Tex Mex: Santa Fe Restaurant, Singapore

This is an invited review. Meal paid for by restaurant. Together with Foodiequeen, Hungry Cow, Simin

One of the comfort restaurants, which make Kin and I very comfortable with the ambience, decor, food was a Tex-Mex place called Chico's and Charlie's at Liat Towers. For years, this was a refuge when we wanted to relax, and enjoy a margarita with some good solid Mexican food. But they disappeared, and we sometimes ache for good Tex-Mex. Years later, I began to travel quite frequently to Texas, and found that C&C's food was actually quite authentic when compared to real Texas Mexican food found in Southlake, Roanoak, Mesquite, all small towns around the bi-city metropolis of Dallas Fort Worth.



The interior of Santa Fe reminds me of the ranches in Texas (or New Mexico - the state where the city of Santa Fe actually is in). Reminds me of old cowboy movies, of the insides of a salon when the hero cowboy comes to have his shot of whisky. Except that this was a riverboat! Riverboats typically ply the Mississippi, further north (though its called the Deep South by the Americans...go figure).

This riverboat restaurant is by no means new. The occassion of their invitation was to celebrate their 10th Anniversary! This must be one of the best kept foodie secrets. 10 years, and for all the food bloggers on my table it was our first visit. And judging by the comments all round, yes, I am letting the cat out of the bag, not our last.

We ordered many of the dishes in the menu. BTW, if you read this early, and get there before July 11, 2009, the mains are all at S$10 (this is super value, as they are almost real Texan sized servings). Service was cheerful and swift.

First up, barbequed pork ribs:



Simply dubbed Santa Fe BBQ Ribs, the large slab of ribs were smothered with a BBQ sauce. The meat fell of the bone, and tasted rather good. This instantly brought me back to the Smoked Meat houses around Mesquite, TX. Meat was marinated, and slowly cooked by the hot smoke from slow burning chips from the mesquite wood. The smokey flavour combined to the fine, herbal like fragrance from the mesquite was marvellous. So was the Santa Fe's example. Nice.

We also had the fajitas...both beef and chicken. Shown below is the beef fajita:



The beef was tender, if you observe at about 7 o'clock in the picture, you will notice its actually done medium (bravo!). Slap the meat in to your flour tortila, add some shreded cabbage, jalapeno, cheese, and viola! your fajita.

As starters, being food bloggers, we had two rounds of this (testament to its great taste?)...one in the begining, and another towards the end of the main meal.



Named buffalo wings...I often wonder why buffalo...do they have wings? Anyway, the radius/ulnar part of the chicken wing was marinated, and probably deep fried to create a nice crispy crust, but then smothered in a sauce. Quite delicious. The crisp skin below the sauce, providing a nice contrast to the juicy chicken within.

The star of the evening for me was the Blackened Burger.



A huge sesame bun, with a huge beef patty. This is a real chopped beef patty, served to us medium doneness. With chopped onions, lettuce, onion rings served over a bed of rough cut fries. The burger was very nice...huge to the extent of being messy to eat (but hey, eating a large burger is fun partly because its messy). And tasty. The patty was mild tasting...though actually covered with a layer of crushed black pepper. A bit more salt would elevate the taste a bit, but that's easily done at the table to your taste. The fries were also very nice...crisp on the outside, and smooth and creamy inside.

Overall, I found the place to be very nice...the environment was cozy and friendly. The service good. The food wholesome. The riverboat is interesting, and would make a nice place for a company gathering. Comprsing of 3 levels, the lower deck where we dined, the upper deck which can be made into meeting room, seminar room, or another dining room, and the roof-deck which offers open air BBQ.

The only snag, as noted by Foodiequeen in her blogpost was the difficulty of getting there. I got lost driving there and ended up at the new IR. And as I understand it, only one bus service runs the route.


31 Marina Coastal Drive
Berth 1 (Stewords Riverboat) Marina South Pier
6278 5775
Sun-Fri: 12pm-3pm, 6pm-10pm
Sat & PH Eve: 12pm-3pm, 6pm-11pm
Photonote: shot with Panasonic Lumix DMC LX3. The interior of the restaurant was really dark...hard to get handheld shots without flash.

