Wednesday, March 19, 2014

1Market by Chef Wan

I finally have the chance to try out the famed halal restaurant 1Market by Chef Wan.



There are not many good halal restaurants in Singapore, and there are even fewer halal buffet restaurants, so imagine my delight and anticipation when this restaurant opened. 

I promised myself that I will definitely give this restaurant a try and I finally got to dine there last weekend.

There is quite a good selection of food: cooked foods, local delights, seafood, grilled seafood and vegetables, salad bar and a dessert counter that serves strawberry chocolate fountain.

It is not the quantity but the quality of the food that depresses me. Maybe I have high standards, but for $50+, I expected much more than what is served.

I had a rather heavy lunch, so I picked a few dishes to try.  

Being the sashimi lover that I am, I started off with my favourite salmon sashimi. It looks alright, but it is simply tasteless. Fresh sashimi is supposed to have a creamy taste but I don't taste anything. 

I had some Green Mango Salad which was rather appetising, but it was a little too sour. It would have been better if they had a sweeter sauce to go with it. 

The chicken is tasteless.

The Beef and Tofu is not too bad. The beef is a little tough, but the tofu was alright.

The grilled food section saved the day for me. The prawns were a little dry, but otherwise alright. The cuttlefish and vegetable skewer is about the tastiest thing I ate all dinner.

Oh, I almost forgot about the roasted beef. My girlfriend took a few slices of roasted beef and they looked good, so I had a slice. That was such a wrong decision. It is so tough I couldn't swallow it and actually had to spit it into a piece of tissue! It looks like medium rare, but it is not and I have no freaking idea how well done it is supposed to be. That is about the worst beef I have ever eaten, and I know that because I am a meat lover and I have roast beef whenever I can.

By then, I am so disappointed that I didn't even want to touch the desserts, but according to my girlfriends, the "pink" fountain is too sweet but the caramel pudding is not bad.

I am just so so disappointed. I had such high expectations but the standard of the food is not even good enough to be labelled "normal" standard. 

Even though the food is terrible, the place was quite packed, mostly by Malays. I guess the scarcity of halal buffet restaurant and the celebrity chef helps. 

As for me, I am never going back in there.








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