Filed under: Indonesian Food
Tucked away on the top floor of Suntec City, a (small, round and flat) stone’s throw away from the new Toys ‘R’ Us there, is The Rice Table.
Now, this place is not for the faint of heart (or stomach). The spiciness of the food here is enough to bring a fully grown cow to its knees. Or just me, at least. This place is mostly fully booked up during peak hours (weekends, holidays, etc) but would guarantee a nice, quiet evening for those lucky enough to catch them on the off chance there are still seats available.
There isn’t much of a menu when you arrive. The basic flow of things is that they have two set meals – one for lunch and one for dinner. The dinner meal is, of course, more extravagant and has plenty more choices.
The food is served the instant you sit down, starting with a light soup.
The foods are placed mostly on that heated metal surface there to keep them warm throughout the meal. Yummy! We found the soup this time very… Interesting. The flavor seems very strong at first, but once it settles down in your mouth, it becomes quite bland. Odd. The main courses, accompanied by generous dollops of white rice, began appearing, much like how bananas would – in bunches.
See what I mean? Anyway, delving into the individual dishes, we find the belachan kangkong extremely mouth watering. As well as the two lonely fried chicken wings. The otahs were my favorite, as well as the satays and curries. =3 Sumptious!
Lunches at The Rice Table come at SGD18 per head, while dinner sets come at SGD20 ++. All that food? Definitely worth it. Which is why The Rice Table earns itself
Filed under: chinese food
Have you ever walked past this store in Marina Square? The one that looks like a scene out of a Kung Fu movie. The one that has this huge and unappetizing queue snaking around outside when you’re starving and is as deserted as a museum of famour ear wax when you’re gorged?
THIS one.
This place first drew our attention with its ridiculously long queues around dinner time. Also, it looked as if Jet Li was going to prance out in a storm of broken furniture and semi-conscious burly mafia type goons. In addition to that, they had hung several large, roasted ducks in the display window which the chef was chopping up rather incessantly (the duck. Not the window). Anyway, we arrived at a rather (to put it nicely) LOUSY time. 7pm on a Saturday night. The queue was… Amusing. We got our queue number, an auspicious looking 27, and took a seat on those China looking plastic chairs scattered about the walkway. Estimated waiting time? Half an hour. Didn’t sound have traumatizing, so we decided to wait around.
The worst thing about eating here? The agonizing wait. And the teasing view of people already inside, munching languidly on duck. PURE TORTURE.
The wait turned out to be more than an hour long, involving a mix-up with our number which I shall not delve any deeper into.
When we got in, on the other hand, things took a pleasant turn. The ambience was quite interesting, sporting large red lanterns all over the place, as well has spotlights to keep the tops of your heads toasty. I still have burns…
This was our first dish. Standard… Peanuts. THAT COST ME A WHOPPING 2 DOLLARS. WHAT THE… Do those nuts look gold-plated to you? URGH!
This was our meal in summary. We had cabbage in oyster sauce (slobbery brown mess top left), sliced steamed fish (large bowl with hand picking things from it bottom left), duck with ginseng (blackened bones and remains (frontish right), and porkish thing aka dong po rou (top far right). All that, topped off with two bowls of rice. Yummy stuff. Let’s begin shall we?
The duck was the first to arrive. It’s taste was pleasingly tantalizing with just a slight hint of ginseng. Perfect. Not to mention it was simmering in an awesome sauce that I had to resist drinking with a straw. Second was the pork. The pork was cooked almost to perfection. It felt a tad tough though, and refused to be cut cleanly. =.= But the fatty bits simply melted in your mouth. Yummy. The veggie was a shocking dish that arrived in a sad, sad pile. It looked so dismal, sitting in a steaming pile of brownish green mess. But… It tasted great. The veggies managed to soak up the essence of the oyster sauce and still retained its crunchyness. Just like my grandma makes em! =) Last of all was the fish. The fish was steamed so it had less oil than the rest of its… Oily friends. The fish was cooked amazingly. It wasn’t too dry, but also wasn’t undercooked. All sitting in a pile of redundant vegetables. But yummy regardless.
All this with the amazingly fragrant rice. Maybe we were just starving.
Total price? SGD59.40…
Our deduction? The food was awesome… But not really worth the hour long wait.
We gave DIAN XIAO ER…
three stars! Yayyy…
Promotions:
10% of total bill when charged to a UOB VISA card. Offer valid Mon-Thurs.
in·cep·tion
n. The beginning of something, such as an undertaking; a commencement.
Welcome to PIOD (aka, Puny Island of Doom aka Singapore). This site would be dedicated to unearthing some of the most well guarded secrets our tiny island has to offer. What the heck are we talking about?
We all want it.
We all need it.
We all crave it.
Food.
Yes. This site was birthed in the hopes of spreading the good word about the best culinary delights in the local scene. This site is moderated by Sharon and I (Ying).
And I’m running out of things to say. So I’ll just get on with it and edit this later.
