SPICEGASM.COM My travel tales and food hunting

Sometimes I think Singaporean loves to hype up certain reputations of various restaurants serving their signature dishes. Tales of long lines of customers waiting to be serve is one of the most popular ones. Sometimes I think is just like an urban legend. It makes a normal story more sensational and in this context, the dining experience more interesting. You get tell your office buddies the next day about how you managed to get a seat and ate the “legendary” dishes just to make them envy.

Eng Seng Restaurant has it own tale when it comes to long cue of customers waiting to order their famous black pepper crab dish. I have been told that people start lining up as early as 4pm just to order the famous Singapore crab dish. By 7pm it will be completely sold out. Finally a friend who is a captain with Singapore Airlines invited me to go have dinner in Eng Seng Restaurant.

Over the phone, he cautioned me not to be late when he comes pick me up. He too, I guess have heard about the long cue tales of this restaurant. We arrived at 6.30pm and he asked me to get down from his car and go order the food while he goes look for parking. As I got down from his car, I do not see long cues. I however do like the look of the restaurant and I quickly snap a picture of the restaurant entrance. Restaurant without air conditioning and plastic chair is a good sign of a good place to dine. I can imagine my friend being mad if someone ordered the last black pepper crab because I took few seconds to took the picture of the restaurant.

There were still quite a few tables available and I was glad when the waitress told me that the black pepper crab is available. I ordered black pepper crab, mee goreng ( fried noodles with sea food ) and a vegetable dish sauteed with garlic. The service is pretty fast as within minutes our food arrived.

The black pepper crab tasted pretty good. It does not taste like the usual black pepper crab as it is not too spicy and it has some sweet flavor in it. My taste buds tells me that they might be adding some marmite into it. The crab is kinda small compared to some crab that I have eaten before. I also have no clue if it is Sri Lankan crab or other type of species.

The mee goreng is not spicy and tasted a little bit sweet too. I prefer my mee goreng spicy and my favorite versions are the ones cooked by Mamaks from Malaysia. I guess this is the Chinese version of mee goreng. Can’t beat the Mamak’s version as they are the inventor of this noodle dish.

The vegetable dish is good. Kailan ( not sure what it is called in English ) sauteed with garlic. The kailan is still crunchy and didn’t taste over or under cook. The amount of soy sauce, oyster sauce and garlic used are just right.

I was pretty happy with the meal, especially when they is no long que and the black pepper crab was still available despite we arrived at 6.30pm. I wanted to ask the lady boss whether the stories about long ques and have to phone early to book your seat were true. When she came to give us her bill, I just decided not to ask as she could tell me anything. I do know that they close by 8pm though.

I am not sure if I got lucky or what on that day, but some how I got the feeling that the stories were hyped rather than it is the norm. So to those of you who were intimidated with the stories of long cues but dying to taste the black pepper crab, now is the time to go.

Eng Seng Restaurant
247 Joo Chiat Place
(Jn Joo Chiat Place and Still Rd)
Tel : 64405560

I have to admit that I never heard about this restaurant named Sin Huat before. While I was in Thailand, a Singaporean friend of mine sent me a link to a You Tube video. The video was a segment of the famous Anthony Bourdain show featuring him on his “makan” expedition in Singapore and Sin Huat restaurant was featured in that segment. One of his guest was See Toh, the Singapore “makan” guru who also has his own TV show called Makansutra.

I decided to search the net after watching the video to get more information about this restaurant. To my amazement, Sin Huat is a restaurant that is famous and yet infamous according to some reviews I read. To begin with, the owner of the restaurant is given the nick name Food Nazi. There are claims that he is really arrogant and likes to dictate what you should eat or order. If he doesn’t like the way you order or behave, he will not sell anything to you. His pricing for the food is really incredibly expensive. For a no air condition kopitiam kind of settings, the price of the food can go as high as eating in a 5 star gourmet restaurant. The worst part is, you need to wait for an hour or so just to get your food. This is not due to the fact that the restaurant is packed with customers, but is more of short of staff. The owner is kind of like a one man show but occasionally helped by the wife.

Despite all that, many people still claim that Sin Huat restaurant serve the best Crab Bee Hoon and other Chinese kopitiam dishes. Anthony Bourdain and See Toh clearly think so too. So I have to admit with all the tales, bad or good it made me really curious to eat in this restaurant. Of course after seeing Anthony Bourdain and See Toh praising the food in the You Tube video made me even more determine to try it.

What deter me from doing it is that I would probably end up being harassed by the food Nazi himself, pay exorbitant price for good food that is similar elsewhere and wait for hours just to eat his dishes. So I began to think really hard should I do it or not. After deducing all the pros and cons, I decided not to go after all. I think I would feel moronic just to do it and I don’t think I will regret for not trying it ( this is just me and I don’t mean anyone who ate there is a moron ). I heard his Gong Gong is selling for $25 a kilo. That’s like few times more expensive than other places. Customers of Sin Huat claims that his price is reasonable because he has the best chili dip for those boiled seafood.

Few days past and I’ve totally forgotten about Sin Huat restaurant and it’s funky tales. But on one typical evening, I received a phone call from a friend ( the same dude that gave me the You Tube video ), and he told me not to eat anything as he will “tapow” ( a Cantonese word for take out ) two dishes for me from Sin Huat eating house. I then asked him what’s the occasion and he just told me nothing. I didn’t press further but I still find it odd. Why would someone buy me dishes that would cost 4-5 times more expensive than other restaurant. Since he was insistent, I just accepted his offer. I would like to imagine that he loves reading my blog so much and he wanted me to write about this restaurant. Lol.

