Makansutra: Bite into Singapura Restaurant before it's gone
Well-loved restaurant in Selegie serves up delicious hearty fare that has lately been overlooked
This is my occasional look back at once-iconic eateries that may be lost with today's wired generation.
If your restaurant was famous and well-loved before 2005, chances are the millennials may not know about it.
Worse, if your food is not presented in an Instagram-pretty format, they'll shun it in a heartbeat.
Frankly, there's no way to make char kway teow look as good as some pasta dish sitting on a pastel spring-summer patio table.
What more a bowl of red Fuzhou wine lees soup, all musky pink with stains at the side of the bowl.
I recently revisited Singapura Restaurant and was astonished to see not even two tables filled for lunch and saddened to hear owner Valerie Tang speak about selling the business and calling it a day.
If you are a hardcore traditional foodie who lets your palate and not an app decide what's good, you might want to visit this place and tell your kids or grandkids later, when they have no chance of tasting story-laden flavours like these anymore.
The most iconic item is the Cold Crabs (from $30).
Unless you know your supplier very well, you cannot get these "double decker" roe crabs easily.
They are steamed in ginger broth, chilled, then served with a well-paired lime and garlic chilli.
The creamy cold roe will possess you, then the sweet flesh.
CRISPY ART
The other signature on the menu is the Prawn Roll ($16.80).
The way they wrap the dense stack of prawns so tightly and fry it till it is ever so crispy is an art.
This is a crunchy joy in the mouth.
The Honey Pork Ribs ($16) is another crowd favourite, almost like caramelised char siew ribs.
They marinate and braise the ribs in stock till soft, then fry them for texture and toss them in the sticky sweet and sour-ish sauce.
If you like pork liver, don't miss the Fried Liver ($15). It's battered and comes soft inside with a homemade savoury sweet sauce.
Not all the dishes are traditional Fuzhou stuff or the menu will be quite thin.
The Red Wine Chicken Stew ($14) falls in that non-Fuzhou category.
It looks unappetising to newbies but very comforting fare for those in the know.
They make their own wine lees and it comes with light hints of fermented wine and the density of the stew will tell you it's not some garden variety coffeeshop stuff.
The chicken chunks and glass noodles are all sideshows in this tasty dish.
I also like the Fuzhou Noodles ($12), which are not much different from the traditional braised Hokkien noodles except these are done exceedingly well.
The soy-based sauce is thick and smooth and the noodles are braised till just soft enough. I have tried many others that come with under-braised noodles, which makes it feel like a mop dipped in sauce.
Singapura Restaurant isn't exactly known for desserts so unless you would like a good orh nee (yam paste), head straight for coffee or tea.
Singapura Restaurant 9 Selegie Road #01-31 Selegie House
11am to 2.30pm, 6pm to 10.30pm
Closed on Mondays
Tel: 6336-3255
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