Eat your heart out

Samyuktha Santhanam | samyuktha.trisha@gmail.com
theridge lifestyle
A NUSSU Publication

In this new lifestyle regular, we prowl about town to review potental pig-out locatons for you. Keep your eyes peeled, and you might just fnd your venue for the next girls’ night out, or for that date you have been trying to plan to perfecton. This month, we review Ace of Clubs.

Ace of Clubs sits in the heart of Chijmes in City Hall, which is among Singapore’s renowned lifestyle destinations. The establishment itself is based on a concept that combines all the features of a good night out: food, chilling, drinks and partying.

Ace’s promotion tagline goes wine  •  dine  •  dance. In keeping in line with their theme, we decided to give you a rundown of all the three aspects of the club.

Wine

The house pours were strongly mixed while the cocktails revealed a hint of alcohol, otherwise well veiled by their sweet flavours. We tried Breakfast in Bed (cofee, kahlua, amarulla, and chocolate syrup), Ace Taztique (pineapple juice, midori, milk and vodka) and Poisentia (vodka, lychee liquer, blue curacua and grenedine syrup), all of which were well-mixed drinks. As a lover of cold cofee drinks, I naturally enjoyed Breakfast in Bed the most.

However, what I have to say next is most likely to interest you a great deal more than the drinks themselves. Once you have chosen your drink from the drinks menu, you get to pick a card from a stack of playing cards. The number that you see on the card is the price you pay for your drink. If you pick a King, Queen or a Jack, you pay the price listed on the menu card, and if you pick an Ace, your drink is on the house.Between 9pm and 10pm, all jugs are priced at $21, while bottles go at $121. If all of these aren’t incentive enough, your interest might be piqued by the fact that this is the only club in Singapore that sells absinthe. So go on down and give it a shot.

Dine

The exterior of Ace of Clubs is demarcated for al fresco dining, while the interior is the club space. A screen sat at the end of the candlelit tables, on which a soccer match was playing.

The food itself, which they describe as authentic Indian Curry, was rich and well-cooked with a distinctly pleasant aroma. A chicken platter, with five types of chicken (Kim Chicken, Hyderabadi Chicken, Black Pepper Chicken, Coconut Chicken, Butter Masala Chicken) costs $38 and could feed between three and four people. The prices were generally afordable, and typically what you would expect to spend on a night out.

The mutton curry (Ace Mutton Special) left little to be desired. It was cooked to perfection, and the meat was tender and soft. Although all the food was on the slightly spicy side, it was still well-cooked and enjoyable to the palate.

The pudding we were served for dessert was just the right amount of sweet, which was a welcome relief from the saccharine sweetness of most Indian sweets.

On top of that, the portions were fairly sizeable for dessert. All in all, it was a pleasant dining experience – certainly worth a second visit.

Dance

The interior of the club is lined with comfortable sofas and tables all along the sides. The lighting is as trippy as you would expect any club’s lighting to be, and there are LCD screens on the wall that feature their ACE video remixes of music videos. During our visit, which was still early in the night, the DJ was playing a fairly standard mix of house music.

The club is available as an events venue, and there is no booking fee.

In addition to that, NUS students get free entry to the club before 11pm. While there is no dress code for al fresco dining, those intending to club are advised not to dress sloppily, as you will be refused entry into the club.

Those born on the 21st of any month are in for a special treat. You get an ACE Clubber card free of charge, and it entitles you to 21% discount of all your purchases at Ace of Clubs.

So the next time you’re with a group of friends in which some want to party while the others just want to lounge, you might want to try out Ace. Just make sure you get there before 11pm and all the better if someone in the group is born on a 21st.