Sun with Moon: heavenly dining?

with SJX and CC

Sun with Moon is one of the modern Japanese diners and very popular in Singapore. The place seems to be perpetually buzzing with activity. I have eaten at the Wheelock Place branch several times, and each time came away fairly impressed with the efficiency of the service, and the quality of the food.

We had three set meals for lunch.

First I had the Ramen sushi set:



This came with a rather interesting bowl of ramen.



A thick broth drowns the noodles (more about this later), and semi-floating in it is a thick slice of braised pork, and half a seasoned egg. And a knob of butter adorns the bowl.



Stir the bowl and it reveals the noodles...this was quite an interesting noodle...I am unable to find a reference from my usual consult site at rameniac.com as to the origins of the noodles. It looks and indeed tastes a little like the chinese yellow kee noodles.

But it went very well with the pork bone soup, and the braised pork belly was gorgeous. The egg was nice, but not as good as Tampopo's where although the outside of the egg is totally seasoned and cooked, the inside is slightly runny. In this Sun with Moon version, the egg is cooked through.






The accompanying sushi is rather good, but not top grade. It was sufficiently fresh, and tasty.

The set also came with a small pot of chawan mushi, which I found ok, but ordinary.

CC had the sushi roll with unagi...



This was a mix of regular sushi rice and fish rolled inside a piece of seaweed and also reverse rolled with fish inside, and rice on the outside...like a California roll.



SJX had the same ramen as I did, and the same sushi roll as CC.

Overall, a satisfying meal, as usual at Sun with Moon. High quality ingredients and well cooked and presented. Certainly one of the better Japanese restaurants in Singapore. The food is decent, service excellent. The ambience is cheerful. Nice.


Sun with Moon Japanese Dining & Cafe
501 Orchard Road
#03-15 Wheelock Place
Tel: 6733 6636
Mon-Thu, Sun & PH: 11.30am - 11.00pm;
Fri-Sat & PH Eve: 11.30am - Midnight

The unagi looked quite appetizing, soft, creamy, and totally smothered with teriyaki sauce.

Ming Kee: do we crown a new king?

with Larry and Prof Horolographer.

For Larry and me, the undisputed king of seafood in Singapore is Sin Huat, and her chef/owner extraordinaire Danny. Not only does it serve the best, freshest, and tastiest seafood (piece de resistance is Crab Beehoon), but Danny has an attitude to match, and prices to threaten.



I have read many reviews about Ming Kee...an unpretentious little restaurant, tucked amongst economy rice and cze char shophouses in MacPherson. Ieatishootipost raved about the mussels. Chubby Hubby even claimed that this was Ignatius Chan (of Iggy's and formerly Les Amis) favourite restaurant. Indeed Aun's review was highly positive, even proclaiming at the conclusion that some of his friends think the crab bee hoon to be better than Sin Huat's. Chef Danny currently hold my ticket for best crab bee hoon in Singapore...albeit also the most expensive cze char in town as well. This alone intrigued Larry to highly desire to eat at Ming Kee...and off we went.

We started with the crab bee hoon.



Despite the reputation, we found the crab bee hoon to be only very good, but not surpassing Danny's amazing creations. The bee hoon was tasty, but not as crustacany and infused with wonderful broth as Sin Huat's. But it comes very close. This is a good thing, as it offers a viable substitute, especially when one is not able to stomach eating at Sin Huat. For the uninitiated, eating at Sin Huat is an experience (we have taken famous watchmakers to eat there...and they were uniformly amazed as well as impressed...horological luminaries like Philippe Dufour, like Dr. Frank Muller have given their gastronomic nod of approval). But you will have to put up with Danny's antics...slow service - a 6 course meal could take 3 hours to complete, very expensive prices - the same 6 course meal for 8 pax could cost upwards of S$700. Though still, at this price, if you are after the best taste, you gotta go to Sin Huat.

