From 2019 to early 2020, The Wife was an Accor Plus member and found compelling value in the programme.
She managed to snag Red Hot Rooms for trips to Seoul and Bangkok, used the Stay Plus free night for a Sentosa staycation, and benefitted frequently from generous restaurant discounts.
When it expired in April 2020, she received numerous calls from membership services urging her to renew. And she probably would have, except you-know-what happened and brought the world to a standstill.
For the next few years, Accor Plus dropped off our radar, even after we started planning overseas travel again. That is, until earlier this March, when I saw a promotion offering 25% off their Explorer membership.
After signing up, I searched the booking site for availability at Sofitel Sentosa but was rebuffed with “… your Stay Plus free night is not available in this destination”.
Plan B was to use it at Novotel Dongdaemun for our upcoming trip to Seoul, but the value just wasn’t as good. I did manage to secure a decent 15% discount on our room rates though.
On a whim, I tried my luck several months later, and somehow managed to confirm a Stay Plus booking for early next year.
Perhaps Accor Plus had a change of heart, or perhaps occupancy was uncharacteristically low. Still, cash rates were upwards of S$400 for that night, exceeding the $314 annual fee that I had paid.
With the free night sorted, I turned my attention to making full use of the dining benefit.
I had already scanned through the 49 restaurants in Singapore, looked at their menus and made a shortlist of those that seemed interesting.
First on that list was Stamford Brasserie at Swissôtel Stamford.
When I made our reservation online, I deliberately chose 4:30pm on a weekday, thinking that it would be relatively empty and quiet.
What I completely didn’t anticipate was a major convention (APPEC 2024) at the hotel that very same day. And Stamford Brasserie just happened to be the perfect place for post-seminar networking.
Despite the chaos surrounding us as we walked in, Sasi, the restaurant manager, calmly guided us to a table towards the back of the room and handed us the menu.
In a sea of dark-coloured suits, we were seriously, and I mean seriously, under dressed and stood out like sore thumbs. Thankfully, like Moo Deng, we have thick skins, although we’re nowhere as cute.
After letting us peruse the menu for a while, Sasi came back to take our order. We chose a salad, an appetiser, two mains and a dessert.
“If I may ask, do you have big appetites?” he enquired, followed by a proposal, “Our portions are quite large, so you might want to choose just one main dish to share.”
We were taken aback, because it was rare for restaurant staff to proactively recommend that diners order less. If anything, the default is usually to gently nudge customers to add more.
Mindful of his heads up, we thanked him for his considerate suggestion and dropped one of the mains.
The entire dining room was a hive of activity as we patiently waited for our food to arrive. Lots of socialisation was going on, together with plenty of wheeling and dealing.
Given how swamped the kitchen must have been, our starters arrived surprisingly quick.
Three plump Seared Scallops (S$28++) came on a bed of cute little petite pois, coated with silky beurre monté. Garnished with pea shoot tendrils and paper-thin, almost invisible, slices of fried pancetta.
They were lightly seared, with just the right amount of cook, keeping the meaty insides soft and juicy. Delicious on their own, but even better with a bit of everything on the plate.
Every last drop of the butter emulsion was scooped up, and not even a single mini pea survived to tell the tale. We should have ordered a plate each, instead of having to reluctantly split the third scallop.
But it was a good thing we didn’t, because the Super Food Salad (S$18++) was yuge. It was billed as a starter, but could easily have passed off as a main dish.
There were so many components, and we had to refer back to the menu to identify them all: kale, quinoa, beetroot hummus, avocado, berry, pomegranate vinaigrette, yeast flakes and pumpkin seeds.
“Berry” was clearly an understatement, because there were enough blueberries, raspberries and mulberries to fill a small bowl.
The Wife happily munched away and commented that she could happily have it for lunch every day. I’m not that big of a salad fan, but even I had to admit that it was really tasty.
Sasi was right, their portions were hearty. By the time our Braised Angus Short Ribs (S$38++) arrived, we were already feeling quite full. It didn’t stop us from drooling as the plate landed on our table though.
Two big chunks of tender deboned short ribs were pressed onto a mound of finely pureed potato, accompanied by a stick of chargrilled leek.
A pool of jus, a dusting of deep-fried shallots and a garnish pea shoot tendrils, the same as what was used for the scallops, completed the dish.
It was simple, honest and full of flavour, exactly the kind of food that we like.
After mopping up the sauce with final remnants of potato puree, we leaned back into our chairs to start digesting all the food we had consumed.
Despite being quite full, we still had one last course to finish. Which was not a problem at all, because it’s a well-known fact of human anatomy that we all have a separate stomach just for desserts.
I was immediately drawn to the Lemon Lime Cheesecake (S$16), because the presentation was just so appealing. You’re probably aware by now that I’m a sucker for pretty plating.
Beauty wasn’t only skin deep, because it was a well composed dessert.
It was both sweet and savoury, with just the right amount of sourness. Particularly interesting were the bits of kaffir lime leaf and lemon peel embedded in the crunchy mini meringues.
Given the quality (and quantity) of food that we had that day, we figured that the other items in Stamford Brasserie’s one-page menu must be worth trying as well.
We asked Sasi for his personal favourites, and without missing a beat, he replied enthusiastically, “The baked pork ribs and Basque cheesecake!” and then went on to describe them in mouthwatering detail.
Okay, looks like we’ll be making a return visit soon. Especially since Accor Plus took 50% off the bill, for a final cost of S$59.95 nett for everything that we ordered.
Our dining adventures using my newly acquired membership was off to a good start, and we can’t wait to visit the rest of the restaurants that made it to our shortlist.
