Little Singapore

During my one hour of freedom at lunch I've been slowly working my way through the Asian eateries in and around the Elizabeth Arcade. My favourite spot so far is Little Singapore.

Little Singapore is on Charlotte Street, between the Elizabeth Arcade and George Street. I've been there twice for lunch now, and really enjoyed the food. On the first trip I ordered the crispy pork belly rice ($11.50). I'm an absolute sucker for pork belly, so it wasn't a hard choice. Although I found the pork belly a little on the cool side, there was plenty of it. The pork belly is served with a bowl of clear soup and a big mound of rice, which is topped with a sweet sauce that I can't put my finger on. I know it doesn't sound adventurous, but I enjoyed the pork belly so much I ordered it again on my second visit. I wasn't able to finish it on either trip.

If (unlike me) you can manage to look past the crispy pork belly, there are loads of other lunch choices. Particularly exotic sounding dishes include Assam cuttlefish with rice ($12.90), Nasi Lemak (rice with fried sole, fried peanuts, pickled vegetables, curry chicken & beef, cooked egg and sambal sauce - $11.90) and beef brisket & tendon rice ($10.50).

The interior of the restaurant has been set up to look like Old Singapore, around the 1950s. The room definitely has character, although the giant TVs obviously weren't around in 1950.

Don't miss the drinks menu - there are some wonderful sounding options like jackfruit moussy drink ($4.50), passionfruit punch ($4.50) and winter melon tea ($3.30).

Service here is the no-fuss variety. You walk in and wait for a table to become available. A waitress then shows you to a table, and you're left with food and drink menus. Once you've worked out what's for lunch, you wander down to the back counter, to order and pay. Take your number back to your table, and the meals come out pretty quickly. If you get a chance while you're ordering, have a look into the kitchen. I was amazed how many chefs were in there, bustling away.

For me, Little Singapore is a terrific lunch spot. The food is good, servings are very generous, it's cheap and meals come out pronto. Amazingly, until about 2 weeks ago I didn't even know it existed. I love stumbling across new places like Little Singapore. And if you live on the Southside, there's also a Little Singapore at Market Square, Sunnybank.

What does all this mean? Cheap, tasty Singaporean food served in a flash.

food bling ratings
Food - Good
Service - Good
Ambience - "Old Singapore" meets giant plasma TVs
Value for Money - Top Shelf
Vegetarian - Good

Little Singapore
42 Charlotte Street
Brisbane 4000
P - 07 3211 1177
E - lsgc@littlesingapore.com.au
W - http://www.littlesingapore.com.au

Singapura

Earlier this year I rounded up a bunch of friends and headed to Singapura for my birthday dinner. I'd tried to go for Chinese New Year, but they were completely booked out.

Singapura is one of those few restaurants where I've only ever had great food. I hadn't been there for a year or so and had been dying to go back. Last time I was there the table next to us had this giant pile of crabs that looked so good I wanted to invite myself over and eat their dinner.

As you'd guess from its name, Singapura serves Singaporean food, together with some Malaysian dishes. This is the place to go if you like sambal, but there is also a great selection of seafood dishes.

Because it was my birthday, keeping notes of the food I ate was pretty low on the list of priorities for the night. So if this post is a bit hazy, you know why.

To start with I had the lettuce wraps. These were like san choy bau. They were tasty enough, but I found them a bit sloppy. There was too much sauce in the wraps, which meant that by the time I'd finished them, they were all over the table in front of me. I also tried the sweet corn soup, which was a tad salty for my liking.

After a few glasses of wine, it was on to main course. Ever since I saw the Food Safari episode on Singapore, I have been dying to try Singaporean chilli crab. I had my heart set on ordering one, until I saw the dreaded "market price" on the menu. I asked our waitress what the market price was. After she made a quick trip to the kitchen, I was told it would be $60. It took me a few minutes to decide whether I really wanted it that much, but it was my birthday after all, and I thought Singapura was probably one of the best places in Brisbane to give it a try. So after checking I actually had enough cash, I ordered the chilli crab.

The crab was delicious. It wasn't mind blowing, but I think that's just because I had been dreaming about how good it would taste ever since the one they cooked up for Meave on Food Safari. It sure looked like a lot of pieces of crab. The crab had been broken up into manageable bits, and every single piece was smothered in the beautiful chilli sauce. If you do order this, be prepared to have bits of crab and sauce all over your face, hands, arms and the table in front of you by the time you finish. That's because you'll end up slurping every last bit of crab flesh off the shells and legs. The crab was good, but I still don't know if it was $60 worth of good. No matter how much it cost, I'm glad I got to try it.

If you want to have a crack at cooking Singapore chilli crab at home, here's the recipe from Food Safari. It's not too complicated, and there's even a video you can watch on to help you put it all together. Believe me, it will be worth the effort.

