s new US Southern Barbecue Favourites menu.. she was the first person that came to my mind!

Ok. I confess. I had wanted to bring the kids. After all, Swensen’s is a family friendly restaurant with menu items that caters to everyone in the family but week day night is just plain impossible for me to bring them. I would never be able to make it on time if I had to work in the logistics of shuttling home from work and bringing them out again.

So the menu was U.S. Southern Barbecue, inspired by the bold flavor palates unique to Southern USA. The menu was simple enough, with something to cater for the chicken, beef or fish lover, along with a side and drink to go along. I’ll run you guys through each and every menu item and share my thoughts on them.

This a refreshing drink made of 7-up (or was it Sprite) with a scoop of Key Lime ice cream. I’m not a fan of anything soda, but I do agree this is refreshing to wash down your food with, and definitely worth a try.

The deep fried prawns served with my favourite tartar sauce is sinfully good. Coated with a light batter of spices, you eat this whole, together with the shells and it is quite hard to stop.  Do take it when it is still hot though. Served with Swensen’s signature fries and fresh veggie sticks on the side.

The cajun chicken is slow cooked with cajun herbs and spices, accompanied with mixed wild rice, mesclun salad, bbq beans and a homemade creamy ranch sauce. The chicken wasn’t as juicy as I would like it to be, but still yummy and tasty. The rice was equally tasty. I am not a fan of the bbq beans since I don’t like bbq sauce. The cajun spices wasn’t overwhelming in this dish and quite different the usual chicken offering in the Swensen’s menu.

The food presentation of the Jalapeno BBQ Burger’s  is pretty cool, with a knife stuck in the middle of the burger. The presentation somewhat wowed me, with the burger ingredients stacked neatly making it quite a tall burger to gobble down. The beef patty is juicy enough, and overall taste pretty pleasant. The burger also had fried onion rings instead of the usual fresh onion rings and I thought that was a nice twist and great for people who don’t favor the strong taste that fresh onions have.

The last dish, which is also my favourite of the lot, is the Grilled Snapper with Seafood Creole Sauce. There are many reasons why I prefer this. Being the non junk food eater, this grilled fish totally rocked up my palette.

Firstly, there is nothing fried and that means, nothing is oily! The saltwater snapper is tenderly grilled and generously drizzled with the creamy creole sauce, which is extremely yummy and apparently, a secret recipe! Served with rather big succulent prawns, a generous serving of scallops, buttered vegetables and mixed wild rice, there is nothing in this dish that I could complain about. My absolute favourite item in the entire menu.

I also found out that there is ICE CREAM BUFFET in Swensen’s! Man, I feel like a country bumpkin because it has been on-going for a year, but only available at Swensen’s ION. The buffet is $19.90/pax and one can choose from a wide range of gelato and ice cream flavours, more than 30 different toppings to choose from. Not just that, there are also white chocolate and milk chocolate fondue (!!) along with fresh fruits and marshmallow as well as a wide range of delectable cakes to choose from.

I almost OD and went to sugar heaven. The milk chocolate is at the other end of the picture and it was seriously an entire square of yummy stuff that I swear every single kid will be ecstatic to see. Me included. I loaded up on the ice creams and the chocolate fondue that my girlfriend just sat there and stared at me in disbelief. #truestory.

But you know what? I am not the only one.

The ice creams, cakes and chocolates definitely made all of us really happy that night. 🙂

The U.S Southern Barbecue Favorites menu will be available for a limited period from now till 31 October 2014 at all Swensen’s outlets. With all the available menu options under $20 per dish, it is a rather affordable menu for the whole family. If you want to try these dishes, hurry before it is gone!

Hmmm, share with you a secret. I used to wait part time in Swensen’s when I was still in secondary school to earn my own pocket money and my absolute favourite menu items are the fish and chips and the chicken baked rice! I think it was my first part time job ever. Ahhh… memories. 

Disclaimer: I was invited to taste the new menu as a guest and all thoughts, opinions and taste buds are of my own.