*burp*
Happy New Year to all! May 2008 furnish you with success, concubines and all the gold you can eat.
I’m back from Singapore. Approximately 10kg fatter. I was on a mission in Singapore, not only to eat all my local favourites (which I did, and then some) but to break free from the lure of the cheap, tasty food courts and sample some examples of the up-market dining that can be had in Singapore, the nation where a new restaurant opens with each blink of your eye and and are becoming more interesting, entrepreneurial affairs with celebrated chefs and enthusiastic owners (and audiences). Exhausted from traveling, please excuse the brevity - here’s a little rundown of some of the places I visited foodwise, in order of pretentiousness…
Food Junction - a total disaster zone. Like most food courts, suffers from serious scalability problems. We went on new year’s eve in the afternoon for a “quick” bite and had to fight tooth, nail, eyeball and foreskin for a seat. Cost of meal: S$3.80 for some fly lice.
Glutton’s Bay - kind of like a watered-down hawker center in the style of the good-old, open-air days. Except with branding. And thus more expensive than usual. S$6 for a big plate of fried carrot cake which 2 of us couldn’t finish.
Crystal Jade - reliable, no-frills dim sum and edible Cantonese bric-a-brac found all over Singapore. S$35 to stuff our faces with some dim sum and a bowl of disappointingly bland congee.
Din Tai Fung - yeah yeah I know they have a Tokyo branch. Specialises in Xiaolongbao, those little steamed dumplings that dribble their liquid contents down your chin as you bite into them, as well as other Taiwanese favourites. Yummy, popular and sensible prices. S$50 to fill our bellies with dumplings and various side dishes.
Chatterbox, Meritus Mandarin Hotel - supposedly the best Chicken Rice in Singapore, although no one feels comfortable saying so as it costs 5 times as much as a hawker center or food court. Whatever. I liked the place (so much that I went back three times) - the service is friendly and excellent, the food is on par with what you would get at a good hawker, and it is presented in a much more agreeable fashion. I’ll gladly pay a premium for that. Never have to worry about getting a seat, too. Their teh tarik has probably given me diabetes, though. S$80 for 2 rounds of Chicken Rice, drinks and a side dish.
The Tiffin Room, Raffles Hotel - utterly outstanding value for money. If you visit Singapore, please go here. The Tiffin Room does a North Indian buffet for lunch and dinner, that’s it. No a la carte, no faff. The array of different curries and flavours is amazing - you will not manage to try everything in one sitting, I fear. Fish baked in yoghurt, mint and coconut, prawn and lamb curries, freshly baked naan and crispy papadum, pickles, salad items, and a rainbow of different Indian desserts (Indian sweets are totally, teeth-rottingly brilliant). And don’t forget the surroundings - the beautiful colonial architecture of the world-famous Raffles Hotel. S$145 for two with drinks, and well, well worth it.
My Humble House - I’m a fan of the Tokyo branch, so I had to visit the original Singapore branch. Alarmingly empty, but the decor is amazing - like walking onto a Tim Burton movie set. The chairs in the main dining room have, I kid you not, these incredible 7-foot high backs that curl at the tip like something out of a Nightmare Before Christmas. The food was just so-so however (I prefer the Tokyo menu), and our dining experience wasn’t helped by a (well-meaning) waitress who kept warning me that literally every dish I ordered was too much for 2 people. By the third time I felt like just exposing my now-generous belly and stating “Miss, you simply have no idea what a grotesque fatbody I am. I order stuff, you bring. Less of this *makes mouth flapping gesture with hand*”. An excellent place to entertain a group, though. S$180 for a few satisfying courses.
Les Amis - I had read about this place before arriving and had high expectations. It was supposed to represent one of the best French dining experiences Singapore had to offer. FWIW, the chef that brought the restaurant to fame and fortune had recently left, and frankly I was disappointed with the meal. The special Christmas Eve menu was inventive in places (foie gras with pomegranate and gingerbread) but didn’t excite my mouth nor satisfy my stomach. Even after some 5 courses I was still hungry - obviously no one told the chef that serving those idiosyncratic, piddly portions of haute cuisine is becoming something of a tired cliche, and if you’re going to serve me 3 slices of duck as my main course you’d better have a hilarious punchline waiting as I pay my bill. Other black marks were one course that had obviously been sitting in an oven waiting to be served (overcooked lobster…eugh) and a lengthy choir performance that acted as an obstacle to the next course rather than an enhancement to the dining experience. Not impressed at all. Over S$700.
Special mention must go to Relish, where I brought my cousins for a farewell lunch (note: we’re no longer in pretentious territory here, I’d say Relish is at the moment quite fashionable though, judging by how long we had to wait for a table! - our fault for not reserving). This is a new gourmet burger restaurant where OSF-er Rachel now works. The char-siew open sandwich on focaccia was amazing, my ramley burger was pant-wettingly delicious, the onion rings unbelievably more-ish and crispy, and the pandan panna cotta combined two of my most favourite dessert flavours into something that I could gladly eat all bloody day, forever. The verdict? You know when you bring a bunch of 12 to 27 year olds to a restaurant and at the end of the meal everyone has a clean plate and a smile on their face, you’ve found somewhere special. All burgers are under S$20. I’ll definitely go back on my next visit to Singapore. Good burgers are so hard to find - I wish there was a place like Relish in Tokyo.