I was too busy slurping away at my crab to eat too many of the other main courses. The salt and pepper tofu was delicious though. I love silken tofu, especially at Japanese restaurants, but otherwise I'm not the biggest fan of fried tofu. This was an exception - the tofu was crispy and really tasty. I was told that the spicy eggplant was also great. Eggplant isn't something you come across at many Asian restaurants, so we ordered it out of curiosity. It turned out to be delicious, spicy and unusual. The mixed vegetables in oyster sauce was ok, but tasted like the oyster sauce had just been poured over the top after the vegetables had been cooked.

There are a few desserts on the menu, including the ubiquitous deep fried ice-cream. By this stage of the night we'd all had a few drinks, so we ordered the agar agar with rambutan, just to see what it was. I had tried rambutans before, but not agar agar. Wikipedia tells me that agar-agar is the Malay word for jelly, and is derived from seaweed. Although it sounded wildly exotic, it turned out to be a bit of a letdown. The agar agar didn't taste like much and the three rambutans tasted like they'd come straight out of a tin. Maybe I just had high expectations after the chilli crab.

The decor at Singapura is pretty basic, although if you sit in the back part of the restaurant there are these cool landscape cut-outs against the wall. It's hard to describe them in words, so you'll just have to go and see them for yourself. Singapura can also get pretty noisy, as the place is usualy very busy, and it's popular with groups. Singapura is BYO, which means that a night of delicious food here doesn't end up costing too much. There is a handy bottle shop just on the other side of Milton road.

Service is usually friendly and efficient, although things can get a bit hectic when the place is full. Prices are excellent, unless of course your whole table decides to go for the chilli crab.

I think Singapura is one of the better Asian restaurants in Brisbane, where you can always count on a tasty feed. I certainly don't know of too many restaurants in Brisbane that specialise in Singaporean food, so its definitely worth a visit.

What does all this mean? Tasty Singaporean food and a great range of seafood at low prices.

food bling ratings
Food - Good
Service - Good
Ambience - Fairly basic, but keep an eye out for the landscapes at the back of the room
Value for Money - Great
Wine - BYO
Vegetarian - Good

Singapura
Shop 3, 524 Milton Road
Toowong 4066
P - 07 3870 2266

The Brasserie on the River

The Brasserie on the River is one of the eateries at the Stamford Plaza hotel in the city. It's in a great spot, right on the river next to the gardens. If it's not too hot, you can sit outside, but you will still get a good view out over the river if you snag a decent table inside.

The Brasserie on the River has an enormous food selection, covering you for breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. You could sit here all day, admiring the view and munching your way through the menu.

You also have the choice of a buffet or ordering a la carte for breakfast, lunch and dinner, so you aren't exactly limited for choice.

Both times I've eaten here its been for lunch - once for the buffet and once ordering from the a la carte menu.

The beauty of the buffet lunch is that you can walk in, grab a table and start loading up your plate. You can easily be in and out in an hour, which is always handy if you are on limited time before heading back to work. However, the buffet lunch is not cheap. During the week it's $45 per person, and on the weekends it will set you back $59. Having said that, it's a fair step up from your average Sizzler lunch selection, and includes smoked salmon, oysters, mussels and prawns, together with a generally tasty selection of smart hot and cold meats and vegetables. The dessert selection is usually good, so make sure you leave yourself some room.

On this visit though, we were ordering off the a la carte menu. The menu is not adventurous, but does offer a decent selection for lunch.

Entrees include prawn cakes on a green paw paw salad with nam jim dressing ($17.50), oysters with mango salsa ($19 for 6 or $33 for a dozen) and arancini with buffalo mozzarella on tomato fondant and balsamic reduction ($16.50) which sounded particularly good to me.

Unfortunately we were on a work lunch break, so had to skip the entrees. Mains fall into the fairly safe category and include harissa marinated lamb rump on cous cous with red bell pepper coulis ($34), baked barramundi with olive tapenade served with kipfler potatoes and wilted spinach ($31.50) and grilled butternut pumpkin with rosemary, honey and lime on avocado mash ($26.50).

I wasn't swayed by those options and decided to go for the grilled scotch fillet with Café de Paris, pont-neuf potatoes and broccolini. I thought I'd stick with something simple in the hope that it would be done well. The scotch fillet was good, and was well matched by the Cafe de Paris. Unfortunately the pont-neuf potatoes weren't so good. They looked good - big, chunky slabs of potato, but they were close to raw inside. When you've only got 3 things on your plate, and one of them isn't cooked, the whole meal falls down. The other three meals on our table were apparently tasty, however I didn't manage to try any of them.

We still had time for dessert though. There were a couple of sweets that caught my attention, including the Greek yoghurt and mango roulade with Tahitian lime and mango salsa and passionfruit syrup ($14.50) and the “Cherry Ripe” - devil’s food cake, cherry kirsch mousse and roasted coconut sorbet ($14.50). I decided to go for the limoncello brûlée with blackberry compote, pistachio and whole almond biscotti ($14.50) which was a good way to end the meal, after my disappointing main.

