I just went through the apartment search, and I saw over one hundred apartments. I consider myself an expert on the condos in the central area now. We also used to live in NYC. I stayed at Orchard Scotts during the search, near Orchard and Newton, and I can tell you that in six weeks I was so sick of the Orchard Road/Ion hassle it wasn't worth it. I really didn't like it. One of the apartments we were looking at seriously was the Patterson (we needed a four bedroom), but decided against it BECAUSE of the Orchard Ion thing. I got really frustrated trying to navigate around all of the people, being forced to walk slowly because the tourists are lingering, etc. I would liken it to living near Times Square.
We ended up near Holland Village and love it. My husband works near Raffles, there is a bus that is pretty convenient, and a new MRT station just opened up. There are plenty of grocery stores.
Places around here that I thought were REALLY lovely were the Cornwall, which has a beautiful Balinese style resort pool and nice apartments. It was quite peaceful, and not too large. I also really liked Duchess Crest, although it is a bit farther out. Closer to Orchard Road I also liked the Solitaire and Suites at Central. I would also suggest River Valley, and I really liked the Imperial there with its gorgeous view of Ft. Canning Park. My number two place was Martin Place, but it is a little larger than you are looking at. It is worth a look, though, because it is absolutely gorgeous and it has a great Olympic sized pool. We decided because we had kids to live in Holland V where more classmates were located. The bus ride would have been too long from River Valley to school, but if we didn't have school to consider, I think River Valley would have been a great place to live because of the night life.
My other advice is to ditch your company provided agent. I caught mine lying to me twice, and it took her four weeks to find apartments we would consider, a total waste of time. When we moved here, at least 10 people from my husband's company told us to ditch the company provided agent and go with one they recommended. He had placed all ten of them in wonderful apartments. I talked to him, told him what requirements I had, what I had seen and what I thought about each of them, and he set up viewings that made me besieged and paralyzed with choice. Ultimately, we ended up renting the very first one he took us to, the one he called and said he could only get one viewing time, but he thought it would really be suitable to our needs, so we jumped in the car and viewed it right away. PM me and I will share his contact info, he really is an expert at showing you the right apartments and not wasting your time.
... so if he wants to do deal with a guy who is small potatoes then I would love for you to pass me his contact number. 