We also had the steam mussels with crispy garlic



This dish was a revelation. The sauce is a typical Teochew sauce used for steaming fish. Sweet, salty...a bit coy. And coupled with very fresh mussels, actually I think they are more like clams than the green liped mussels, it draws out the sweetness, beautiful taste of the clams. The deep fried, crispy bits of garlic added to the shiok-ness. This dish got the two thumbs up from all of us.

We also had steamed crayfish with chopped garlic



The crayfish was halved, and simply steamed with heaps of chopped garlic. The crayfish was very fresh, the meat succulent, sweet, tasty. The orange/brown fat packed a powerful punch, increased the intensity of this dish. Again, all three of us loved it.

We also had sambal kangkong.



This too was rather special...the kangkong was young, well cooked, and the sambal sauce was tasty and spicy. But the crispy lard sprinkling added a dimension of greatness to this dish. Excellent.

We thought we would have had enough, but we didn't. We ordered a plate of seafood mee sua.



The mee sua was a bit ordinary...at first...we compared this to a recent meal at PuTian, and the PuTian version was all the more tasty and had more intensity. But Ming Kee was not about to roll over and be kicked away. The secret ingredient in a spicy, pungent chilli sauce made all the difference. This elevated the mee sua to another level. It heightens the taste, and savouriness. It intensifies the experience. With the chilli, I would rate this at least on par with PuTian's offering. Without the chilli, it is pedestrian.

Overall, perhaps we raised our expectations too much with the crab bee hoon...afterall was excellent. But compared to the gold standard set by Sin Huat, it pales slightly. The mussels and crayfish were outstanding. Top marks for these two dishes. And the mee sua with chilli was very very good. I would definitely return for many visits. Service by the Chinese waitresses were very good, and the captain Desmond was friendly, knowledgable and a joy to deal with.


556 Macpherson Road
6747 4075
12noon - 2pm
5pm - 11pm

Durian Season Part 2: Pekan Nanas, Johor

with the Durianistas from my office

Last year, we made a road trip to Kampung Teratai to sample the delights of fresh durians. This year, we decided to do the trip again...but decided on Pekan Nanas which is much nearer...only about 50 mins drive from Johor Bahru.

The durians featured here are not the "branded" styles, but coss grafted, mixed, and kind of mogrel type...what is known as durian kampung (village durians).

The durians were mainly thin flesh, huge seeds. But most of the fruits we had were bitter sweet. None of them were exceptional, but all were very good.








GPS Location:
N 1°34'2.82"
E 103°28'25.32"

Search for ramen 5: Marutama

various visits

Marutama is the first, and possibly the only ramen shop in Singapore which serves Kyushu type thin ramen in a chicken stock. Judging from the queues outside the Central outlet...though their Liang Court outlet is usually less busy, this must be a popular place, and by inference, serves delicious food. Indeed they do.

They also offer a possibly healthier alternative to pork bone soup.

Their spicy Aji ramen, is built on their chicken stock, with additional ingredients:



The soup was tasty. Earlier reports by other bloggers and my own tasting had the soup as salty and heavy on MSG...but no more. June 09 found the soup to be tasty, had a chicken flavour, but not very salty...perhaps the right amount of salt, and we didn't go thirsty due to MSG "poisoning".

The noodles were wiry, Kyushu style thin ramen, a bit reminiscent of Hong Kong's wanton mee. And went well with the soup. Interestingly, a slice of lemon perched on the lip of the bowl, and the soup was served with minced fresh seaweed.

The bowl came with 3 pork balls...roughly chopped with chives, and filler ingredients. The pork ball is wonderful texture...I suspect they use some chicken cartilage for the bite and crunch. We also ordered it a la carte.



The accompany sauce/soup/stock to the porkballs were different to the soup for the ramen. I think this is pork stock, and was rather tasty.

We also had chicken ramen, with an additional topping of chasu.



Same chicken stock, same noodles. The chasu was rather well done...nice juicy, not too fat.

And a serving of spicy chicken ramen with an additional topping of stewed pork belly.



The pork belly was very well done...stewed slowly...the belly was rendered like jelly...soft, tender...had the requisite amount of fat for a powerpack flavour.