If you are looking for something Asian for lunch instead, the menu also has a small Singaporean selection, including a wanton noodle soup ($15.90) and a combination laksa ($17.90).

All up, The Brasserie on the River is a fairly solid place for lunch. If you are having lunch though, I think the buffet is probably the better option. It's probably one of the better buffets in the city. If you are ordering off the a la carte menu, then there are probably better places in walking distance, including Il Centro or Urbane. The Stamford Plaza does of course offer other eating options - Siggis for fine dining, Kabuki for Japanese and the Pav Bar if you are after a more relaxed meal.

The Brasserie on the River
Stamford Plaza Brisbane
Corner of Edward & Margaret Streets
Brisbane 4000
P - 07 3221 1999
W - http://www.stamford.com.au/spb/page.asp?e_page=569758&roomNo=456388

Satay Hut

Satay Hut is one of the newer eateries on Little Stanley Street at Southbank. It was set up by the owner and chef of Ginga, Patrick Ip.

We checked out the menu for Satay Hut on a stroll around Southbank one day and thought we should head back for dinner. We eventually made it back here for a quick pre-opera dinner. The place looks pretty impressive from the street, and you can either sit either inside or in their fairly large outside dining area.

The main reason we wanted to try Satay Hut was because of the menu, which has quite a few dishes that you don't see very often. The menu has pictures of many of the dishes, and also has a chilli rating system to give you an idea of how hot to expect the food.

Anyway I wimped out in the adventurous stakes for entree and instead went for one of my favourite starters, chicken satay sticks with rice cakes ($9.90). These were served with cucumber and peanut satay sauce. They weren't the best satay sticks I've ever had, but were fine nevertheless. I hadn't tried the rice cakes before, which were basically a little blob of sticky rice (which tasted better than my description of them). The sauce was good, and got completely cleaned up between the rice cakes and the chicken satays. The rice cakes make this a fairly filling starter.

We also had the vegetarian spring rolls ($6.90) for entree, which are described on the menu as containing cabbage, onion, carrots, mushroom and bamboo shoots, served with plum & sweet chilli dip. I didn't try one of these, as I was too busy munching away on my satay sticks, but I'm told they were fresh and very tasty. The plum & sweet chilli dipping sauce wasn't as tasty as the satay sauce. Needless to say, there was no satay sauce left.

A number of the other entrees were usual suspects, such as prawn spring rolls ($9.90), Thai fish cakes ($6.90), yum cha platter ($24.90 for 2) or you could go for the Malaysian style fried tofu ($7.90) if you're looking for a vegetarian option. There are also a few soups if you're in need of something to slurp all over your shirt to kick off the night.

On to mains. This is where the menu gets interesting - it's a pretty wide ranging one, covering Indonesian, Malaysian, Singaporean and Thai food. Dishes that caught my eye were the sambal stir fry (chicken $16.90, fish $17.90 or prawn $24.90), seafood bird nest ($29.90), coconut seafood bake ($29.90), scallop with tofu ($18.90 - the picture of this looked really good) and the kapitan chicken rice ($18.90).

Anyway, we were in a hurry, so I had to decide and went for the beef nasi lemak ($19.90). Wikipedia calls this the "unofficial national dish of Malaysia". Apparently it's a breakfast dish in Malaysia. The main reason I picked it was because it was a platter, and was the best way of trying a few new meals all in one go. The plate consisted of some Malaysian beef curry, hard boiled egg, ikan belis (dried anchovies), kacang (salted peanuts), achar (pickled vegetables) and coconut rice. Although the curry itself wasn't mind blowing, the combination of all the small dishes was great (although I don't know if anyone could eat all the anchovies). The coconut rice was also delicious. It turned out to be a good choice.

We also had the tofu with satay sauce and cashew nuts ($9.90). This was a bargain and was very good. It was little rounds of silken tofu with some tasty satay sauce. Once again, we couldn't get enough of the satay sauce, which is addictive stuff.

There is a compact, reasonably priced wine list, and you should be able to find something to accompany whatever takes your fancy off the menu.

We only had a limited time at Satay Hut, and the staff were excellent in making sure that all the food came out quickly, so we could head off to the opera.

All up, Satay Hut is a welcome addition to the eateries at South Bank. It's not the cheapest Asian food in town, but its comparably priced with many of the places along Little Stanley Street, and is by no means expensive. Satay Hut is definitely worth a try, especially if you're looking for a few dishes you might not have seen before.

What does all this mean? An interesting range of Asian food at decent prices, with loads of options to keep everyone happy.

food bling ratings
Food - Good
Service - Great
Ambience - Impressive modern Asian surroundings
Value for Money - Good
Wine - OK
Vegetarian - Good

Satay Hut
Shop 3, Little Stanley Street
Southbank 4101
P - 07 3846 6600
W - http://www.satayhut.com.au/