One hour later, he asked me to go down from my apartment and passed me two heavy boxes of food from Sin Huat. He then told me to enjoy and just drove off. I went upstairs feeling really excited as I get to try the infamous Sin Huat dishes tonight. I told myself to be really open minded about it and not to associate all the negativity about the restaurant with the food.

First thing I did was to take out the camera and snap some pictures. Placed the food on some plates and after picture taking is feasting time.

The crab bee hoon in the white box. A lot of crab roe and still didn’t get the aroma that normally turned me into a hungry ghost like other favorite food of mine. Placed it on a plate and started eating. Tasted pretty good but I will give my verdict at the end of the post. We will move on to the next dish.

Another dish that my friend got me was this garlic prawn dish. The prawns were really fresh and really big in size. This is just like 1/3 of what was in the box. Another thing about the Food Nazi that he does not care about portioning. There’s no way to tell him is for one person or for 5. His portioning is always big according to my friend.

Maybe this picture you can see clearly the size of the prawn. Just looked at the length compared to the chop stick.

The two dishes that was given to me by my friend I would say is good for 4 people. While tasting the crab bee hoon and garlic prawn, I was already making mental note about this blog post.

My final verdict I have to say that the crab bee hoon is good. But I don’t think is good enough for the owner of Sin Huat to charge those exorbitant prices, being treated bad ( didn’t experience myself but read from forums ) and the long wait. Is definitely something you can give it a miss and you will not miss anything. If the price of the food is the same as other restaurant, I would go eat there once in a while.

As for the garlic prawn, the taste is over powered by garlic. Just too much garlic and can’t taste other ingredients. A Thai pepper dish with garlic prawns will beat this dish anytime of the day.

I sometimes wonder if the owner of the restaurant is doing some sort of business tactics to get people to go to his restaurant out of curiosity. Maybe he is just an eccentric person but I don’t think his food is that good to give him the rights to act like a genius chef.

So for those of you who are reading this blog post, it is not my intention to discourage any of you who would like to go give it a try. My blog has never intended to sound like a food critic as everybody has their own taste and preferences. I have to admit that I was really happy to have tasted the food from Sin Huat. Most likely the reason being that I got to taste it for free. I wonder how I would react if I were to pay for the food myself. This is a question that I know definitely will never be answered.

After coming back from Thailand, I got to slow down a little on having big meals. Sometimes is hard to do as I just love food too much. Sometimes it is almost cruel to think that indulging in good food can lead to sickness and obesity. Why all the tasteless foods are the ones that can make us healthy.

After taking a few days break, I decided enough is enough. I will go to my favorite banana leaf restaurant in Little India. Been patronizing this restaurant for many years now.

Some of you might not be familiar with the term “banana leaf restaurant”. Is basically an Indian restaurant serving you food on real banana leaf. North Indian and Indian Moslem restaurants do not cut it as banana leaf restaurant. The Indian Moslem restaurant are commonly known as Mamak restaurant here in Singapore and Malaysia. So it is quite safe to say that banana leaf restaurants are mostly Southern Indian cuisine.

I guess the desire for me to visit Banana Leaf Apolo Curry House on that was my mouth lacked the presence of spices. My body need to get spiced up to function normally. Also maybe I just wanted some Indian food due to the Deepavali fever.

Arrived at 2.30 pm to avoid the crazy packed lunch hour crowd. There were still quite a few customers as most of the lunch crowd have gone back to their offices with a full stomach.

I already knew what I wanted before even stepping out from my house. But I still love to go over to the food counter to look at those delicious Southern Indian dishes. Seen here are some flower crab curry and the tasty prawn masala. I wish I was there with a big group as we can order ADT. ( Any Damn Thing ).

Some more dishes by Banana Leaf Apolo. Mutton masala and some other dishes. This restaurant is famous for its Fish Head Curry. It is not displayed in the food counter as it specially prepared in the kitchen.

First came the banana leaf, then followed by plain rice.

Then followed by the vegetables. You don’t need to select the vegetables as it only has 2 choices. Typically in a banana leaf restaurant, you can add as much rice and vegetables as you wish by paying it only once. The curry gravy and papadam are also free. In Apolo, it cost SGD3.50. So is actually a good deal if you can eat a lot.

Generous serving of papadam ( Indian spiced chips ). Taste really good with rice and curry. Add as much as you wish.

This was what I wanted when I decided to visit Banana Leaf Apolo. The spicy and super delicious chicken masala. It cost SGD4.50.

This is rassam. I not sure if it rassam qualify as a soup. Normally soup is a dish where it can be eaten by itself. I seldom see people just consume rassam all by itself. Rassam is good to eat when you pour it all over your rice and curry. Taste of rassam is sourish ( I think is tamarind ) mixed with aromatic Indian spices. My Indian friend told me that rassam can cure sinus. I’m not sure if it is FDA approved and I don’t care. It just taste so good.

After sucking all the gravy from my chicken masala ( now chicken bones ) and finished meal, I need to sit down for a few minutes to let my stomach settle down. When it is time to pay, you need  to go to the counter. My meal cost me SGD10.70. Is quite pricey for Asian standard but hey, Singapore is a first world country.

While waiting for my change, I just took more pictures of awards given to Banana Leaf Apolo. I saw the picture of Mel Gibson being displayed. I think I’ve mentioned in some of my older post about restaurants using celebritiy pictures to “impress” customers. I for one are not those who will be impressed. What makes all these celebs knows more good food than I do?

If I were to own a restaurant one day, I will put pictures of older women or housewives customers. These are actually the kind of customers that we should trust as they are very picky when it comes to eating out and they been cooking for years. I bet if I were to hang all these random housewives pictures, the restaurant would probably have a lot of curious customers staring at the wall and trying to figure out who the heck are these “famous” women.

>>Click here to visit Banana Leaf Apolo website here<<