Overall, I would rate Marutama as one of the best ramens in Singapore, but second to Santouka's pork cheek ramen which to me is the ne plus ultra, and slightly below Tampopo's kurobuta shabu shabu ramen, but rank on par with Shinya Menkan's Shinjiro.

Read about the other search for ramen here.


Marutama Ramen
6 Eu Tong Sen Street
#03-90/91 The Central @ Clarke Quay
Tel: 6534 8090
Daily: 11.30am - 10pm

Durian Season Part 1: Singapore

with ieat group

A surprise to me was that my Kampung Teratai durian report has been getting a lot of hits...probably due to the durian season again...so here is a quick followup of two separate and recent sessions.

The first was consumed on June 12 at Ah Loon & Ah Teck in Singapore...this featured "branded" durians...Red Prawn, D13, Black Pearl and Golden Phoenix. And the second, featured what is known as kampung durian...mongrels of sorts.

First, the Singapore session.



Ah Loon explaining the intricacies of the durian...a short tutorial on what to look for with each cultivar.

We started with Red Prawn, or Ang Heh in Hokkien. As I understand it, this particular cultivar was originally developed in Penang, and indeed the Penang versions are touted to be better. The one we sampled was the Johor Red Prawn.





The texture was very fine. It did not have a red glow as the RP we had in Kampung Teratai last year, but this tasted sweet, fine pulp. Creamy almost to a fault.

Next D13





The D13 was somewhat stronger in fragrance and taste...more intense. There was a slight winey tinge on the tongue. But the flesh was smooth, creamy, and sweet.

We then were served the Black Pearl





The thin waxy coating over the super creamy flesh was indication of freshness. Under the yellow waxy coating, a tinge of black can be observed. The pulp was very smooth, fibre-less, creamy, and sweet with a tinge of bitterness. The seeds were super small, but not shrivelled vestigal seeds, but was presented like a small round marble...um, pearl.

By this time, we were almost full...we had 3 durians per cultivar for each table of 5 adults.

But the Golden Phoenix was not to disappoint..





My tasting notes show that the flesh was bitter sweet, very smooth, fiberless, creamy. The seeds were vestigal...very small. Even though the fruit was not large, it yielded a lot of pulp, and tasted wonderful.

Next, our drive to Pekan Nanas, Johor for another durian degustation.


Ah Loon and Ah Teck.
231 East Coast Road (Opp Jago Close).
97514828.

Carl's Jr: tasty fast food at last?

on many occassions



Burgers. Fast food, or gourmet? This is a review of fast food burgers. The candidates? McDonalds is ubiquitious - sometimes a good thing, high quality-in the ISO measuring system...meaning highly consistent, but uniformly awful tasting. Burger King is a bit better, but still quite bland, with low quality ingredients, and only passable taste. We used to have Wendy's and Hardy's but no more. I used to like Hardy's roast beef burger. Nice sandwich. But from the same roots, come Carl's Jr.

When they first hit town, huge...I mean really gigantic pictures of the burgers adorn our double deck busses plying Singapore, with the headline, "Don't lick this bus", Its gonna get messy". Cute, with a sense of humour.

We always end up eating the same thing...the Western Double



This is also outstanding for its tasty BBQ sauce on the same, flame broilled patty, and bacon crisps provide the kick. Shiok.

Wash down with either their home brewed iced lemon tea (none of the other fast food joints serve home brewed ice tea...always the horrid Nestea. KFC used to, but now also resort to the awful tasting Nestea) or Diet Coke...and its lovely.

And the Portobello mushroom is quite outstanding.



I find the patty to be juicy, and quite tasty. The melted cheese is excellent, and the extra crunchiness of the vegetables and tomato slices make the burger even more salivating. The sliced portobello mushroom in an interesting sauce tops the taste. Excellent. Way better than Burger King's. And way better than the low end gourmet stands like Botak Jones (way too dry and paper tasting patty).



Carl's Jr
Marina Square
No. 6, Raffles Boulevard,
#01-202/203 Marina Square,
Singapore 039594
Tel: (65) 6720 2720
http://www.carlsjr.com.sg/live/
and numerous locations islandwide